
AN IRREGULAR COUNTRY HOUSE— See Page 490. 



_.__ 



A HELPING HAND 

OWN AND Lountry: 



Town and C 



AMERICAN HOME BOOP 

OF 

PRACTICAL AND SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION 



CONCERNING 



HOUSE AND LAWN; GARDEN AND ORCHARD; FIELD, BAR 
AND STABLE; APIARY AND FISH POND; 
WORKSHOP AND DAIRY; 

AND THE MANT IMPORTANT INTERESTS FEETAININO TO 

pOJVl£:^TIC f^COjNOJVlY AJ^D ]?AJVIILY Ji^ALTH. 

By LYMAN C. DRAPEE, 

SECBETAET WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 
n>- ^„ AND 

"W .'^:Ayr'' C E O F F U T , 

ADTHOE OP "THE HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT." ETC. 



T>A^O HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PUBLISHERS: 
MOORE, WILSTACH & MOORE, 

143 EACE STREET, CINCINNATI. 

New Toek : 52 Bleecker Street. 

1870. 

SOLO TO SUBSCRIBERS ONLY. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

MOORE, WILSTACH & MOORE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United Slates for tlie Southern 
District of Oliio. 






f 



REFACE 



This is peculiarly a volume for Working Men and Women — a class which, 
numbered technically, is very largo, and in its broader signification includes 
all Americans. We need not apologize, in this age of books, for adding one 
to the catalogue ; but we may tell the reader, briefly, how this one happened 
to be undertaken, and how we have been enabled to make it wider in its 
scope than any industrial work that has i^reeeded it. 

During thirty-five years of rambling through the West and Southwest 
in quest of new materials for a series of biographies of such bold pioneers as 
Generals George EoGERS Cr^ARK, Kenton, Sevier, Eobertson, Sumter; Gov- 
ernor Shelby; Boone, Brady, and their heroic compeers, manj' valuable 
unpublished facts pertaining to farm culture and management, domestic econ- 
omy, and methods of preserving and restoring health, were learned from 
those whose experience had verified their value. Several manuscript collec- 
tions of curious statistics, useful recipes and practical experiments having, 
meantime, fallen into our hands, this work was suggested and begun. Cer- 
tain of its utility, our efforts, for the past five years, have been directed to a 
proper arrangement and digestion of the materials, and a completion of them 
so as to include the very latest discoveries in practical science, the most recent 
experiments in field-culture, stock-raising, fruit-growing, and subordinate 
branches of farming, and the last word concerning household management 
and health in the home circle. 

We have striven to make an honest and a useful book, as a contrast to 
certain ponderous volumes by which our rural people have been defrauded — 
volumes that are largely filled with turgid paid-for puffs of farming imple- 
ments. We have omitted most of the Latin equivalents for common names, 
feeling that, in pages for plain readers, constant interruption by a dead lan- 
guage would tend to confuse rather than enlighten. 

In one important particular, we believe this work differs conspicuously 
from all others. While our relation to it is chiefly editorial, yet in the agri- 
cultural chapters we have not only given the approved routine of farm 
operations, but have endeavored to cumulate experiments, and from tlioir 
average results draw some approximate solution of those vexing problems of 
planting and harvesting, breeding and feeding, about which so many have 
dogmatized. One accurate experiment is worth a thousand theories. 



While we have been reasonably minute, wo have left many simple opera- 
tions to the suggestion of the reader. A man who don't know enough to 
trundle a wheelbarrow, roll a log, or dig a post hole without being told, can 
never manage a farm. He had better hasten to engage in some other calling. 

The index is very full, directing the reader at once to any topic sought; 
wiiile, still further to increase the ease of reference, we have adopted an 
alphabetical arrangement in such chapters as are susceptible of it, which will 
be found a convenient guide to each variety and subdivision. 

A cycloptedia like this, necessarilj' treating of so many subjects upon 
which hundreds of volumes and thousands of essays have been published, 
could not be i^repared without citing niany authorities. "While we have not 
felt obliged to refer to the source of every suggestion, we have aimed to 
award amjjle credit to those of whose experiences we have availed ourselves. 

Prominent among our creditors stands the Press — especially the agricul- 
tural journals of America — a faithful brotherhood of teachers that are doing 
more for the enlightenment and enduring welfare of this Ecpublic than any 
other interest or institution, except the common school. 

It is pleasant to be able to add that our publishers, who have fully appre- 
ciated the demand for such a work from the first, have generously incurred 
every expense that could render it alike useful and attractive. As a result, 
it contains more matter, and is more profusely illustrated than any other 
book for the industrial classes ever published in America. 

With these few paragraphs of "preliminary egotism," we submit ourselves 
to that sturdy usher, the Printing Press, for an introduction. To the thought- 
ful Plowboy, who meditates as he follows his team, and wonders at the 
unceasing miracle of vegetable life in the earthj' laboratory ; to the perplexed 
Planter, who strives to educe a method from the conflicting theories about 
cutting seed potatoes, preparing seed corn, drilling wheat, or sowing broad- 
cast ; to the skillful Harvester, who studies how to get the most out of his 
crop this year, and increase it next j'ear; to the thriving Farmer or Villager , 
who thinks of building; to the Stockbreeder, who asks how he may improve 
his herds, and the Dairj^man who inquires if it pays to steam food ; to the 
Gardener, the Fruitgrower, the Vinedresser, the Apiarian, the Sportsman ; 
and last and most earnestly to the Mother of every family who is busy at 
home, presiding tenderly over all the human interests that center there, we 
come with cordial greeting, and extend A Helping Hand. 

Madison, AVisconsin, December 15, 1869. 



Ta ble of Contents 



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY HORACE GREELEY. 

Page. 

FIRST TRUTHS IN AGRICULTURE 13-15 

TREATMENT OF THE SOIL 16 

PRACTICAL TILLAGE IN THE WEST; 1, Be thorough; 2, get good land; 3, use 
of fertilizers; 4, home manures cheapest; 5, irrigation; 6, prairie irrigation; 7, 
constant improvement necessary; 8, green manuring — clover; 9, thorough farm- 
ing cheapest ; 10, deep plowing urged — steam plow; 11, benefits of drainage 16-19 

HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE. 

ORIGIN OF FARMING; Palestine, Egypt, China, Phoenicia, Rome, Great Britain. 21-22 
HOW TO MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE ; 1, Homestead surroundings ; 2, co-operative 

farming; 3, progress instead of routine; 4, mental and social training 22-25 

HOW LARGE A FARM SHOULD BE 25-26 

ACCURATE EXPERIMENTS NEEDED 27 

SOILS. 

CONSTITUENT PROPERTIES 28 

ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT OF SOILS 29-30 

HOW TO IMPROVE AND ADAPT THEM ; Experiments and tables 31-34 

FERTILIZERS. 

QUALITIES AND USES 35 

RELATIVE VALUE 36 

IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS WITH DIFFERENT MANURES 37 

MODES OF APPLICATION CONSIDERED 38-39 

AIR, AMMONIA, ASHES, BONES 39-40 

THE COMPOST HEAP— How to make ; a covered shed ; manure cellars ; garden 

compost 40-42 

FALLOWING AND GREEN MANURING; Red and white clover; buckwheat; 

rye; peas 42^4 

GUANO AND ITS APPLICATION 44-15 

LIQUID MANURE; LIME 45-46 

MUCK; PEAT; NIGHT SOILS, and their value 46 

PHOSPHATE OF LIME— The great bed in South Carolina 46-47 

(5) 



6 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PLASTER; SALT; SEA-WEED; SAND; SOAP-SUDS; SULPHATE OF 

IRON 48 

PROFESSOR VILLE'S NEW SYSTEM 48-50 

PLOWING. 

PRACTICAL EFFECT OF PULVERIZATION 51 

NECESSITY OF DEEPER PLOWING— Nine good reasons for 5^-53 

HOW TO PLOW AND WHEN 54 

DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION. 

BENEFITS OF UNDER-DRAINING ILLUSTRATED 55-57 

WHAT LANDS NEED DRAINING— Ex.imples; surfiice and under-drains 57-58 

HOW TO CONSTRUCT DRAINS AND LAY TILE ; Depth and distance ; size of 

tile; cost per acre 58-60 

ADVANTAGES OF IRRIGATION; How and where to irrigate 60-Gl 

FIELD CROPS. 

CROPS OF THE COUNTRY FOR TWELVE YEARS; Amount and prices G2-C.S 

ROTATION OF CROPS; Its iniportiince; courses illustrated 63-Gl> 

BARLEY, BEANS, BEETS, BROOM CORN, BUCKWHEAT— Varieties; prepara- 
tion of soil, and methods of culture 66-70 

CABBAGE AND CARROT; Value for food; profitableness; varieties, and how to 

grow them 70-72 

CORN; Value for feeding; varieties; seed, selection and preparation; planting; 

cultivation; manures; harvesting and housing 73-82 

COTTON; History of culture and manufacture; climate; Sea Island and Upland; 

how to raise, pick, and prepare for market; profitableness; the cotton gin 82-86 

FLAX; Sowing; tilling; gathering; rotting; linseed oil and cake 87-89 

GRASS AND HAY'; Varieties and relative nutriment; when to sow ; thick and tliin 

seeding; wlien to cut grass; overcuring injurious; management of pasture ^ 

landa ; stacking hay 89-98 

HEMP AND HOPS; Culture, harvesting, curing, and profits 98-106 

INDIGO, JUTE, MADDER, AND MUSTARD 106-108 

OATS; Proper soil and seed ; sowing and reaping; varieties— the Norway and Sur- 



prise . 



108-111 



ONIONS; Soil; sowing; pulling; tracing and roping ; profitableness 111-113 

POTATOES; History; nutritive value; preparation of soil; special manures; cut 

or uncut seed ; planting; cultivating; harvesting; storing; raising under straw ; 

causes of degeneracy ; varieties — the Early Rose; rot and preventives 114-126 

POTATOES, SWEET; Sprouting; planting; after-treatment; gathering and 

keeping 126-127 

PUMPKINS AND SQUASHES; Relative value of varieties 127-128 

RAMIE, OR CHINA GRASS; Use as a textile fiber, and probable value to the 

country • 128-131 

RICE; RYE; Production and yield 132-133 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 7 

Page. 

SUGAR CROPS ; Statistics of product ; Beet Sugak, cost and mode of making ; 

Sugar Cane, growth and manufacture; Corn Sugar, process of making from 
stalk and meal ; Maple Sugar, tapping trees, gathering sap, buckets and boil- 
ers, cost and yield; Sorghum, soil, planting, culture, manufacture 133-347 

TOBACCO; Curious facts concerning its use ; soil adapted to its growth; manures; 
transplanting; topping; cultivating; harvesting, curing, carting, and housing; 
stripping and casing 147-151 

TURNIPS; As a fertilizer; for feeding; varieties; soil; sowing; after-culture; gath- 
ering 151-153 

WHEAT; Origin, history, and product; a look ahead; causes of degeneracy; soil; 
clover; mineral manures; varieties; selection of seed ; thick t«. thin sowing; 
advantages of drilling; time and depth of sowing; winter-killing Spring har- 
rowing; time and mode of cutting; shocking and stacking; threshing, cleaning, 
and marketing; rust and smut; how to measure a xipening crop 153-169 

THE VEGETABLE AND FLOWER GARDEN. 

BEAUTY AND UTILITY IN THE GARDEN 171-172 

DEEP TRENCHING; The hot-bed 173-174 

GARDEN SEEDS ; Purity and vitality ; period of germination ; amount of seed 

necessary 175-176 

VEGETABLES RAISED FOR FOOD; Modes of cultivation 177-197 

FLAVORING AND MEDICINAL HERBS 185-189 

FLOWER GARDEN; Plan; preparation of beds; seeding; transplanting; water- 
ing; general culture; description of annuals, biennials, and perennials; bulb- 
ous and climbing plants; roses; flowering shrubs and trees; evergreens and shade 
trees; the lawn and its adornment 197-216 

FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES. 

ORIGIN OF FRUITS 217 

UTILITY AND HEALTHFULNESS 218-219 

PROFITS OF FRUIT CULTURE, and value of Product 219-222 

WHERE TO PLANT THE ORCHARD 222-223 

PROTECTION OF ORCHARDS; Tree Belts 223-225 

HOW TO SELECT FRUIT TREES 22.5-226 

CONDITIONS OF TRANSPLANTING 226-231 

DIRECTIONS FOR PRUNING 231-234 

METHODS OF PROPAGATION; Planting; grafting; budding; cuttings; layers... 234-236 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS ON MANAGEMENT 237-243 

FRUIT-GROWING IN THE SOUTH 243-244 

THE APPLE AND ITS VARIETIES.... 244-250 

APRICOTS, CHERRIES, FIGS, AND NECTARINES 250--2r)I 

THE PEACH, PEAR, PLUM, AND QUINCE; Varieties and culture 251-2.39 

SEMI-TROPICAL FRUITS 2.59-261 

THE GRAPE; Its varieties, cultivation, productiveness, and profit 261-283 

CtRAPE WINE; Varieties best adapted for ; methods of manufacture 283-289 

STRAWBERRIES, RASPBERRIES, BLACKBERRIES, GOOSEBERRIES, 

CURR.\NTS, AND CRANBERRIES; Varieties and culture 289-304 



8 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

FOES OF THE FAEM. 

Pack. 

INJURIOUS INSECTS AND DISEASES 306 

ENEMIES OF THE APPLE; Insects and diseases described; preventives and 

remedies suggested 306-310 

THE CHERRY, CURRANT, AND GOOSEBERRY; How to protect 310 

FOES OF THE GRAPE; Treatment of diseases, etc 311-313 

PEACH, PEAR, PLUM, QUINCE, AND STRAWBERRY; Methods of defense... 313-317 
ENEMIES OF GARDEN AND FIELD CROPS; Protection against their rav- 
ages 317-324 



WOOD FOR THE FARM. 

DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS ; As affecting civilization, climate, health, and fer- 
tility 325-328 

PLANTING OF TIMBER ; Profits ; varieties ; period of tree growth ; cost ; mode 

of culture; shade for cities 329-336 

TREE BELTS FOR FARM PROTECTION ; Effect on .soil, atmosphere, and cli- 
mate; for defense of crops, of orchards; best trees for belts ; how and where to 
grow them 336-344 

FUEL; Different kinds of wood compared ; relative value of wood, coal, and peat; 

how to burn coal 344-347 



LIYE STOCK. 

THE STOCK PRODUCT OF THE COUNTRY 348-349 

CATTLE; Breeds and breeding; necessity for improvement; introduction of thor- 
ough-bred stock; periods and conditions of gestation; no more scrub bulls 349-355 

BREEDS OF CATTLE; Durham; Devon; Ayrshire; Alderney ; Hereford; Brit- 



tany . 



355-360 



SPECIMENS OF GOOD COWS 360-362 

TO ASCERTAIN THE AGE OF CATTLE 362 

GUENON'S MILK MIRROR— " Infallible Sign" 362-365 

SPAYING COWS; Oxen for work 36.5-367 

MANAGEMENT OF COWS; Milking; preventives of jumping; calves 367-370 

DISEASES OF COWS; Methods of treatment 370-372 

DISEASES AND AILMENTS OF CATTLE 372-377 

CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE; Yards, stables, stalls, stanchions, racks, 

shelter, water; exercise or quiet; diflerent food compared; cutting and steaming 

food — great advantages shown; cheap steaming apparatu.s; soiling; roots 377-392 

THE HORSE ; Breeds compared ; how to ascertain the age; modes of feeding; stables; 

taming and breaking — the Rarey method ; diseases - 392-406 

SHEEP GROWING; Wool supply; breeds compared; feeding and management; 

diseases •• 406-423 

HOGS; Breeds; habits and uses; feeding; how to make pork economically ; diseases. 423-4.32 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



POULTRY, BEES, AUD FISH CULTURE. 

Page. 
BREEDS OF FOWLS; Concerning egg."! ; how to make hens lay ; feeding; disea.ses. 433-443 

TURKEYS, DUCKS, GUINEA FOWLS, GEESE 443-144 

THE HONEY BEE; Product,'!; liow to tame and liandle; directions for swarming; 

wintering and feeding; bee hives, and how to protect; Italian bees; profitableness 444-457 
FISH CULTURE ; History ; how to lay out fish ponds ; hatching and rearing ; 

profits 457-4(53 



THE DAIRY. 

VALUABLE STATISTICS; English and American systems compared; Western 

dairying; management of milk 463-468 

BUTTER MAKING; Details of process ; conditions of good butter; French and 

Devonshire methods 468-475 

CHEESE MAKING; General directions; the Cheddar process; the American factory 

system; advantages of 475-479 

ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD. 

RESIDENCES; Various styles ; suggestions concerning color and surroundings; size 
and arrangement of rooms ; chimneys and cellars; balloon frames; laborers' cot- 
tages; plans illustrated; ventilation 480-493 

BARNS; Ea.st, West, and South compared; economy of housing stock; size, location, 
capacity, cleanliness ; how to plan ; designs for diflerent sized farms; a Western 
stock barn; a three-story barn, illustrated; dairy barns; light and ventilation 493,506 

DAIRY ROOMS; ICE HOUSES; CORN CRIBS; PIG PENS; POULTRY 

HOUSES; CISTERNS; PUMPS; ETC.; Plans illustrated 506-513 

FENCES; Aggregate cost; shall we fence stock out or in; present system wasteful 
and unjust; law of highway and division fences; stone walls, ditche.s, wooden and 
wire fences illustrated; varieties of hedges, and method of culture 513-523 

THE WORKSHOP -TOOLS AND IMPLEMENTS. 

THE HOME WORKSHOP; Convenience and profit; construction and outfit; the 

workbench and its equipment; care of tools and how to sharpen 524-530 

IMPLEMENTS; Ancient and modern compared; the best are cheapest; list" for 

equipping a farm 530-532 

PLOWS ; History and improvements ; sheet steel and c.xst steel ; steam as a motor — 

the coming plow ,. ; 532-537 

HARROWS, cultivators, drills, and planting machines 5.37-539 

JIOWERS AND REAPERS; Nothing new under the sun ; reapers of 1815 and 1840, 

illustrated; qualities of various machines considered; automatic binders 539-542 

OTHER HAY MACHINERY; The horse-rake, tedder, and fork; loading and stack- 
ing machines 542-545 



10 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

THRESHING, CUTTING, HUSKING, AND SORGO MACHINES; POWER ^'''"' 
FOR THE FARM; STUMP PULLERS, POTATO DIGGERS, PORTABLE 
CORN MILLS, WINE AND CIDER MILLS, AND OTHER FARM AND 
HOUSEHOLD IMPLEMENTS 545-553 



FARM ECONOMY. 

PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ; How to make farming pay 

better; how to lose money by it; book farming; luck 554-5.59 

DIRECTIONS FOR MEASURING; How any farmer can measure and map his 
land; weiglits and measures; the cental system; how many pounds to a bushel; 
table of measures; corn and wheat in bulk ; estimating weight of cattle and hay 

by measurement .559-567 

GENERAL HINTS ON TILLAGE 567-.569 

BUTCHERING, AND DRESSING HIDES 569-572 

THE EARTH CLOSET; How to make and manage 572-674 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 

EQUIPMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF THE HOUSE; Paper hangings, carpets, 
and other furniture; household ornaments; arrangement and care of flowers, 

pictures, etc 575-583 

THE LAUNDRY; Washing, cleansing, dyeing 5S3-592 

THE TOILET; Care of hair, complexion, teeth, etc 592-596 

HOUSEHOLD PESTS; Defenses and antidotes 596-598 

DOMESTIC UTENSILS; Cleansing and repairing; paint, whitewash, and glue 698-603 

ECONOMY OF LIGHTS; Ink making; preserratives of leather 603-604 

TEMPERATE BEVERAGES— recipes for 604-609 

CATSUPS AND SYRUPS 609-610 

JELLIES, JAMS, AND MARMALADES 610-611 

PRESERVING AND CANNING FRUIT 612-616 

PICKLES, SOUR AND SWEET, AND VINEGAR-MAKING 616-621 

CURING AND KEEPING MEATS; Hams, beef, pork, bacon, souse, tripe, sausages; 

trying out lard 621-G27 

KEEPING OF DAIRY PRODUCTS— MiUt, butter, cheese, care of eggs and honey; 

various domestic hints 627-632 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM. 

WHAT TO EAT AND HOW TO COOK IT, And the sanitary conditions of diet... 633-639 

TIME REQUIRED TO DIGEST DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD 634-635 

NEW PROCESS OF MEAT PRESERVING „... 640-641 

BREAD AND BREAD MAKING; Wheat, Graham, rye and corn, yeast, etc 641-648 

BISCUITS; rolls, buns, rusk, muffins, short-cakes, crackers, etc 648-662 

BATTER CAKES— griddle cakes of different kinds, fritters, crullers, doughnuts, 

waffles, etc 652-666 

SWEET CAKES— varieties and directions for making 655-659 

SOUPS AND SOUP MAKING 659-CGl 



J TABLE OF CONTENTS. 11 

Page. 
,pw TO SELECT MEATS, ETC 661-662 

(&AVIES, SAUCES, AND STUFFINGS 662-663 

BEEF; Methods of cookinjr 663-(i('>.') 

MUTTON, PORK, AND VEAL; Methods of cooking 665-667 

POULTRY; Dres.^iing and cooking 667-6(i9 

FISH AND OYSTERS 669-670 

EGGS; Modes of cooking 670-671 

VEGETABLES— Directions for cooking; salad making.. 671-676 

TABLE DRINKS; Rules for preparing 676-6S0 

PIES, TARTS, AND PUDDINGS 680-688 

CUSTARDS AND OTHER RELISHES 688-690 

VARIOUS SUPPER DISHES 690-691 

COOKING FOR THE NURSERY 691-694 

THE ART OF CARVING- Directions and illustrations 694-698 

FAMILY HEALTH. 

CAUSES OF SICKNESS AND CONDITIONS OF RECOVERY; Rules for the 
preservation of health; suggestions about bathing; the air we breathe; eflects 

of sunshine; how to walk and sit 699-706 

EFFECTS OF DIET AND DRESS 706-709 

SLEEP; Conditions of .sleeping .soundly; early rising 709-711 

TOBACCO AND ALCOHOLIC STIMUL.'\.NTS ; Results of using 711-712 

BRAIN WORK AND EYESIGHT 713-714 

CARE OF CHILDREN 714-71.5 

DISEASES; Modes of treatment, alphabetically arranged 715-762 



THE CREAM OF FACTS. 

ROMANCE OF MODERN SCIENCE ; A dream of the future ; persecution of phi- 
losophers and reformers; estimate of " the Good Old Times" 763-765 

CANALS, STEAMBOATS, AND RAILROADS; History of their origin and 

progre.ss 765-768 

THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH— Its invention and improvements 768-769 

THE PHOTOGRAPH AND STEREO.SCOPE 769-770 

ORIGIN OF THE LUCIFER M.ATCH 770-771 

PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC BREVITIES..: 771-774 

FACTS OF HUMAN LIFE; Vit:il stati.stios; average length of life increasing; 
comparative longevity in difi'erent occupations; facts of physiology; average 

height; statistics of marriage. 774^778 

LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD; Origin and growth of the English language; 

number of words in use 778-779 

THE UNIVERSE; Vrstness of creation; number of stars; the solar system repre- 
sented; the earth — its age, velocity, and motions; the aurora borealis 779-782 

DIFFERENCES OF CLIM.\TE; Zones of vegetation; the weather — signs of 

changes; moon's influence, etc 782-788 

THE WONDERS OF NATURAL HISTORY; Plant reproduction; a veget.able 

animal ; animalculse. etc , 788-791 

SOCIAL AMUSEMENTS; Charades, illusions, puzzles, problems, scientific experi- 
ments 791-797 



12 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

Page. 
FACTS FOB THE CURIOUS; Amount of gold in the world; freaks of currency; 

remarkable trees; Yo-Semite falls; lightning statistics; tax comparisons, eccen- 
tricities of great men, etc 797-800 

STATISTICS OF AMERICAN FARMS 800-801 

CUB EXPORTS — Cotton and breadstuffs 801 

STATISTICS OF AMERICAN LIVE STOCK — Number, price, and value by 

States 802 

NAMES OF DAYS AND MONTHS — Their origin and significance 803-804 

CURIOUS FACTS OF HISTORY 804-805 

STATISTICS AND HISTORY OF THE BIBLE 805-808 

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS ; Tlie Northmen in Green- 
land in 972 ; Vinland (New England) discovered and colonized in the year 1000 ; 

Prince Madoc's voyages in 1170; traces of his settlement 808-811 

OUR COUNTRY — A glance at the future 811-812 



]?iR^T ^RUTII^ IN yVQRICULTUF(E: 



INTEODUCTOEY ESSAY. 



BY HORACE GREELEY. 



Our earth, like the other planets forming our solar system, and probably like those 
composing other systems, is composed of various substances or elements existing in the 
form of solids, fluids, and gases, respectively, vfhereof the proportions are constantly 
changing. The ancients supposed the elements to be four only — Earth, Air, Fire, and 
Water— ^but more modern research has demonstrated that Air and Water are compounds 
or chemical combinations of certain gases known as Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Nitrogen, 
respectively. Water is composed of Oxygen and Hydrogen, in the proportion (by 
weight) of eight of the former to one of the latter. Air is composed of one part (by 
,weight) of Oxygen to a little less than four parts of Nitrogen. But Oxygen combines 
easily with nearly every metal except Gold and Silver, forming Oxides, and it is thus a 
principal ingredient, in combination with one or more mineral ores, of most rocks and ■ 
earths. If this globe could be retorted or dissolved in a chemist's crucible, and thus 
reduced to its elements, so far as they are cognizable by the science of our day, more 
than half of its entire weight would be resolved into Oxygen— a gas of which the very 
existence was first discovered by Dr. PKiESTLET,less than a century ago. 

The learned now substantially agree in the conclusion, that our earth first had a sepa- 
rate, definite existence in a state of heated vapor or gas, which, gradually cooling at the 
surface, was contracted or condensed, and formed a crust or shell of rock, enclosing and 
confining the still fiery vapor which formed the bulk of the globe ; that this matter fre- 
quently burst through its thin shell, causing earthquakes, and forming volcanoes; that 
such was the origin of what are now quiet and often wooded mountains ; the lower chains 
being first formed, when the crust was comparatively thin ; the higher at a more recent 
period, when that crust had attained far greater strength, enabling it to present greater 
resistance to internal fires and perturbations, thus rendering eruptions less frequent and 
more violent; and, when they did occur, throwing up those mighty mountain chains 
known to us as the Himalayas, the Andes, etc. The volcanic activity still manifested in 
the earthquakes of South America, the Sandwich Islands, etc., may indicate that these 
are of more recent formation than the hemisphere known to us as the Old World. 

While its crust was much thinner, the earth's surface was naturally much warmer than 
now, causing a perpetual ascension of vapor, which necessarily returned to the ground 
again as rain Observations prove that the sky was more humid, the' annual rainfall 
more copious, and the volume of our streams and rivers far greater, than now. At a 
later period, cold prevailed, and a rigorous climate was nearly or quite universal, causing 

(13) 



14 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

vast glaciers to form and endure for ages on the slopes of hills which have known no per- 
manent ice since the dawn of authentic History. Vast icebergs floated across the seas, 
then nearly or quite universal, often grounding upon submerged rocks, or scraping and 
knocking oft' larger or smaller fragments, and thus triturating or pulverizing them. The 
soils with which Agriculture now deals are composed of matter which was once gas, next 
water, afterward rock, and at length, often in combination with oxygen and other gase.-;, 
became what we now see it. Soil and climate at length favoring, plants finally ap- 
peared — at first, mainly ferns and mosses, but in time every .description of annual, bush, 
and tree. These, in their processes of growth and vigorous life, absorbed or took up 
eartlis, even hastening the decomposition of rocks, and, decaying, restored them to the 
soil in a finer and more digestible form. This process is still active; and the earth, apart 
from Man's labors and his devastations, is slowly, steadily becoming more fertile and 
productive. Its soils are increasing in depth through the decomposition of rocks, 
and in fertility through the continual growth and decay of plants and trees; but this 
tendency to melioration is counteracted by the influence of rains, streams, and floods, which 
annually wash away millions of tons of their best ingredients, to squander them upon 
the thankless oceans. Fires, also, are sometimes destructive of fertility ; while putrid 
and noisome exhalations waft away valuable elements from the husbandman's fields and 
gardens to squander them on lakes, mountains, woods, and deserts, where they are of 
no sensible use to mankind. 

Thougli a little use has been made of Iron, in some concrete forms, by horticulturists, 
while it is known that several rocks contain potash, sulphur, phosphorus, and other ele- 
ments of plants. Agriculture has, thus far, learned how to dissolve or convert with profit 
but two species of rock in aid of production. These are popularly known as Lime and 
(•ypsum or Plaster of Paris,* but are in fact both limestones ; the former being a carbonate 
or chemical combination of Lime with Carbonic Acid in the proportion of about five 
parts of Lime to four of Carbonic Acid; the latter a combination of Lime with Sulphur, 
in the like proportion. To chemists, the former is known as a carbonate, the latter as a 
s^dphalc,o{ Lime. The carbonate is made available to farmers by burning the rock to 
dissolution, which expels the Carbonic Acid, leaving the Lime free. The latter is simply 
broken and ground, when it is fit for use. It has been held that Lime is only useful as 
a solvent of vegetable matter; but the fact that it enters largely into the composition of 
bones, would seem inconsistent with this hypothesis. Gypsum is of use not merely be- 
cause its elements enter into the composition of animal and vegetable structures, but 
because its Sulphur is held to have a far greater affinity for Ammonia than for Lime; 
so that when liberated by grinding and sown over the ground, especially on eminences, 
or hill-sides, the Ammonia which has been taken up by the breezes that wander at will 
over barnyards, pig-pens, decaying carcasses, fetid marshes, drains, etc., eagerly combines 
with the Sulphur of the Gypsum, forming a Sulphate of Ammonia instead of a Sulphate 
of Lime, leaving the Lime free. Ammonia is one of the most potent stimulants of plant 
growth, which explains the seeming disparity between the small quantity of Gypsum 
applied (usually a bushel to a barrel per acre), and the great results said to be produced. 

Though soils appear to respond most unequally to the demands made upon them by 
Gypsum — those which are located near salt water receiving little or no benefit, and some 
others responding but feebly— it is probable that no other purchased or commercial m,a- 
nure ever returned, in the average, so large or so prompt a recompense for the cost of 

* So called becau^ the city of Paris is built over a bed of this rock, decayed or rotted on its surface, and thus 
constantly imparling fertility to the soil, even where its surface is a few feet above the Gypsum. 



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. J5 

its application as Oyps ini. I firmly belipve that it has often given ten for one — ten dol- 
lars in the increased quantity or value of crop for each dollar's worth of Gypsum applied 
to the soil. Common Lime has often effected great and enduring improvement, but in no 
Buch proportion as this. 

TREATMENT OF THE SOIL. 

The soil or finely pulverized earth, mainly mineral in its origin, is often twenty, fifty, 
and even in places a hundred feet deep; there are valleys in which it is even deeper. The 
valley of the Sacramento and the San Joaoquin, in California, has been pierced a thou- 
sand feet at Stockton, without encountering a suggestion of rock — the strata thus trav- 
ersed being alternately sand, clay, and vegetable mold. Usually, however, the farmer 
need concern himself only with that yard in depth of his soil, which lies nearest the 
surface; aJid it is to this that my remarks shall henceforth be confined. 

Nine-tenths of this soil usually consists of decomposed rock, distinguished as sand, 
clay, or loam, which last is mainly a mixture of clay and sand. Sand, when nearly jjure, 
was deposited by running or Howing water, by currents. Clay is rock decomposed or de- 
posited in still water, as Limestone was. Neither sand nor clay is often found entirely 
free from the presence of the other. To these are added the products of vegetable de- 
composition or decay, which seldom amount to three inches in depth of the surface; 
though the prairies of the West, the bogs and swamps of the East, are often mainly 
vegetable to a depth of several feet. These are among the richest soils on earth, though 
the bogs, being wet and sour, need sweetening and curing to render them of service to 
the farmer. Lirne, Salt, Wood-ashes, are the alkalis usually employed to this end; 
Wood ashes, when abundant, are best; but a combination of Quicklime with Salt (the 
sweepings of salt-stores or vessels, the refuse of packing-houses), will usually be found 
cheaper and more attainable. 

PRACTICAL TILLAGE, 

Let us suppose a young farmer to have recently come into possession of one or tvro 
hundred acres of fair land, which he is determined to improve and till to the best advan- 
tage; how shall he begin and proceed ? 

East of the AUeghanies and north of Cape Fear or the Santee, the most obvious difficulty 
is the general inequality of the surface, constraining petty or patchy cultivation. Almost 
every acre of good natural soil will have a rocky ridge or ledge on one side, a marsh or 
quagmire on the other ; and these will be so interlaced and chequered, that, on a farm 
of a hundred acres, it will often be difficult to find ten acres together, not broken into 
■by some sort of natural interruption or obstacle to tillage. Hence, were these lands 
naturally as fertile as the Western prairies (which they are not), it would still be impos- 
sible to grow Grain or Vegetables upon them so cheaply or abundantly as they are grown 
in the West. A. heavy expenditure in blasting, digging, and drawing away of stone on 
the one hand, and in draining marshy, boggy grounds on the other, is the indispensable 
prerequisite to any extensive grain-growing on the sea-board, save on the broad, rich 
intervals of the Connecticut, and some other rivers. I will consider, therefore, what 
should be done by the young farmer on a Western soil. 

L The first admonition I would impress on his mind is, Be thorough. Plan to make few 
.fences serve, but have all of these thoroughly good fences — not seminaries for the edu 
cation of breachy cattle. Begin by fencing off two pasture-lots, not too far from your 
barns; inclose these in high, strong fences, and never let your cattle pass beyond these 
and their yard, save on special occasions, when they are allowed to gather the fodder of 



16 



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 



a field rtrhence corn has been taken. No farmer can afford to graze his meadows, whether 
in Spring or Fall ; he should not admit cattle among his fruit trees ; and he makes a 
great mistake if he allows them to range and browse his woods, for they will destroy 
many of the best young trees, leaving the worst to take the ground. I have twenty 
acres of wood, whence I have rigidly excluded cattle for the last fifteen years, and the 
forest trees are rapidly changing their character for the better in consequence. There 
were but few Sugar Maples in those woods when I bought them ; now there are many; 
and White Ash, Tulip, and Hickory, are also coming in, where hungry cattle used to 
browse them to death, leaving the ground to the Hemlocks, Dogwoods, Red Oaks, etc., 
wliich they disdained to eat. I tell you, farmers, that, as you can not afford to grow un- 
grafted fruit, so you can not afford to grow such forest trees only as your cattle refuse to 
eat Better exclude your stock, and improve your forests by planting such trees as you 
^leed or fancy. 

II. Next, I would have you realize thai good land pays better for fertilizing than poor. 
There are some who imagine that, because their land is good, it does not need or will 
not jjay for enriching, which is a great mistake. If your soil contains nine-tenths of the 
elements required to secure a good, bountiful yield of Wheat, Corn, or Oats, you can 
better aflbrd to add the remaining tenth than you could to add two, three, four, or five- 
tenths to a poorer soil. If it now yields a first-rate crop without manuring, it will be 
less and less able to do so after each crop hereafter grown on it. You may have a large 
balance in bank, yet if you keep drawing and never deposit you will surely exhalist it; 
and so the farmer who grow.s crop after crop on a rich soil, burning or wasting the stalks 
or straw, and selling the grain, is surely hastening the day when that soil will have ceased 
I'.o be productive. 

III. The farmer is a manufacturer of useful and high-priced staples from elements of 
far inferior value. He procures what costs him but little, and transforms it into some- 
thing that is worth and will sell for far more. It is his art to know in what shape he 
may buy cheapest that which will sell for a much larger price. 

His soil is generally valuable in direct proportion to its composite or heterogeneous 
character. If it be pure sand or pure clay, it is of little worth ; whereas, the same area 
of equally mingled or blended sand and clay would be fruitful and valuable. Thus the 
Platte, Kansas, and other streams which traverse the Great American Desert, bear there- 
from the elements which form the rich, fertile bottoms of the lower Mississippi. To 
plow often, plow deeply, and turn up the subsoil to air, light, and warmth, are of them- 
selves conducive to fertility ; though they may be countervailed and overborne by 
taking off crop after crop of grain or other seed and adding nothing in return. Deep, 
thorough, frequent working of the soil, so far as it is cultivated at all, is the basis of all 
good farming. 

IV. As to Fertilizers, Plaster excepted, ilte nearest are generally the cheapest. We send 
half-way round the globe for Guano, at a cost to the farmer of $60 (gold) per ton, yet 
allow materials to run to waste, and poison our waters and atmosphere, which would 
afford an equal amount of plant-food, at less than half the cost Every good farmer will 
make the most of the excretions of his animals to begin with; and to this end he will 
have a barn or cattle-yard, hollow in the center, and raised on every side (like a saucer), 
so as to give his animals dry footing in the wettest weather, yet keep the center moist, 
and prevent any escape of liquids. Into this yard he will cart Muck (if he can get it), 
Leaves, Weeds (cut green). Stalks, Straw, and every other vegetable substance that he 
can find no better use for; if these are deficient, he will cart in load after load of Swamp 
Muck, Leaf Mold, or even Turf or Loam, if he can get nothing better. Muck is worth 



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 17 

drawing a mile if his land is quite poor, but not if he can get prairie soil in abundance 
at hand. To make a big pile of manure, and have it thoroughly ripe for use when he 
wants to apply it, is the second step in good farming. If he can not make enough of 
this, he may buy what are called Commercial Manures — Flour of Bone, Phosphates, Lime, 
and even Guano; but his cheapest and best fertilizer (after Plaster, if not before even 
that) will be that made under his own eye, in his own yard. And of this the more he 
makes, within his means, the richer he will become. Millions of farmers have gone into 
bankruptcy for want of home-made manure; I never heard of one who was bankrupted 
by making and using too much of that. 

On our Eastern granitic soils, I am satisfied that unleached Wood-ashes are worth 
thirty to fifty cents per bushel, according to quality ; but on a Western prairie, of which 
the soil is largely composed of ashes, and whose grain is much cheaper, they can not be 
worth so much ; still, no wise man will ever sell any nor will he leave them unused. 
Even Leached-ashes are worth carting half a mile, and applying to very light, warm soils. 
I think Shell Lime (unslaked) pays on my place, where it costs twenty-five cents per 
bushel applied. I doubt that any Lime that can be procured in the West will ofteir pay 
that price. Yet I advise every one who can get Quicklime for that price, to buy a little, 
and give it a careful trial; sowing and leaving strips alternately, staking them carefully, 
and watching the result, not on the first crop only, but on the two or three succeeding. 
I suspect that there are many sections of the West that it will pay to lime ; and, I am sure, 
that fiumers in this region, who have made Pork extensively for sale, would have lost 
money thereon but for the manure that, carefully saved, proved of nearly equal value 
with the meat. We have barely begun to realize the value of manures. The older, and 
in some respects better, farmers of China and Japan are thei'ein our masters. 

V. But we have even more to learn with respect to the agricultural uses of Water. An 
old and successful farmer, who lives near me, sums up his observations and experience 
in the maxim that "' Water is the cheapest and best fertilizer on earth." Of course, every 
rule is subject to exceptions; yet I firmly believe our American farmers more faulty in 
respect to water than elsewhere. After traversing fruitful, bounteous Lombardy — the 
vast plain which gently slopes from the Austrian Alps down to the Po — and of which the 
annual, product is fully doubled by water, and having also witnessed the marvelous re- 
sults of irrigation in Utah, I can not patiently abide the general indifference of our farm- 
ers to the subject. I estimate that fully One Million American farmers could dam and 
turn aside a brook or runnel, so as to irrigate at pleasure from two to ten acres of their 
several farms, at a cost of $100 for the first outlay, and $10 per annum afterward, if they 
would; and that the average increase of their products, respectively, would not fall 
below $100 per annum. This, of course, is but a beginning. Ultimately we must dam 
larger streams — rivers, even, and irrigate by means of little canals, from ten to a hundred 
square miles from a single dam. Let the water be drawn off when it is higliest and 
richest, and sent meandering gently among fields of grain, and grass, and vegetables, 
ready to be let on as their needs shall indicate, and we shall have an instant increase in 
our pi-esent annual product, to the extent of many Millions, with a steady augmentation 
of the fertility and productiveness of our Agriculture for ages to come. Every acre 
wisely irrigated one year, will prompt the irrigation of two more acres the next year; and 
so' on, till all our lands that can be flowed, by skillful engineering, at a cost below $50 
per acre, will have been provided with the means of illustrating the marvelous produc- 
tiveness of the narrow valley of the lower Nile. 

VL Nor shall we stop here. I hold the prairies admirably adapted to Inigation. 
Choose the highest points or swells that can be found; dig on each a deep well, and 



18 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 

place a self-regulating windmill over it ; dig a basin by its side, and the windmill may 
take its own time for filling it. If the water be brackish, or hard, or otherwise mineral 
ized, so much the better as a general rule, tliough there may be exceptions. When the 
suns of May and June have thoroughly warmed the reservoir, begin to draw it. off 
through shallow ditches, leading along the highest swells or ridges, and let it ooze out from 
time to time to give moisture to the growing crops during the thirsty heats of July and 
August. I do not believe there is a prairie county in which Irrigation may not be largely 
inaugurated at a net profit, at least, of nearly twenty-five per cent, per annum on the 
total cost. 

VII. Good farming vindicates itself by a constant increase of the capacity of the soil. 
The farm that would scarcely keep a dozen head of cattle when the good farmer first 
took it in hand, soon amply subsists twenty, and by-and-by forty or fifty. It turns off 
more produce year after year, but in the shape that least exhausts the soil — in Beef, Pork, 
or Live Stock, instead of Hay and Grain. Nine-tenths of all that the soil yields is thus 
returned to it as manure, while the free use of Muck, Gypsum, etc., is continually increas- 
ing its product in quantity and value. As a general rule, I hold that no farmer ever 
enriched himself by a husbandry that impoverished, or even failed to enrich, his farm. 

VIII. Certain plants — Clover pre-eminent among them — draw nourishment from the 
atmosphere and impart fertility to the soil. These are wisely grown by every good 
farmer ; but to one who has not Muck at command they are indispensable. Wherever 
the soil is deficient in vegetable matter— as I have often found it, even in the West, 
on the openings or " barrens " — Clover affords the cheapest and readiest corrective. If 
1 were buying land my first inquiry would be, " Will it grow a good stand of Clover ? " 
If it will, it may easily be made to produce Wheat, Corn, or almost anything else ; and, 
though turning under the crop is the shortest way to fertility, it may be mowed or fed 
off, and the sod turned under, with very good eflect. Perhaps taking off one crop and 
plowing in a second — say in August for Wheat — is the better policy for the Northwest. 

IX. A farmer who grows W^heat, Corn, Oats, Barley, etc., to feed or sell, naturally 
wishes to make a profit on the labor he employs, and to secure a fair recompense for his 
own. To this end, he turns a large quantity of earth over and over, with plows and 
other implements, in order to bring his land into the right condition for seeding, as well 
as to keep the ground mellow and the weeds down thereafter. Now, it is plain to my 
mind, that he should seek to achieve the desired result with as small an expenditure of 
strength as will answer. In other words, if upsetting a thousand tons of earth will sub- 
serve his end, he can not afford to reverse and pulverize two or three thousand tons for 
the purpose ; or, more plainly, large crops must be grown, in the average, to greater profit than 
small crops. I doubt that any light crop of grain ever paid the fair cost of growing it; 
while I think few really heavy crops are grown at a loss. Good farming implies good 
crops, as well as good management in producing them. 

X. But, while I would have a given quantity of grain grown with the least displace- 
ment of earth that will suffice, I urge the farmer not to seek his economy through a 
reduction of the depth of his plowing. On the contrary, I am sure that our average 
furrow is quite too shallow, and should be considerably deepened. I know the excuses 
for shallow plowing — deficient team-power, hurry for seeding, etc., etc ; but they are ex- 
cuses only, not conclusive reasons. Our hot Summer suns and protracted drouths, which 
seem to increase both in frequency and duration, with the natural, inevitable demands 
of plants for ample room to strike their roots deeper, and run them ferther in quest of 
nourishment, call urgently for deeper plowing I have seen a large crop of Cabbage 
grown in a dry, hot season, from a field well subsoiled, which would not have yielded 



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 19 

half so much if plowed but a single furrow of the ordinary depth. In my judgment, 
one foot is as little as any land should be plowed ; and this depth should be gradually 
increased by subsoiling so fast as the requisite power can be obtained. I hail with glad- 
ness every premonition of the coming Steam Plow, not so much because Steam will pul- 
verize our soils more cheaply than we now attain that end, but because it is sure to do 
the work more thoroughly, more profoundly. The rich, deep soil of the prairies predicts 
and demands the Steam Plow ; its coming can not be much longer delayed; and when 
it shall have become as familiar as the Reaper and the Cultivator now are, I am confi- 
dent that we shall pulverize the soil to a depth of at least two feet, and find that none 
too much. Then we may defy a drouth of five or six weeks to stop the growth or curl 
the leaves of our corn ; then we may defy the protracted rains often experienced in 
May and June, to stop our work or keep our young plants for days under water. We 
shall still employ and profit by Irrigation to increase the luxuriance of our crops; but 
we shall no longer watch the skies with painful apprehension that five or six weeks of 
daily, fervid sunshine without rain will blast our hopes of a harvest. 

XI. As to Drainage, while I have done my share of it with great profit and satisfac- 
tion, I can not hope to commend it to the present favor of Western farmers, who think 
they can buy land already dry enough, for less than the cost of draining marshy ground. 
And yet, I would urge that marshes — in fact, any lands surcharged with stagnant water, 
which leaves it mainly by tlie slow process of evaporation — are unhealthful; breeding 
agues and other bilious diseases — that they breed also mosquitoes and other detested 
insects, and are often unsightly obstacles to symmetrical and economical cultivation. 
Let any farmer begin by draining his loctiest acre, from which the requisite fall can be 
obtained— draining it completely and durably — and I am sure he will not stop with that, 
but proceed to drain more and more, as means and time shall allow. I have twelve to 
fifteen acres of natural bog or peat swamp, from which a suflScient outlet is secured with 
great difficulty, the level being maintained for a full mile below it — yet I have drained 
it so that I have Corn growing on eight acres of it, and have had good Oats and Grass 
this season on the residue, where, though surrounded with tillage for two centuries, 
nothing but weeds and coarse, worthless swamp grass had grown till I took hold of it. I 
believe this land to day worth all it has cost me, which is twice what a farmer living and 
working on his own land need have paid to achieve like results. 

Farmers who have facilities and opportunity to oversee your own work which I can 
not command, do better if you can ; but, if not, go and do likewise I 



AGRICULTURE: 



Its History, Pbooress and Prospects, and How it may be Made 
Attractive. 



Agricttltuke may be defined to be the art 
of cultivating the earth in such a manner as to 
cause it to produce, in plenty and perfection, 
those cereals, vegetables, and fruits which are 
useful to man, and to the animals which he has 
subjected to his dominion. The word is made 
to include the preparation of the soil, the plant- 
ing of seeds, the culture and harvesting of crops, 
and the breeding, feeding, and management of 
live stock. 

Agriculture preceded manufactures and com- 
merce, and rendered both possible; it is at the 
basis of all other arts, and was coeval with the 
dawn of civilization. Systematic husbandry 
seems to have immediately succeeded the sav- 
age .state in all races; when population in- 
creased, and hunting and fishing became too 
precarious for a relialjle subsistence, man sup- 
plied his needs by a tillage of the earth, and 
the permanent adoption of a pastoral life. 

The first mention of agriculture is found in 
the writings of Moses. From them we learn 
that Cain was a "tiller of the ground," that 
Abel sacrificed "the firstlings of his flock," and 
that Noah was a husbandman and planted a 
vineyard. The Chinese, Chaldeans, Egyptians, 
and Phoenicians evidently held this art in much 
esteem. The Carthaginians carried it to a 
lilgher degree than their colemporaries, and 
Maoo, one of their famous generals, wrote 
twenty-eight volumes on agriculture. Hesiod, 
Xenophon, and Aristotle, among the Greeks, 
and Cato and VlRGlL for the Romans, added 
their hand-bociks on the practice of husbandry, 
and their poetical tributes to its praise. 

The early agriculture was of course very 
ruile, and the variety of crops very limited — 
some simple cereals, and some coarse roots. 
Fallowing seems to have been a universal prac- 
tice with the southern nations; but it consisted 
merely in a suspension of cropping for one 
year, during wliich the field was generally over- 
(21) 



I run and exhausted by rampant weeds. As man 
emerged from the condition of a savage, and 
abandoned the hunter state, the practical work 
of tillage seems to have been intrusted to cap- 
tive slaves, while the stronger and more intelli- 
gent families, clans, and races were involved 
in a constant struggle for supremacy, in the 
brief intervals of which they gave to husbandry 
a lazy superintendence. 

From such farming little progress could be 
expected to result. The soil was in its virgin 
fertility. Few weeds ofl'ered their obstruction. 
The ground was scratched, the seed thrown in, 
and a harvest reaped. Agriculture was every- 
where mechanical, nowhere scientific. No con- 
siderable improvement could be made as long 
as the soil, by the simplest processes, supported 
the population of a country without it. 

In Egypt and Jlome we find the first traces 
of the use of manure, in those districts where 
the population had become dense. It was 
there that military chieltains came to the plow, 
drawn thither by the proud thought, as Pliny 
expressed it, that "the earth took pleasure in 
being cultivated by the hands of men crowned 
with laurels and decorated with triumphal 
honors." In Great Britain, before the Nor- 
mans came, the need of artificial aids was little 
felt, and agriculture was little studied. 

As late as 1600, Lord Bacon showed himself 
worthy to be impaled upon Pope's epigram, by 
having his large collection of books upon agri- 
culture piled up in his court-yard and burned. 
"In all these books I find no prineipleii," wrote 
the vandal, "they can, therefore, be of no use 
to any man." Yet it may be said in extenuation 
of the act, that the volumes which composed 
that feu dejoie were no doubt crude specimens, 
for farming was then the coarsest of all crafts, 
and farmers were ignorant and vulgar boors. 

Oats and barley were almost the only vege- 
tables eaten, and the common people had little 



22 



agriculture: 



meat, except the wild game which the forests 
afforded. " No hoed crops or edible vegetables 
were cuUivated," says Macauley, " and even 
as late as the reijj;n of Henry VIII, Queen 
Catharine was obliged to send to Flanders 
or Holland for salad to supply her table. 
Keil'her Indian corn, nor potatoes, nor squashes, 
nor carrots, nor cabbages, nor turnijjs were 
known in England till after the beginning of 
the si.Kleenth century. The poor pea.«ants sub- 
sisted chiefly upon bread made of barley, 
ground in a quern, or hand-mill, and baked 
by themselves. Neither was clover yet cul- 
tivated." 

For a century before the American revolu- 
tion England was an exporter of breadstuffs, 
but after that time she wa.-* an importer; and 
we find the shrewdest Englishmen seeking 
methods to increase their harvests and their 
herds. Up to that date the farmers do not 
seem to have really understood the cause of 
the productiveness of the soil, nor to have 
known wliy persistent cropping caused infer- 
tility. But now fens and marshes were drained, 
wild tracts were subdued, barren lands were 
irrigated ; the character and effect of animal, 
vegetable, and mineral manures were studied; 
subsoiling and the rotation of crops began to 
be practiced; And while many exhausted fields 
slowly recovered their verdure, an awakened in- 
terest was also taken in the breeding of stock — 
that .strong right arm of the succe.'ssful farmer. 
Thus agriculture, begun in its simplest form by 
him who was given a garden and ordered "to 
dress and to keep it," has come down to us. 

Agriculture needs to emploj' seven-eighths 
of the inhabitants of every civilized country. 
Its pursuit tends to give health to the body 
and vigor to the mind; it is favorable to long 
life, to virtuous and temperate habits, and to 
knowledge and purity of character; it should 
be the best school of personal happiness, as it 
is the true support of national independence. 
It had such charms for Cincinnatus, that un- 
der his first mild consulship, the perils that 
Bnrrounded the Roman republic kept him only 
sixteen days from th& tillage of his little farm. 

Is agriculture less attractive now than it was 
formerly? It can not be denied that as it !ims 
been practiced for the last century in this country, 
it has been nuicli less delightful and remunera- 
tive than the unagricultural orators and poets 
would fain have us believe. Farmers and 
farmers' wives are not enthusiastic in iiraise of 
their calling, .\lthough it can be siiown that 
they have accumulated more property than the 



average of mechanics, miners, or speculators, 
many of them feel that they have worked early 
and late, subdued their rebellious fields by the 
hardest knocks, and worn themselves out by a 
life of drudgery. Hoping to jirofit by the pa- 
rental experience, the boys rush to the cities, 
where four merchants in five fail to make a 
living, and where ten willing men are waiting 
for every vacancy; and the daughters, remem- 
bering the mother's weary face, become school- 
teachers, store-tenders, or factory girls. By 
this process, thousand.-! of farms all over the 
] East have passed into the hands of a phxhling 
j foreign peasantry, out of the hands of Ameri- 
Ican families tired of hereditary drudgery. 
I Such a state of things is surely to be deplored. 
The prosperity and happiness of a nation al- 
ways depend on the thrift and happiness of its 
rural people. AVhat is the remedy for this 
di-ssatisfaction ? The remedy may be said to 
be complex : 

1. The home miist be made more attractive. 
Farmers' houses ought to be pleasanter than 
any other. Standing in the midst of a rural 
landscape, with no crowding to compel slatternly 
habits, with plenty of room for flowers, hedges, 
garden, lawn, all relieved upon a background 
of summer green, Nature conspires with the 
thritty former to make his home supremely 
picturesque and inviting. Yet this condition 
generally implies a certain degree of culture 
and refinement in the owner. As long as he 
is coar.se and rude in his tastes, he will not be 
ainioyed by a rickety well-curb, and wiil be 
apt to regard, a pile of old rails before his ficnt 
door as ornamental as a climbing jjorch of 
roses, or a hedge of arbor vilae. No wonder 
that so many boys who have caught glimpses 
of better things, rush away, disgusted by the re- 
pulsive aspect of farm life. How often is it base 
iind mean! the box-like house going to decay; 
the tuiiible-down fences; the obtrusive piles of 
neglected tools, wagon wheels, old iron, and 
infinite rubbish; the horses half starved and 
wandering at large, the filthy, bony cows, the 
squealing pigs, of land-pike variety; the whole 
dreary waste of fields skinned and plundered 
from year to year, scaixely any of its product 
given back in fertility, all its beauty concealed 
and extinguished! Without any expen.se, ex- 
cept a little time and taste, our farmers' homes 
can be embellished and rendered delightful; 
and only thus can the best youths of this gen- 
eration be induced to remain in the homestead 
of their fathers. 

2. Co-operative fai'ming should be encuuraijcd. 



ITS IlISTORV, PROGRESS, ETC. 



Donald G. Mitchell says that being in a 
street-car in St. Louis, last summer, he fell into 
conversation with the driver, who said lie was 
on his feet some seventeen hours a day, and was 
paid for it two dollars; that his knees often 
swelled so that lie could hardly stand. Mitch- 
ell asked, "Why don't you give it up, and go 
to work on a farm? You can get as good 
wages, and live decently." "Oh!" replied the 
driver, "I have had enough of that — it's too 
lonesome; I w.ant to see folks." 

Now, the man may be called a fool by some, 
but he expressed a fact, and one which induces 
many men, and women, too, to give up a life 
of comfort, security, and independence on the 
land, and to crowd into cities, where they can 
have neither comfort, security, nor independ- 
ence, and where many of ihcm sink into suf- 
fering and di.sgrace. 

What is the remedy for this unfortunate con- 
dition of things? It is to make farming more 
agreeable. How? By enabling men and 
women to see more of one another, and so to 
gratify a. great social desire, which will tend to 
make farming not only the most secure and in- 
dependent life, as it now i.s, but also the most 
agreeable. 

This is to be done by working in co-opera- 
tion, and not single-handed and alone. 

Mitchell proposes this way: Let three to 
five farmers in a neighborhood combine for 
nuitual help, each one owning his own farm, 
etc., etc. Instead of each man plowing 
alone, let the whole five combine to work one 
day for one man, and finish his plowing up; 
the next day for the next man, and so on, using 
up the week. Then, with sowing or planting, 
let the same system be employed, thus using up 
five days in the week, provided all the days 
were fair. At any rate, let the system be car- 
ried throujih. 

The work will be done faster, with more 
heart; the young fellows will see one another, 
they will talk together, and dine together, and 
get some social interchange, which they must 
hare. . 

The women and younger members of the 
family must also have some social e-xciteraent 
and pleasure. Let these five families then set 
aside one afternoon or evening, or both, of each 
week, when they will all meet at one lionse, for 
social entertainment, for eating, for reading, 
talking, singing, dancing, and so on. Let this 
evening be sacred to this matter and not be 
infringed. 

Wi' shall then have fewer sickly women and 



children, and fewer dissatisfied boys and girls 
in farmers' hou.ses. Isolation and individual- 
ism will not work well. Co-operatiun will. 
Let us try it. 

3. Progrenslre fdrming imist be mhslituted for 
routine farmin (J. — The most intelligeni, practical 
farmers agree in believing that relief lies in 
breaking up the traditional routine that has 
passed from generation to generation, and in 
substituting modern and more rational methods. 
The farmers who are dissatisfied with their lot, 
who complain that farming is "to delve all 
your days and nothin' to show for it," are gen- 
erally the plodders, who have learned little 
that is new since their fathers inherited the 
homestead. 

Routine is naturally fatiguing and disgusting 
to the human mind. Let every farmer resolve 
to break it up, and substitute science in its 
place, and we shall hear no more of a farmer's 
life being a slave's life. Scientific farming does 
not mean the adoption of fancy ihetjries; it 
means a willingnesa to learn from the lairs nf na- 
ture and the experience nf other practical fanners, 
how to exchange bad habits of husbandry for better 
ones. 

The art of agriculture, as generally prac- 
ticed, is to-day behind every other art. Farm- 
ers have studied less to perfect tluinselvcs in 
their calling than have the members (jf any 
other trade or profession. How many thou- 
sands there are, in every State, who never see 
an agricultural journal or book! Such farm- 
ers hick new ideas more than they lack new 
implements. Their minds need subsoiling more 
than their grounds! 

Routine farming, as it has been and still is 
widely practiced, t's drudgery — one of the most 
wearying and unprofitable of employments. 
Scientific farming, as it is to be, and as it has 
already begun to be — farming based on Nature's 
laws and the average experience of farmers — 
is the most plea.sant, remunerative, and satisly- 
ing occupation of man.* This is the almost 
uniform testimony of those who have broken 
out of the ancestral ruts, and have learned a 
better way. 

The time has come when the fanners of the 
country, even of the Middle and Western 
States, must do something to arrest the declin- 
ing fertility of the soil, and tlie centriiugal 
tendency of their most intelligent sons. The 



•.Vrcording to thi? cenpus showings of 18i;o, the totnl 
I'ahie of cnpita] investcrl in lantlfl tind impli-nientp in this 
■0!intry was $ti,s«|-,<,((io.iHj<i, yii-IiJing an annual profluct, iu 
I'alnc, of S2,'00,1KX1,1M](J, 



24 



AGRICULTURE: 



hand-to-mouth farming must give way to sys- 
tem. A celebrated painter, being aslsed what 
he mixed his colors with, to render them so 
perfect, replied, "with brains." This is the 
day of transition between muscle and mind — 
between brawn and 'brain. Thought is being 
introduced as a new lever to relieve the elbow. 

Inventive genius has strewn over a single 
connty o( Ohio more agricultural machinery 
than could be found in the whole West a few 
years ago. This wonderful revolution is chang- 
ing the whole character of farming as an occu- 
pation. One intelligent man now can do more 
than a stupid hundred — more in quality and 
quantity, and derive from it more of pleasure 
and profit. The reaper, with binder attach- 
ment, whistling through the wheat-field; the 
mowing-machine and liay-rake ; the animated 
tedder, kicking up its heels in the sun; the 
prospective rotary plow, that in a few years 
shall invert our prairies; the adaptable culti- 
vator; the seed-drill; the hay-fork; the sta- 
tionary horse-power, reaching its right arm to 
any work — the.se are the iron-clad missionaries 
of regeneration, by whose eloquent efforts farm- 
ing is to become more generally profitable and 
inviting. Farm machinery is not only labor- 
saving, but it is, con.'iequently, civilizing; it 
tends to elevate and refine and lead our people 
upward in the ways of generous prosperity, 
because it saves human toil, and thus affords 
opportunity for more intellectual acquire- 
ments. 

4. Fanners mmt seek to attain a higher mental 
and social training. — This is a corollary to the 
other three propositions. A few of the best 
educated and cultured men of America are 
farmers, and their thoughtful sons are gracing 
the same occupation. But these are a small 
proportion of the whole. Why is it that a ma- 
jority of farmers feel that they are inferior, 
socially and intellectually, to a majority of the 
merchants of the adjacent city? Simply be- 
cause it is true. In the long run we are appre- 
ciated — cream rises to the surface of the milk. 
Farmers pass for what they are worth, as pre- 
cisely as any class or guild. 

" The fault, inar Brutus, is not in our st.irs, 
But in oifrselves, that we are underlings." 

As long as the maxim it held through all the 
rural districts, "the better the scholar the worse 
the t^irmer," and as long as it is believed to be 
folly for a farmer to attempt to learn anything 
of value to his calling from science or the ag- 
gregate experience of his fellows, so long will 



the bright boys be selected for "the profes- 
sions," and the blockheads for the farm. 

We must learn that mind governs matter, 
and that no art or profession demands for its 
perfect development so much general and spe- 
cial information, and so wide a range of sci- 
ence, as does the art of tilling the soil. To 
make farming attractive to our boys the scien- 
tific Why must be taught. Knowledge must 
supersede quackery. We must induce one to 
.study, as a specialty, the breeding and care 
of live stock, in all its departments; another, 
the growth of crops in the laboratory of the 
soil ; another, the requirements of bee-culture — 
for there is both pleasure and profit in it ; an- 
other, book-keeping, so as to keep a constant 
account with the farm, charging all that it ab- 
sorbs, and crediting all that it yields (and this 
every farmer ought to do); another, veterinary 
surgery — a department deemed worthy of the 
careful study of German princes; another, to 
experiment, methodically, with some of those 
unsettled problems which apjicar in almost 
every chapter of this book, and to publish the 
results. To make the boys contented with the 
farm, we must give the brain more and the 
hands less to do. 

Another thing : we ought to cultivate better 
manners — in parlor, kitchen, and field ; at the 
fireside and at the table. Urbanity and rustic- 
ity originally meant merely city life and country 
life; it is not by accident that these words have 
come to signify politeness and hoorishness. Iso- 
lation, well-improved, may give vital strength; 
but we can not acquire polish except through 
hunnin contact. By lack of this attrition, we, 
as a class, have come to undervalue the afllible 
manners which mark the gentleman. We do 
not mean the scraping and bowing, the outward 
show and studied eflect that bespeak the fop; 
but the ease and grace which come of polite 
society. Good manners are what Miss Sedg- 
wick calls the " minor morals ; " politeness is 
"real kindness, kindly expressed." Integrity 
and benevolence are not a guaranty of polite- 
ness; for politene.ss only comes from intercourse 
with well-bred people. 

To this end, ought we to seek to construct a 
society about us ; to encourage neighborhood 
gatherings, farmers' clubs, agricultural socie- 
ties, and every whole.some association that may 
bring us into contact with others. We can, if 
we will, learn from our wives also; for they are 
usually better read and better mannereil than 
we. The morals of American farming commu- 
nities are higher than those of any other coun- 



ITS niSTORY, PROGRESS, ETC. 



Z.i 



tiy in tlid world, not excepting Scotland ; and 
if we can add somewhat of mental and social 
culture, the young man may stay upon the an- 
cestral liomestead, assured that it is possible to 
find as much of Eden there, as has been en- 
joyed since the first farmer was driven out of 
Parndise. 

Progressive agriculture carries a blessing for 
the future. The progressive farmer builds 
tasteful and commodious dwellings, with fuel 
and water convenient, and every au.xiliary that 
can lessen tlie goo(J wife's toil ; lie adorns his 
grounds from time to time with shrubs and 
flowers; he grafts pippins and greenings on the 
native stock, sets out new orchards and takes 
care of old ones ; he obtains the handiest tools 
and houses them; he builds stalls for cattle and 
raises roots to feed them. He adapts the soil 
to the needs of vegetable life; if wet, he drains; 
if clayey and stifl', he applies sand or kindred 
earth; if light or sterile, he turns under clover 
and mixes heavier soil ; if cold and sour, he 
gives lime; and he almost always plows deeply 
and manures liberally. 

He teaches his sons not only how to plow, 
but why to plow ; not only how to manure, but 
what is the effect of diflcrent fertilizers ; not 
only what will thrive best on a given soil, but 
the reason for it ; not only how to drain and 
irrigate, but why — because if they know the 
Why they can not forget the How. Thus he 
turns their eyes from their .state capital, to their 
own township, school district, home, and culti- 
vates that local patriotism which is the founda- 
tion of the nation's strength. Such farming 
pays, when conducted with .skill, and it will 
always pay, morally, mentally, and pecuniarily. 

And it must be that this progressive farming 
is to be honored and sought by the most enter- 
prising American youths during the ne.xt gen- [ 
eration, as during the last generation routine 
farming has been .shunned. There are enough , 
whose ta.ste for rural life and zeal for their pro- 
fession forbid that this noble occupation shall 
suffer any decline. Members of the learned 
professions live chiefly by efibrts to abolish the 
.-ins, cure the diseases, and allay or regulate 
tlie quarrels of their fellow-men; commerce 
iloes but exchange staple for staple ; manufac- 
turers can only transform pne article into an- 
oilier; the agriculturist alone has the infinite 
satisfaction of "making two blades of grass 
grow where but one grew before," and of feel- 
ing that, by adding something to the aggregate 
wealth of the world, he is a benefactor of the 
whole race of man. 



"Ten Acres Enoilgll."— Ten acres are 
far too much fur some farmers, and a hundred 
acres too little for others. In England there 
are many farmers who more th.an support them- 
selves and large families on the product of six 
acres, besides paying heavy rents, and agricul- 
turists in Germany, who are proprietors of five 
acres, .support themselves on two, and lay up 
money on the product of the remainder. 

On the other hand, some farm thousands of 
acres successfull)'. The largest farm in the 
United States is probably that of M. L. SuxLi- 
VANT, in Champaign County, III., himself a 
resident of Columbus, O. A correspondent of 
the CincLJfnati Enquirer writes : " He owns 
and presides over seventy thousand acres of 
the best land on this hemisphere, twenty-three 
thousand acres of which is under fence, and in 
actual improvement and cultivation ; the bal- 
ance is used in herding. I will venture the 
opinion that there can not be found five acres 
of unserviceable land on Mr. Si:lliv.\nt'.s 
entire seventy thousand acres. Their produc- 
tiveness is un,surpassed. Almost all of his 
farming is conducted by labor-saving machin- 
ery, so that it is estimated that, throughout, 
one man will perform the average labor of four 
or five as conducted on small farms. He drives 
his posts by horse-power; breaks his ground 
wiih Comstock's 'spader;' mows, rakes, loads, 
unloads, and stacks his hay by horse-powe." ; 
cultivates his corn by improved machinery ; 
ditches any low ground by machinery ; sows 
and plants by machinery, so that all his labor- 
ers can ride and perform their tasks as easy as 
riding in a buggy." 

This is, perhaps, the gentleman who showed 
to TnoL.LOPE, in 1861, ten thou.sand acres of 
corn growing in one "lot." 

Many of the farms of Spain inclose ten thou- 
sand acres each, and the great estancia of Senor 
Don Jose de UnciUiZA, iij Buenos Ayres, covers 
nine hundred square miles, giving him the larg- 
est farm and the most varied collection of fruits 
and flowers in the world, and twenty thousand 
soldiers in his personal retinue. Any farmer 
will err who attempts to deduce general con- 
clusions from the success of either the largest 
or the smallest farm. 

The fact is, that farm is just large cnmiyh, 
where the most can be produced at the smallest ex- 
pense and with the least exhaustion to the soil. 
Within a radius of twenty miles of the chief 
citie.s, farms are being rapidly subdivided into 
gardens, and a few acres there, under thorough 
tillage, and high prices for the crops, will pro- 



26 



AGRICULTURE : 



duce more tlian ten times the same area at a 
distance finm market. But in America, nine- 
tcnths of t!ie land for the next century must 
be devoted to grain and stock, and these require 
room. 

There is little danger that the eligible lands 
will all be overrun, during this century or the 
next. In England, there are sixty-two persons 
t(i every hundred acres; in the United Statei^ 
lint one person to sixty-five acres, or ten to a 
square mile.* Only one-sixtli of the whole 
area is inclosed in farms, and only one-tliir- 
teenth is actually under cultivation. In 1850, 
there were 113,082,014 acres under the plow; 
in 1860, this was increased to 162,049,848 acres.t 
At the same increase per year, it will be more 
than three hundred years before the 1,700,000,- 
000 !U"res of unimproved land will be occupied, 
supposing it all to be arable. But it should 
•really take much less time than this, for the 
ratio of annual settlement will increase with 
the growth of population. 

Farmers will do well to remember that the 
average fertility of our occupied farms is rap- 
idly diminishing in all the settled States, where- 
as it ought to increase with the increasing de- 
mand for food. The progressive decadence of 
nearly all the lands brought under cultivation 
from the Aroostook to the Mississippi, arises, 
obviously enough, from the systematic scourg- 
ing of the soil with crop after crop, without 
rest or renovation. Hon. Jdstin S. Morrill, 
of Vermont, the projector of the Agricultural 
College scheme, said in his speech in explana- 
tion of that measure ; 

" Many foreign States support a population 
vastly larger per square mile than we main- 
tain, and hold their annual increase; put, by 
the system of husbandry generally pursued 
here, the land is held only until it is robbed 
of its virtue, skimmed of its cream, and then the 
owner, .soiling his waVited fields to some skin- 
flint neighbor, flies to fresh fields with the foul 
purpose to repeat the same spoliation. This 
annual exodus which prevails overall the older 
Stales, and even begins upon the first settle- 
ments of the new Stales before their remoter 
borders have lost sight of the savage, painfully 
iuilieates that we have reached the maximum 
of population our land will support in the pres- 



• Census of 1W.0. 

t The pruportiuii of nominally iuipru*tiil land in the dif- 
fiivut srctioiis of th» country is as follows: in New Eng- 
l.in.l, tw.nly-six acres in one hundred ; in the South, 
rixleen aipes in one hundred; in the North-West, twelve 
iu one bimdri.d; in the South-Wist, 8vu in one huiiJled. 



ent state of our agricultural economy. Our 
skill must be further developed or here is our 
limit. * * * Shall we not prove 
unworthy of our patrimony, if we run over the 
whole before we can learn how to manage a 
part ? 

"Our population is rapidly increasing, and 
brings annually increased demands for bread 
and clothing. If we can barely meet this de- 
mand while we have fre.sh soils to appropriate, 
we shall early reach the point of our decline 
and fall. The nation which tills the soil so as 
to leave it worse than it found it, is doomed 
to decay and degradation. Other nations lead 
us, not in the invention and handling of im- 
proved implements, but in nearly all the prac- 
tical sciences which can be brought to aid the 
management and results of agricultural labor. 
We owe it to ourselves not to become a weak 
competitor in the most important field where 
we are to meet the world as rivals. It touches 
us in tenderest points — our national honor, as 
well as our private pockets. * ■* '* 

Able to be independent, in a broader sense than 
any other people, having an area ninety-five 
times as large as England — yet over one hun- 
dred millions of our imports of the last fiscal 
year, were products of the soil. 

"Should no effort be made to arrest the dete- 
rioration and spoliation of the soil of America, 
while all Europe is wisely striving to teach her 
agriculturists the best means of hoarding up 
capital in the lands on that side of the Allan- 
tic, it is easy to see that we are doomed to be 
dwarfed in national importance; and not many 
years can pass away before our ships will he 
laden with grain — not on (heir outward hut home- 
xmrd voyage. Then, witli cheap bread no longer 
I pecHliar to America, our free inslitutions may 
be thought too dear by those of whom empires 
are not worlhy^lhe men with heart.s, hands, 
and brains, vainly looking to our shores fur 
life, liberty, and the jjur.suit of happiness." 

These are words of soberness and wisdom 
which those farmers who are nomadic in their 
tendencies would do well to ponder. Of course, 
Mr. Morrill does not mean to recommend the 
general adoption of a European standard of 
cultivation in this country, where land is com- 
paratively cheap and labor dear, but lie may 
•veil admonish farmers that there is such a 
thing as farming too much by the bushel and 
too little by the acre. 

The average size of farms in the United 
States is probably twice as great as the reader 
would suppose, being in 1860, one hundred 



II 



ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, ETC. 



27 



Siul ninety-nine acres to each farm. The av- 
enijje in Massacluisetts is the smallest, being 
nint'ty-lbiir acres ; Connecticut averages ninetj'- 
nine acres; New York, one liundrcd and six ; 
Ohio, one hiindreil and fourteen ; South Caro- 
lina, four hundred and eighty-eight; Louisiana, 
live hundred and thirty-six ; Texas, five hun- 
drcil and ninety-one, and California, si* hun- 
died and sixty-six. Tlie average through all 
tlie Southern States hefore the civil war of 
iSG0-18G5, was three hundred and twenty acres; 
now probahly som^vhat less. But throughout 
the nation, /arms are profitable in an inverse ratio 
to their size. The greed for land has become a 
national vice, supplanting true economy and 
overshadowing the pride of culture. 

Wanted— Accurate Experiment!;. 

In the preparation of this treatise, we have 
availed ourselves, as far as possible, of the aver- 
age experience of the most intelligent farmers; 
hut many highly important problems concerning 
crop-culture and farm ami domestic economy 
remain unsolved. Enlightened agriculturists 
in England, France, and Germaliy multiply 
experiments on these unseitled questions year 
by year, and thus, little by little, they ascertain 
the facts they seek; but we .\mericans, enter- 
ju'ising in matters of immediate personal. con- 
cern, are laggards in this method of .serving 
ourselves whiie we .serve the commonwealth. 

There are twenty valuable European experi- 
ments, published, reduced to an average and 
systematically brought to bear for the public 
advantage, where there is one in this country. 
But European results furnish no reliable guide 
to our difl'erent systems of labor and tillage. 
None but our own feet can find the way here. 

Every respectable fanner ought to try a num- 
ber of experiments every year; and try them 
accurately, weighing, measuring, and estimating 
the price of everything. The unsolved prob- 
lems are countless; many prominent ones are 
indicated in these pages. It is not necessary 
to disprove superstitions. It probably matters 
little which side of a transplanted tree is to the 
north; which shoulder we see the moon over; 
or where "the sign" is when we plant beans, or 
make pickles, in- wean a calf or a baby. 

But the most careful inquiry may be profita- 
bly directed to the best method of selecting 
seed corn; to the relative effect of plantinglhe 
kernels from the bulbs and tips; to the expe- 
diency of artificial fertilization of seed; to the 
conditions of top-dressing with mainire, and 
the use of special manures; to the question 



when to plant deep or shallow, and at what 
depth, under given circumstances; when to cut 
grass of difTerent varieties and for different 
uses; whether to cure much or little; whether 
to cut seed potatoes, and if so, how small; the 
cause and remedy of rot; the best methods of 
feeding for the dairy and the shambles; the 
profitableness of steaming food for stock ; and 
the hundred obscure hypotheses and sugges- 
tions in regard to fruit-growing, draining, 
fencing, building, and the vital questions of 
health and the domestic life. 

There are conflicting theories on each of 
these questions ; and they can not be certainly 
and definitely settled until experiments shall be 
numerous enough to enable the inquirer to 
strike a reliable average. It would seem that 
the desired knowledge might soon be attained, 
if experiments were made systematically — that 
is, if the best farmers of a county. State, or 
number of States could agree to act in concert 
in testing certain specified matters, and in set- 
tling certain disputed points in one depart- 
ment one year, and in another department the 
next year. Local Agricultural Societies may 
profitably give direction to these experiments. 

Theory and practice assist each other. If 
philosophy leads to practical experiment, it is 
practical experiment that leads to truth, directs 
the steps of the blind, and builds up our 
knowledge of common things. If Science is 
the eye of .\griculture. Experience is its right 
hand, and neither can get along without the 
other, in ascertaining the mysteries of that 
hidden alchemy that is the handmaid of prog- 
ress, in transnuuing the common soil, and the 
barnyard's gathered filth to gold. 

Iloiv to make Farming' Profita- 
ble. — As a mil*, every beginner in farming 
who observes the following rules will succeeil ; 
as a rule, those who violate them will fail : 

1. Buy no land that you have not capital to 
pay for — except mature wood land convenient 
to market. 

2. Reserve one-third of your capital to stock, 
fertilize, and carry on the farm. 

3. Provide good fences and gates where they 
are required ; so that your crops shall not be 
lost by the depredations of intruding animals. 

4. Furnish good farm buildings, to .secure 
properly the crops, and to afford shelter to 
animals. 

5. Select the best animals and the best im- 
plements that can be purcliased at a reasonable 
price. 



28 



6. Bring the soil into good condition by ma- 
nuring and draining, and l<eep it so by a judi- 
cious rotation, as set fortli in these pages. To 
raise good crops is often the best way to raise 
a mortgage. 

7. Lay out the fields in the best order, and 
systematically arrange your work. 



8. Employ diligence, energy, and careful 
management. 

9. Remember that the best tilled acre on each 
of our farms pays the best interest; that a man 
on a good farm, even if a small one, gets a 
good living, while a man on a poor one, 
whether large or small, is as poor as the farm, 
and always will be. 



SOILS; 



I 



Their Constituent Properties, and How to Improve and Adapt Them. 



It is generally believed that the surface soil, 
which the farmer cultivates, is mostly com- 
posed of the detritus or jjulverization of cer- 
tain rocks, formerly lying immediately under 
it. But Science tells us tliat the soil had 
chiefly a glacier origin. AoAssizsays: "There 
has been at worli a grinding machine more 
powerful than the action of the sun, of water, 
of frost, or of wearing currents. It is the 
agency of ice;, and to tliat agency we owe not 
only the grinding of the rocks to powder, and 
all ihe comminuted nuiterial which forms the 
chief portion of the loose coatings above the 
rocks, wliich serve as the basis for our agricul- 
tural operations, but we owe also tolhat natural 
machinery the mixture of rocks derived from 
different regions, which have' formed the com- 
pound coating over the whole surface of the 
earth, without which agriculture would be lim- 
ited to those regions tlie rocky foundation of 
which is such as to afford a suitable soil. The 
agency of ice has been such as to bring to- 
gether from remote countries the loose materi- 
als from the limestone rocks, the slaty rocks, 
the marl beds, the granite rocks, and the wear- 
ing of those materials into paste has trans- 
formed them into that coaling which really 
constitutes the bulk of our agricultural soil. 

"It would probably excite a smile if { were 

to begin by saying that the whole extent of the 
United States baa at one time been covered 
with a sheet of ice nuiny thousand feet in 



thickness ; and yet geology can show that it 
was so. It would probably excite doubt if it 
were stated that the whole sheet, moving from 
the north in a southerly direction, has ground 
the loose materials resting upon tlie surface of 
the earth to that paste which constitutes the 
agricultural basis ; and yet it is so. 

"I visited in 1840 the British Isles, and dis- 
covered traces of the glacier in Scotland, in 
England, and in Ireland, and sati-sfied myelf 
that that country at one time had been entirely 
under ice. Similar observations were made by 
other investigators; and, in consequence of all 
these observations, the conviction gra<lually 
prevailed among geologists that Europe had at 
one time a much colder climate than now, and 
that the boulders of Suandinaviiin origin which 
were found in Northern Germany, had been 
transported from Norway and Sweden across 
the Baltic, by masses of ice extending from the 
North Pole across these regions to the more 
temperate portions of Europe ; and gradually 
the evidence has been obtained that an ice pe- 
riod once prevailed upon the surface of the 
globe, during which the continent of Europe 
was all under ice." 

Four earths, thus originating, are tlie chief 
constituents of all soils; viz.: Silica (flint, or 
sand, from granite or sandstone), alumir.a 
(clay, from slate or granite), lime (Irom lime- 
stone), and magnesia. These are compo.sed of 
different metals, uniting with oxygen. Soils 
are generally classified as clayey, clayey loam, 



THEIR CONSTITUENT PROPERTIES, ETC. 



29 



loam, sandy loam, and sandy. Other inorganic 
substances are usually present, such as lime, 
potash, magnesia, oxide of iron, etc., but clay 
and sand constitute the bulk of the matter, and 
the proportion in which they are mixed deter- 
uiines the character of soils. 

It is very rare to find either pure clay or 
pure .sand near the surface, but a minimum per 
cent, of each has been established, below which 
the ingredient is dropped from the account in 
the classification of soils. The classification 
runs thus: 

Clayey soil haB 5 to 15 per cent. saud. 
Clayey loam 15 to 3(1 " " 

Loam 30 to GO ** *' 

Sandy loam 60 to 90 " " 

Sand 90 or more " " 

Organic matter, called humus, is also pres- 
ent in every soil, and is the product of the de- 
composition of vegetable matter. It feeds 
plants with the small amount of nitrogen they 
require; it is consumed by vegetation, and is 
reproduced whenever vegetable matter decays 
in the ground. Its restoration is the chief ob- 
ject sought, in adding periodically a supply of 
ricli manure to land. 

The proportion of organic matter (humus) 
in soils which are naturally productive of any 
useful crops, varies from one-half of one per 
cent, to seventy per cent, of their whole weight. 
AVith less than the former proportion ihey will 
scarcely .support vegetation ; with more than 
the latter, they require much admixture before 
tluy can be brought into profitable cultivation. 
It is only in boggy and peaty soils that the 
latter large proportion is ever found — in the 
best soils tlie organic matter does not average 
five per cent., and rarely exceeds ten or twelve. 
Gals and rye will grow upon land containing 
only one or one and a half per cent.; barley 
where two or three per cent, are present, but 
good wheat and Indian corn soils contain in 
general from four to eight per cent., and, if 
very stifl' and clayey, from ten to twelve per 
cent, may occasionally be detected. Though a 
certain proportion of organic matter is always 
found in a soil distinguished for its ferlility, 
yet the presence of such substances is nut alone 
surticient to impart fertility to the land. 

Tli.VER, in his work on Rational Husbandry, 
has given a table in which sixteen diHerent 
soils analyzed by him are elas.sed according to 
tlieir comparative fertility, which is expressed 
in numbers, one hundred being the most 
fertile. This table is the result of very patient 
investigation, the natural fertility of each soil 




being ascertained by its average produce 
with common tillage and manuring. It is as 
follows: 



) The value of thiscoul.l nut 
[-be fixed, as it wa<* giiiss 
J laud ; perhaps bog-earth. 



Dr. John L. Blake, formerly of Orange, 
New Jersey, sent to Dr. Thomas Antiseli,, 
an analytic chemist of New York city, two 
samples of soil from a field, with the following 
directions: "After analyzing those soils, I wish 
you to inform me in what chemical constituents 
the land is deficiei\t, and what manures or fer- 
tilizers, with the quantity of each per acre, 
will render it suitable for Indian corn, oat.s, 
wheat, or clover." The following is a copy 
of Dr. Antisell's analysis, with recommenda- 
tions: 



ANALYSIS. 



egetable matter.. 



I'' in.- 5 

Alunii 
IVr-on 
ixi.lc 
Linie. 


itid and HilicatLH ut It 


ueand 


n 1 
















-," 




■-ulnLi 






" l" 


.....Z'.'. 







Surface soil. Subsoil. 



Sii.30 


w.oo 


2.L'7 


3.20 


U.J6 


0.43 




0.06 


o.u 


0.S11 


0.21 


0.45 


O.ul 


0.04 


0.03 


0.06 


0.04 


0.118 


0.11 


o.ia 




Trace 


o.or. 




0.01 




5.70 


i'.oi) 



"The amount of organic vegetable matter in 
the soil is in moderate quantity, not sufficient 
grain crops. It is in great part composed 
of undecomposed roots, and, when separated, 
leaves a very small portion of vegetable mat- 
ter in a rotted condition, fit for the immediate 
use of plants. It therefore requires that moie 
egetable matter should be added. 

"The quantity of lime is much too small, 
either for the ciops to be raised, or for acting 
upon the rootlets not yet decomposed into 
mould. Thirty bushels of caustic lime will 
bring the amount of that substance in an acre 



30 



SOILS^CONSTITUENT PROPERTIES, ETC. 



of ground three inches deep, over one per cent. 
This will be the smallest qiumtity thai should 
be added, and it will need repeating for every 
crop of wheat. It would then, perhaps, be 
better to add it in the compost form. In any 
case, it must be added previous to, and inde- 
pendent of, the following manures. There is 
sufficient sulphuric acid present in the soil as 
soluble sulphates, to supply the wants of the 
rotation. 

" The soil contains much too small a quan- 
tity of the alkalies, potash and soda, but only a 
trace of phosphoric acid. These, also, will 
require to be added. Contrasting the subsoil 
with the surface .soil, we find the former to con- 
tain an increased amount of those substances, 
excepting the sulphates ; and thence, it is ca- 
pable of adding these mineral matters to the 
surface soil. AVhether the crops will obtain 
what they require from the suUsoil, will de- 
pend, however, upon the facility of the roots to 
penetrate the earth, and upon the flow of water 
through the subsoil, to bring into solution these 
matters. .\s these contingencies can not be de- 
pended on, it would be unsafe to trust to this 
source alone, or in great part. 

"The rotation, consisting of Indian corn, 
oats, wheat, and clover, will require, besides 
other substances not necessary to be added, such 
as silica, alumina, and oxide of iron, large 
amounts of alkalies and earths. If we suppose 
a crop of sixty-eight bushels to be raised— fifty 
bushels of oats, twenty-five bushels of wheat, 
and two tons of clover per acre, there will be 
removed off the soil by thc^e four crops, the 
following weight in pounds of these important 
mineral substances: 

Pounds. 

Potash Iia35 

Soda 29.00 

Lime 104.f.0 



MagDesii 
Sulphui-i 
Phospho 
Chloiiuu 



. 33.00 
. 54.65 
. 36.63 
. 8.11) 
366,33 

1 of this 



" The corn draws the largest porti 
amount, being equal to one hundred and forty 
pounds, composed of sulphuric and phosphoric 
acids, lime, and potash. Therefore, it would 
require per acre of 

Pounds. 
I'nleuchPd woftd nshes 200 

Coiiiiiion talt. 20 

Gypsum . 60 



Bone dust.. 



400 



' This should be incorporated with seven cu- 



bic yards of farm-yard manure. One hundred 
pounds of guano might be substituted for the 
bone dust with advantage. 

"For the wheat and oats, the following sub- 
stances might be added in a compost, per acre: 

Founds. 

Wood usljcs 100 

Nitrate of sodii 50 

Crutie Epsom salts 40 

IM 

"This will supply the deficiency for both 
crops, having in view the residual matters left 
in the soil which the corn had not removed. 

"The most efficient manure for clover, scat- 
tered broadcast, per acre, would be of 

Pounds. 

Gypsum 1.'.0 

Crude sulpbute of soda r. 75 



The methods of scientific analysis are too. 
complicated and tedious for the use of the prac- 
tical farmer, who may be desirous of speedily 
comparing difl'erent soils. The following is 
given as an approximate test in the Prize Essay 
of Kev. W. L. Kh-IJI, before the Koyal English 
.Agricultural Society : " Take a glass tube, 
three-quarters of an inch in internal diameter, 
arul three feet long; fit a cork into one end, 
and set it upright; fill it half-full of pure wa- 
ter; take nearly as much water as has been 
poured into the tube, and mix with it the por- 
ticm of soil which is to be examined, in quan- 
tity not more than will occupy six inches of 
the tube; pour the mixture rapidly into the 
liilic, and let it stand in a corner of a room, or 
supported upright in any way. In half an . 
hour it may be examined. The earths will 
have been deposited according to the size and 
specific gravity of their particles. The portion 
still suspended in the water ui.ay be allowed to 
settle; and there will appear in the tube layers 
of sand, clay, and humus, which may be meas- 
ured by a scale, and thus the proportions nearly 
ascertained. When a farmer is about to pur- 
chase a farm, of which the quality is not well 
known to him, he may be much assisted in his 
judgment by this simpler experiment, if he has 
no time or opportunity for a more accurate 
analysis." 

Dr. P. A. Chadboukse, President of the 
Wisconsin University and formerly President 
of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, gives 
the following simple process^ whereby any per- 
son can determine the proportions of sand and 
clay in a given specimen of soil: "Take any 
convenient quantity of soil, dry it thoroughly 



METHODS OF ANALYSIS. 



31 



anil (hen weigh it and note the weight. Tlien 
put it in water and hoil it an hour or two, and 
wlien cool, ponr all into a tall, narrow glass re- 
ceiver, a large vial will do (being careful to 
have no more tlian will fill it, water included) 
and shake it well together. In two or three 
minutes the sand will be settled to the bottom 
and the clay, or a portion of it, will remain sus- 
pended in the water. Pour this off carefully 
nearly down to the sand and add clean water, 
shake it up again and when the sand has set- 
tled, pour oS, an4 repeat this operation till 
what remains will no longer cloud the water. 
Then pour out the sand upon a piece of paper, 
dry it, weigli it, and compare it with the gros.s 
weight, and you have the proportion of the two 
ingredients." 

A few experiments of this kind, with famil- 
iar soils, will enable one to judge by the eye 
and touch, of the character of any soil with 
snflicient accuracy to assign it to its proper 
class. This would be an accomplishment to 
any farmer, and is one that may easily be ac- 
quired. 

Earth, true to her motherly relation, trans- 
mit.s her qualities in a remarkable manner to 
vegetation. All the four varieties of soil — lime, 
clay, sand, and magnesia — are indispensable as 
the food of plants. Of these, lime, as a carbon- 
ate, acetate, or sulphate, is far the largest ingre- 
dient. " The salsola soda," says Dr. Thomson, 
"is the only plant in which we know it does 
not exist." It was found in the ashes remain- 
ing after the combustion of oak wood, at the 
rate of 32 J)er cent., by M. Saussure. In that 
of the poplar at the rate of 27 per cent. He | 
discovered also S per cent, in those from the 
wood of the hazel ; 56 in those of the mulberry ' 
wood; 26 in the hornbeam; 14 in the ripe plant 
of peas ; 1 per cent, in the straw of the wheat, 
but nut liny in its seeds; 12 in the chaff of bar- 
ley, but none in either its flour or its bran ; nei- 
ther did he find any in the oat plant; but then, 
in tlie ashes of the leavesof the fir (Pinu^aJi'c*,) 
raised on a limestone hill, he found 43.5 per 
cent. 

The presence of sand Ls almost equally gen- 
eral. In the Dutch rush it is so plentiful that 
that pl.-nt is used by the turner to polish wood, 
bone, and even brass. It forms so considerable 
a portion of the ashes of wheat straw, that when 
these are exposed to the action of the blow- 
pipe, it unites with the potash found also in 
the straw, and forms an opaque glass. Sir H. 
Davy found it most copiously in the epidermis 
or outer bark of the plants he examined. 



Magnesia and alumina exist in smallci 
quantities. 

The proportions of the earths contained in 
the commonly cultivated crops of the farmer 
have been ascertained by M. Schr.5;der. This 
able chemist obtained from thirty-two ounci-s 
of the seeds of wheat, rye, barley, oats, and of 
rye straw, the following results: 





Wheat. 


Rye. 


Barjc). 


Oats. 


Rve 
Siraw. 


Silica 


12.6 
13.4 
O.fi 
5.(1 
2.3 

47.3 


15.fi 
13.4 
14.2 
1.4 
3.2 
O.H 

4S.- 


66.7 
24. « 
2.'..3 
4.2 
6.7 
3.S 


144.02 
33.75 
33.IW 
4.115 
6.95 
4.115 

227.S 




Curb, ol'magut'siii 


46.2 

2S.2 


0.\i()t: uf luaiifiaiu-se. 
oxide of iron 


6.S 








131.5 


23S.3 



According to HuxTABLE, an average acre of 
wheat carries off with it no le.ss than 210 
pounds of inorganic elements, namely: 30 
pounds in the grain, and ISO pounds in the 
straw — a striking proof of the importance of 
consuming the straw upon the land. Barley 
takes off 213 pounds — 53 in the grain, and 160 
in the straw. Oats take 316 pound.s — 32 in the 
grain, 30 in the husks, 54 in the chaff, and 200 
in the straw. A crop of turnips, of twenty 
tons per acre, when removed off the land, car- 
ries off 650 pounds of mineral matter. Pota- 
toes, including the tops, take off 580 pounds, 
the tops containing about 400 pounds. Cabbage 
carries off nearly 1,000 pounds. 

It will pay the farmer to study these figures. 
The more intimately he makes himself ac- 
quainted with the constitution of his .soil and 
subsoil, of the chemical effects of his manures, 
and of the needs of his prospective crops, the 
better qualified he will be to adajit one to the 
other, and the more likely to reap bountiful 
harvests. 

The natural character of the land indicates 
what crops should be put thereon, and what 
manures will most profitably modify it. The 
relation between the plant and soil is very in- 
timate. Each field will best support a vegeta- 
tion suited to its own nature ; and though this 
may be counteracted to some extent by the ef- 
forts of the agriculturist, yet, on the cessation 
of these efforts, the vegetation returns to its 
original type. The love of plants for certain 
minerals confines them to very narrow limits; 
and where an alteration of the soil occurs, 
whereby the mineral is diminished in amount, 
or removed out of the soil, the plant disap- 
pears. This frequently occurs in fields h hich 
have been limed; the character of the weeds 



32 



SOILS — CONSTITUENT PROPERTIES, ETC. 



is changed, and a new set of plants, whica 
delight in lime, displaces the older growth. 
The hemp, flax, nettle, and all of the botanical 
family urticese, flourish in soils which contain 
potash; the salicorniese family, as aaniphire, 
glasswort, and saltwort, in soda soils; and the 
leguniinosse, as clover, beans, and peas, prefer 
soils which have plaster as a constituent. 

If fields of sand, of clay, or of gravel are 
destitute of oi-ganic matter or vegetable mold, 
the deficiency may be supplied by the applica- 
tion of peat or muck, or vegetable or animal 
matter of any kind. 

Should a given soil prove to be almost desti- 
tute of liuie (of which it should contain two 
or three per cent.), and yet to possess the re- 
quisite quantity of soluble and insoluble geine 
— vegetable mold (humus) — about fifty to one 
liundred bushels of lime to the acre, plowed 
heavily under, would afford enough of the 
needed element. 

If the deficient ingredient was potash, the 
same number of bushels of unslaked ashes 
would, in all probability, furnish the necessary 
quantity of potash. 

Magnesia, if absent from the soil, might be 
supplied by one hundred pounds of Epsom 
salts, or by ashes. 

If the missing substance should be soda, a 
few bushels of common salt would supply that 
deficiency. 

If oxide of iron and manganese were want- 
ing, a suflSciency could be found in the ashes 
spoken of above; or they might both be added 
by turning up an inch or two of the sub.soil, if 
that happened to be red clay. Should there be 
sulphate of iron present in the surface soil, or in 
the subsoil, when plowe<l up, its sulpliuricacid 
would very speedily combine with the lime ap- 
plied, form a sulphate of lime, and oxide of 
iron, and thus provide the former ingredient. 

If ammonia be wanted, as it generally is, for 
the supply is seldom too abundant for fertility, 
it may be supplied from the barn-yard or the 
hog-pen, and its quantity greatly increased by 
the use of the liquid manure from the stable or 
the barn-yard. This liquid, if mixed with the 
solid manure and taken to the field before the 
ammonia escapes, or put in the compost heap 
with peat or any organized matter, and mixed 
with sulph.ale of lime or plaster, so as to fix 
the ammonia before it escapes in ga.«, will af- 
ford a rich supply. 

The phosphates are also present in good 
soiLs. Pulverized or ground bones are some- 
times used to supply this element. But the 



main supply of the phosphates must be the 
admixture of lime and plaster with products 
of the stable and barn-yard. 

Indeed, if common ashes were applied, most 
of the important salts and inorganic sub- 
stances, absolutely necessary, would he thereby 
furnished. A heavy dressing of barn-yard and 
stable manure should have the same efiect, as 
in these all those inorganic, as well as organic, 
substances abound, which go to feed plants and 
form their structure. If both lime and mag- 
nesia should .seem to be absent, an application of 
magnesian lime would be the simplest remedy. 

By way of comparison, we append a table 
from Norton's Elements of Scientific Agricul- 
ture. The first column gives the elements of 
a soil fertile without manure; the second, of a 
poorer one, fertile with manure; and the last 
column of one known to be very barren. An 
analysis of one hundred pounds of each soil 
shows the following result : 



Miiaru'sia 

Uxideof irun.... 
ll.xi.l.- of i.M.ne:, 

J'..i..-h 

S.il|,l,uliCi,.,.l.. 
lMiM»pLi.lic acid 
Oai l»uiiic acid.... 
Loss during tlie 



The substances which are exclusively present 
in the soil, represented as being fertile without 
manure, are potash, soda, and chlorine. They 
are so abundant, indeed, that any attempt to 
replace them to the same extent in the second 
variety of soil, would involve an expenditui'e 
greatly exceeding the value of the land. They 
are not, however, necessary to be present to 
that degree, so far as products for a series of 

ne years are concerned. M. Puvis has 
stated that "the thousandth part "of any one 
of the elements is sufficient to change the nature 
of a .soil, and infu.se into it fresh productive 
powers. The farmer should, therefore, esti- 
mate that by giving a good dressing ol' barn- 
yard and stable manure, and applying one 
hundred bushels of ashes per acre, he would 
not only correct the defects of the soil, but pre- 
pare it to go through a rotation, and be in an 
improved condition at the end of it. In barn- 
yard and stable manures, and ashe.s, there will 



UOW TO CIIAMJi: SOtLS. 



33 



not only be found the deficient salts, but every 
other substimce tliat enters into the texture of 
plants, their flowers, seeds, and fruits. 

The third soil described in the table, is more 
radically defective. It is deficient in potash, 
soda, chlorine, sulphuric acid, phosplioric acid, 
and carbonic acid — each and all of wliich 
biidies, in a greater or less degree, are abso- 
hurly essential to a productive soil — and then, 
it lias an excess of oxide of iron, and a com- 
paratively small quantity of lime and organic 
matter. Hence, the treatment must be more 
radical, and more time be devoted to the cure. 
Two green crops, say of peas, clover, or buck- 
wheat, should be grown and plowed in, as a 
preliminary process. To prepare the ground 
to grow these crops advantageously, a compost 
should be formed of ten loads of stable and 
barn-yard manure, ten loads of river or marsh 
nmd, or peat, dried, one bushel of plaster, five 
bushels of pulverized bones, five gallons of oil, 
and six bushels of refuse salt of the meat or 
fish packers, per acre. This being formed into 
a heap, should remain a few weeks, and then 
be thoroughly shoveled over, so as to be well 
mixed together. This being spread and plowed 
in, the land should be top-dressed with fifty 
bushels of lime and one hundred bushels of 
ashes, then the peas, clover, or buckwheat 
should be sown, harrowed in and rolled. So 
soon as the plant sown conies into bloom, it 
should be rolled and plowed in, the ground 
harrowed, a second fifty bushels of lime be 
sown thereon, and a second crop of the plant 
selected, be sown, harrowed in and rolled. 
AVhen this comes into bloom, it shouhl also be 
plowed in, when the ground should be har- 
rowed, and sowed to wheat. Clover and or- 
chard grass seeds should be sown thereon the 
ensuing spring, say at the rate of fifteen pounds 
of clover seed, and two bushels of orchard grass 
seed, per acre. Such treatment would bring 
the land describi'd in the third column, up to 
a profitable state of prcpduction. 

Besides their division according to texture, 
already given, soils may be otherwise distin- 
guished: 

First. According to their powers of produc- 
tion, when they are termed rich or poor; and 

Second, .\ccording to their habitual relation 
with respect to moisture, when they are termed 
wet or dry. 

The power to retain moi.sture in proper 
fjuantities is one of the most ituportant quali- 
ties of soil. "The power of the soil to absorb 
wa:er by cohesive attraction," said Sir IlUM- 



PUREY Davy, "depends in a great measure on 
the .state of division of its parts; the more 
divided they are, the greater is their absorbent 
power. The diflerent constituent parts of soils 
likewise appear to act, even by cohesive attrac- 
tion, with different degrees of energy; thus, 
vegetable substances seem to be more absorbent 
than animal substances, animal substances more 
.so than compounds of alumina and silica, and 
compounds of alumina and silica more absorb- 
ent than carbonates of lime and magnesia. 

^ 5 -5- S 5 S -S 

"The stiff" clays, approaching to pipe-clay in 
their nature, which take up the greatest quan- 
tity of water when it is poured upon them in a 
' fluid form, are not the soils which absorb most 
I moisture from the atmosphere in dry weather; 
' they cake, and present only a small surface to 
I the air, and the vegetation on them is generally 
burnt up almost as readily as on sands. The 
I soils that are most efficient in supplying the 
I plant with water by atmospheric absorption 
are those in which there is a due mixture of 
sand, finely divided clay and carbonate of lime, 
with some animal or vegetable matter; aiul 
which are so loose and light as to be freely 
I permeable to the atmosphere. With respect to 
j this quality, carbonate of lime and animal and 
vegetable matter are of great use in soils; they 
I give absorbent (lOwer to the soil without giving 
I it tenacity; .sand, which also destroys tenacity, 
on the contrary, gives little absorbent power. I 
I have," he says, " compared the absorbent pow- 
1 ers of many soils with respect to atmospheric 
I moisture, and havealways found it greatest in the 
most fertile soils; so that it aflbrds one method 
of judging of the i)roductiveness of laud." 

Davy s experiments and Ctjthbert John- 
son's are confirmed by those of M. ScntTELER, 
who varied his observations at intervals of three 
days and obtained the following results : 



siltcioiis Rand.. 
CalCitroils sand. 
Gypsnni powdei 

Sjinriv clay 

L..aniy clay 

Stiff flny 



^ 


i 




- 






























=^ 


■■' 




grs 


g,. 
n 


' 


3 


3 

1 

JS 




:«i 


31 




3<> 


4S 




31 

Ti". 
4.1 


so 




■//, 


;« 


■ 


■-"J 


3Z 


3 



34 



SOILS — CONSTITUENT PROPRETIES, ETC. 



An experirnent designed to show the reten- 
tive power o( the different soils, resulted in the 
following manner: In one hundred pounds of 
dry soil, water will begin to drip, if it is a 

Quartz sand when it has ahsorhfd 25 lbs. water. 
Calcareous sanj •• ■' 20 

Loamy soil " " 40 " 

English chalk " " 45 

Clay loam " " 60 

Pure clay " " 75 " 

Johnson has extended his examination of 
absorbent power to various organic fertilizers, 
with the following result: 

Parts. 
1000 parts of horse ilung dried in a tempera- 
ture of 100 degrees, absorbed, by exposure 
for three hours to air saturated with niuist- 

nre and of tlie temperature of 62 degrees 145 

lOIKi parts of cow dung, under the same cir- 
cumstances, absorbed 130 

1000 parts pi2 dung 120 

1000 p;irt8 sheep dung 81 

1000 parts pigeon's dung .10 

The attractive power of the earth for the 
oxygen gas of the atmosphere, is also an im- 
portant element to be considered. Some re- 
markable experiments were made by Mr. Hill, 
demonstrative of the great benefits plants derive 
from oxygen ga.s being applied to their roots : 
hyacinths, melons, Indian corn, etc., were the 
subjects of the experiments. The first were 
greatly improved in beauty, the second in fla- 
vor, the last in size, and all in vigor. This, 
-oo, is another use of increasing the moisture 
of the soil, by deep and complete plowings, 
for Humboldt and Sohubler have clearly 
shown that a dry soil is quite incapable of 
absorbing oxygen gas. " Thus," says Dr. 
JouKsoN, "it must be evident to the most 
listless observer, that the more deeply and 
finely a soil is pulverized, and its earths 
rendered permeable, the greater will be the 
absorption by them of both oxygen and 



watery vapor from the surrounding atmos- 
phere." 

A free access of the air to the soil also adds 
to its fertility, by promoting the decomposition 
of the excretory matters of plants and other or- 
ganic substances of the soil. It also increa.se3 
its temperature ; for earths are bad conductors 
of heat. The best agriculturists in Europe and 
America find that ventilation of the roots of 
plants with the cultivator, is as important as 
subduing the weeds. Vegetation has lungs; 
and even the soil can be suffocated. Every 
farmer knows that when the inert substratum 
of most cultivated soils is first brought to the 
surface, it is entirely barren, and that yet, by 
mere exposure to the atmosphere, it becomes 
readily productive. 

From these experiments of the chemical 
philosopher, the intelligent farmer can learn 
many new and important conclusions with re- 
gard to the improved cultivation of the earth. 
From each of the above tables the studious 
farmer, though he be a plain man, may learn 
how to increase his harvests. He may learn 
why fallowing and finely pulverizing promote 
so obviously and so permanently the fertility 
of his acres. He may learn how manures act 
primarily upon his soils, and secondarily upon 
his crops ; how the mixture of sand with clay 
and muck with sand improves the texture of 
both; how the roots, like the tops, are exhila- 
rated by the oxygen and nitrogen of the air 
and quickened by the warm touch of the sun- 
shine; and how deep plowing returns com- 
pound interest, by giving the elastic fluids free 
passage to the dormant earth. Thus he may 
learn why the new path of science is belter 
than the old path of tradition; and improve 
his mind by examining more closely the im- 
portant properties with which the Creator has 
endowed the soil. 



i 



FERTILIZERS 



Their Qualities, Uses, and Combinations. 



There is nothing move generous in reciproc- 
ity tluin tlie soil; if tlie farmer feeds it when 
it is hnngry it will feed him when lie is hun- 
gry. The earth will not be robbed with im- 
punity, but she freely exchanges fruit for fer- 
tilization, luxury for refuse. The [larable of 
the barren fig-tree still instructs us; we must 
"dig about it and dung it," and then we may 
reip the harvest. Manures, judiciously ap- 
plied, are the great sources of agricultural 
wealth. When a successful farmer wa.s asked 
111 what he attributed his success, he answered, 
" First, manure." "Wliat second?" "Manure." 
"What third?" "Manure!" The old Scotch 
minister, when taken around by liis parishion- 
ers, in time of drouth, from field to field, to 
pray for rain and the blessing of Heaven upon 
the parched and feeble crops, coming to a very 
poor and neglected field, said to his brethren, 
" Pass on, pass on ; it be no use to pray o'er this 
fiL'ld — it needs manure!" 

The use of this auxiliary in vegetation was 
probably not practiced until the soils began to 
lose their natural power from overcropping. 
The fabulous king AuGEAS is said to have had 
a supply on hand, consisting of the accumula- 
ted excrement of three thousand oxen for ten 
years, but he made no wiser use of his treasure 
than to hire Herccles to wash it away. It 
was but just that the spendthrift lost his head. 

A manure is any fertilizing coinpound or in- 
gredient added to a soil in which it is deficient. 
All cultivated lands should contain the earths, 
silica, carbonate of lime, alumina, decompos- 
ing organic matter, and certain salts, and where 
one of these is held in too small a quantity ibr 
the economy of vegetation, its addition consti- 
tutes the great art of manuring. 

Manures divide themselves into three classes: 
1. The earthy, which are by far the most per- 
manent portions of a soil, and are usually ap- 
plied in the largest proportion.s. 2. The organic 
^vegetable and animal), which are the least 



permanent, and are u.sed in much smaller quan- 
tities than the earthy; and .3d, the saline, which 
are the most sparingly applied of all fertilizers, 
are the most readily absorbed by plants, and 
whose period of duration in the soil is longer 
than the organic, but less than the earthy. 

To proceed successfully the farmer must 
know : First, what food constituents liis crop 
will require ; second, what is the previous his- 
tory of the field ; third, what is the composi- 
tion of his manures. 

The following classification is condensed 
from a small pamphlet by Professor J. B. 
Lawes : 

"1. Plants Cultivated for their Primary Organs 
— Leaf and Stem. — Manures suitable for meadow 
grass, clover, cinquefoil', tares, cabbages, and 
other fodder plants. Substances yielding am- 
monia rapidly. Sources. — Peruvian guano, sul- 
phate and muriate of ammonia; dung from 
stall-fed cattle, salts of lime, with phosphate of 
ammonia, .soot. 

"2. Plants Cultivated for their Intermediate 
Organs — Bulb or Tuber. — Manures for turnips 
and mangel wurtzel. Phosphates, sulphates, 
and carbon. Sotirces. — Inferior sorts of guano, 
superphosphate of lime, well-rotted dung. 

" 3. Plants Cultivated for their Ultimate Or- 
gans — Seed. — Manures for wheat, barley, oats, 
peas, beans, tares, and clover seed. Organic 
matter, slowly yielding ammonia. Sotirces. — 
Residue from highly-manured green crops, 
rape cake, dung Ironi stall-fed cattle. 

" Under class 1, meadow grass should be ma- 
nured with a substance like Peruvian guano or 
soot, while the clover should receive, in addi- 
tion, a salt of lime. In class 2, nuingel wni- 
zel nniy receive a larger amount of nitrogi ii- 
ized matter than turnips, as it does not readily 
produce leaves. In class 3, oats and beans are 
less liable to injury, from too large an amount 
of manure, than the other crops." 

A crop of wheat yielding thirty bushels will 
(35) 



36 



FEETILIZEES — QUALITIES, USES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



contain, besides water, about 1727 pounds of 
carbon, 1800 pounds of oxygen, 242 pounds of 
liydrogen, 49 pounds of nitrogen, and 98 
pounds of incombustible matter, containing 11 
pounds of lime, 6J pounds of magnesia, 33 
pounds of potash, and 19 pounds of phospho- 
ric acid, and 98 pounds of silica, with small 
quantities of other substances. Kow from what 
sources does the wheat plant obtain these in- 
gredients? We know that all the carbon 
(charcoal) was derived from gas (carbonic 
acid) contained in the atmosphere and soil ; 
that the oxygen and hydrogen were obtained 
from water; the nitrogen from either ammonia 
or nitric acid — substances present in both soil 
and atmosphere; the lime, potash, silica, and 
other incombustible ingredients we know to be 
derived from the soil. These plant-foods are 
the same for all crops ; with these in abun- 
dance, and suitable conditions of climate, etc., 
any crop can be grown. Plants have thus the 
wonderful power of producing sucli substances 
as starch, sugar, woody fibre, gluten, from a few 
simple gases, water, and the ingredients of 
rocks. 

" Looking at the question abstractly," says 
Johnson, " it must be evident, that as animals 
receive almost the whole of their nutriment, 
either directly or indirectly, from the vegetable 
kingdom, their excrement, or their decomposed 
bodies, returning these to the soil, must form 
the best manure." 

The three best crops for making both feed 
and manure are corn, clover, and roots, such as 
the difl'erent kinds of field beets and turnips. 
All these are excellent for the results sought, 
and should be cultivated on every farm. Where 
land is cheap and good for corn, as in the 
Western States, corn will be mainly grown for 
feed, and manure will not be considered in se- 
lecting the crop. But there are many reasons 
for growing more clover, even at the West. It 
is cheaper for at least a portion of winter for- 
age, while its fertilizing and renovating effects 
while growing are needed on thousands of fail- 
ing wheat fields. The rich nitrogenous manure 
obtained by feeding clover, if applied to wheat 
or corn, will largely increase these crops. 



From numerous analyses and careful experi- 
ments. Professor La WES estimates the value of 
the manure made by the consumption of a ton 
each of many different kinds of feed. "Calcu- 
lating the clover," he says, "from two cuttings, 
one and a half tons for the first and one for 
the second, and one ton for the roots, and add- 
ing one-fourth for the straw and stalks of the 
other crops, I find that one acre of each of the 
following crops will produce in manure: 





Diatiiptioo 


uf Too J. 


Yielil pir 


Viiluo nf ma- 
iiuru (rum a 
Ion of eaili 
kind uf feed. 


Value of 




.•iV.toiis 
411 biiRli. 

311 ;| 

5i«I " 


89 fit 

i; 13 

ti 6.-> 
fi 32 

















Bill lev 










12 M 




Ills 









According to this table it takes nearly IJ 
acres of meadow hay to equal one of clover ; 
nearly 3 acres of corn ; nearly 5 of barley and 
oats; about 2i acres of peas, and nearly 2J of 
turnips, to return the same value in manure as 
one acre of clover. 

We have from the same authority a table 
showing the comparative value of a ton of ma- 
nure made from a much greater variety of food 
given to cattle. It is as follows : 



. Decorticated Co 

I0U-8>'ed cake 

. Kapu calie 

. Malt dust 

. Lentils 

, l.insi-ed 

; jiv:iUa'-'Z'.'Z''.'.''''. 

. I'l-ns 

, Locust l,.;nis. ,. 

, Outs 

, \Mieat 



13. luiliiin corn $f, n'. 

14. JIalt C. ir. 

l.-i. lillll^^ f, 32 

lli. 1 l"\-i l.:ii 9 r.4 

17. M,;ul..« li:i\ fi 43 

IN. (1^1 1 sl!,,« ■> '.»> 

19, W l[. ,u siKiu 2 !■» 

.11, 11 Ml. I -iKiw 2 2:> 

.1, liil; - I M 

-■J. .Miinj.U 1 117 



X. A. WiLLARD, of Utica, New York, vis- 
ited the farm of Mr. Lawes, in England, in 
18G6, and on his return furnished to the Cuuit- 
try Gentleman the following valuable table of 
results obtained by the scientific farmer of 
Kothamsled : 



VALUABLE EXPERIMENTS. 



37 



»»§Tt?W 



r?^ yiFjiPjjstJfyGcsg 



" I 3 I 









|5 SSS'i'ilO 

5-* "ssH^e a 



3 £■ = 






roH-^ 



It's ^ 



38 



FERTILIZEnS — QUALITIES, rSES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



Mr. WiLLARD added : " Tlie different plots 
of grass are cut to a line, and witli tlie great- 
est care, so tliat eacli may be ke))t sepa- 
rate. They are kept separate while cnrins, and 
each goes upon tlie scales and is wt-ighed accu- 
rately, so that there shall be no mistake or 
guess-work in the matter. Just before loading 
upon the cart the sampler goes through the' 
(liU'erent pieces and selects samples from each 
lo be used in the laboratory. The influence of 
the difiereut manures has a marked etTect upon 
the quality of the grasses, and it would seem 
that certain fertilizers have the power of chang- 
ing the entire character of plants 'upon a field, 
forcing out the one to give place to another. 

"The grass upon No. 1 (see table page 37), 
was of very good quality, but rather coarse. 
No. 2 was finer, with a little clover among it. 
No. 3 was very fine and of good quality. No. 



hungry for the elements which these manuies 
contain. 

Application of Manures.— Ought 
manure to be applied directly to the surface or 
be plowed under? This question is still much 
discussed, and is f;ir from being settled — the 
best cultivators differing. As to the propriety 
of top-dressing meadow lands there is little 
difference of opinion; and many of the oldest 
and wisest farmers of the country, like John 
Johnston, of New York State, insist that a 
top-dressing is best for all crops and all lands. 
So much interest has this question excited, 
that some five years ago the Massachusetts 
Agricultural Society offered premiums to in- 
duce farmers in different parts of the State to 
try experiments with manure placed at differ- 
ent depths in the soil.* The plan was as fol- 
4 very good quality, and in a more Ibrward j lows : Five lots of the same size, on similar 
state of maturity, (6) coarser than (a), and in j soil, side by side, were to be selected, marked, 
both a very little clover. No. 5, plenty of h""! numbered. On number one the manure 
grass:— dark color, fine, and no clover. No. 6 i ^^'''^ to be plowed in deeply; on number two it 
like the above. No. 7, some clover, and 8 less was to be plowed in four inches; on number 
than 7. No. 9 had but very little clover, and j three it was to be spread on the surface and har- 
10 of similar character. No. 11, very coarse ] '"owed in; on number four it was to be spread 
grass and no clover among it. No. 12, grass Ion the surface and not harrowed in; on nura- 



very fine, with a little clover. No. 13, like 9 
and 10; 14, very coarse grass and no clover; 
15, very coarse, and 17 finer than 15. No. 18, 
very good." 

UiflTercnt .*oiiS require different treat 
menl. Clay soils should be treated with lime, 
ashes, and light composts; such as contain stra 
and partially decomposed vegetable matters keep 
such soils light, and furnish by their decompo- 
sition the humus in which they are deficient. 
Black, moist soils, that have been long cidti- 
vated, are generally exhausted of the lime and 
sand needed for grass and grain crops ; hence 
composts containing sand are especially useful on 
such soils. Lime may be applied freely upon 
the surface of such soils in the form of plas- 
ter, slaked lime, or superphosphate, with advan- 
tage. On light, sandy soils, well-worked com- 
po.-'ts, rendered as fine as possible, and contain- 
ing a large proportion of muck or other carbon- 
aceous substances, and animal manures of all 
sorts, are peculiarly appropriate. The influ- 
ence of animal nuinures upon sandy soils is 
well illustrated by the luxuriant growth of 
corn and melons upon the sands of .Cape Cod, 
by means of fish ofl'al and prepared fish ma- 
nures, and by the application of white-fish '*'^'"° ^^*'"' •"' ^'""^ ^^ 

, , r r, ■ r, , .. I M. D. , ot Massacliusetts, 

along the coast ot Connecticut. Such soils are ' Ktport, isgo. 



her five no manure was to be put. The lots 
were all to be planted and cultivated alike for 
three years in succession, without the addition 
of any more manure, ami the entire crop of 
each lot for each year weighed, and an account 
of the .seasons, with description of the soil, was 
to accompany each rei^ort. The reports indi- 
cated that the best average results were ob- 
tained from placing the manure about four 
inches deep. 

The dei)th at which manures should be cov- 
ered will depend upon three circumstances — 
the nature of the soil, the kind of manure, and 
the kind of crop. All manures should be 
placed at a sufiicient depth in the soil to keep 
them moist, or they will be inactive. Manures 
containing a large proportion of volatile ele- 
ments should be buried never less than four 
inches. These elements, when the soil be- 
comes warm, assume the gaseous form, and 
tend to rise to the surface, and will be diffused 
through the soil lying over them, and, if there 
are eleiuenls in the soil having an aflSnity for 
them, will be retained. Other elements wliich 
are not volatile, as lime, ashes, muck, and salt, 
but which are soluble in water, may be safely 



WN and Joshua Reynolds, 
United states Agricultural 



AMMONIA ASHES — BONES. 



39 



applied on or near the surface, where they will 
be^dissolved by the rain and sink into the soil. 
Some vegetables strike their roots deeply into 
the soil, and for their perfect development re- 
quire a deep tiltli. In such instances trench- 
ing or deep plowing is peculiarly beneficial. 
For sueli crops a portion of the manure should 
be worked deeply into the soil. 

Some haul out manure in the Fall or Winter 
and leave it in heaiw till Spring. This prac- 
tice is objectionable, because it prevents an un- 
equal distribution^ and much of the volatile 
gases is lost. To leave manure spread broad- 
cast all Winter is almost as bad. Keep it 
under cover till ready to apply it for the crop. 

Ail" — Ammonia. — It is well known that 
humus, or upper mold, the most valuable con- 
stituent of soils, is formed by the action of the 
atmo.sphere on the animal and vegetable mat- 
ter contained in the earth. The air, however, 
coming into contact only with tl'.e surface of 
our planet, this fertile substance is generated 
only to a slight depth. An invention has been 
introduced into Germany for increasing this 
agent of fertility, by Herr Nokenbruch, of 
the Agricultural College connected with the 
University of Bonn. It consists in introdu- 
cing air mechanically to the subsoil, but the 
method nmst be simplified before it can be of 
public utility. 

Professor Ville, in France, has demonstra- 
ted that the nitrogen of air is directly assimi- 
lated by plants; and also, that ammonia is 
similarly absorbed from the air. He introdu- 
ced a quantity of ammonia under a bell-glass, 
and he says: "From the very first day, the in- 
Uiience of the addition was manifested. The 
leaves of the plants became tinged with a 
fresher and brighter green; the stems rose 
higher, the branches more numerous, and had 
more leaves; all the plants, however, were not 
afl'ected to the same degree, the greatest change 
being observed in the cereals." 

Allies. — Take care of the wood ashes made 
on your place; don't throw them away or sell 
them, and don't expose them to the weather. 
They contain some of the very best fertilizing 
qualities. Five bushels of ashes, mixed with 
two double-horse cart-loads of marsh or river 
muck or peat will convert the whole into good 
manure. The Maine Farmer tells of a farjiier 
who went into the soap-mafcing business some 
years ago,' for the purpose of securing the ashes, 
after having been leached, to apply to his 



land. He made his farm of clayey lo;^.m a 
garden. 

W. H. White, of South Windsor, Conn., 
a thoughtful observer, also testifies to the great 
value of leached ashes, although in leaching 
they part with an important fertilizing ele- 
ment. On rich land, wood a.shes tend to pre- 
vent oats and wheat from lodging, by furnish- 
ing silex to strengthen the stem. Hickoiy 
ashes are worth fifty cents a bushel on s"ine 
soils. Levi Bartlett says he has .'^ecn the 
effect of ashes upon land "for twenty years 
after their application." Turf ashes are al- 
most equally valuable. 

Coal ashes are by no means worthless. In 
heavy clay soils, they will, by mechanical ac- 
tion, tend to make the ground porous and easy 
of tillage. In potato fields they render the 
soil light and dry, and so favor the healthful- 
ness of the tuber. Thirty, fifty, or even a hun- 
dred bushels an acre, on a clayey loam, are not 
too much. They may be used advantageously 
as a top-dressing to grass lands; also as a mulch 
to fi-uit trees in Summer, and a protection to 
their roots in Winter. 

Bones. — Save the bones as you would save 
dimes; apply them to your land in the most 
economical form, as you would reap dollars. 
The use of bones as manure was begtm in Eng- 
land shortly before 1820, and in 186S fifty 
thousand tons were imported there. The phos- 
phate of lime can be more easily obtained i'rom 
bones than from any other common source. 
They are generally composed of, say, two-filths 
fat and gelatine (producing ammonia), two- 
tilths phosphate of lime, one-tenth moi.sture, 
and three per cent, of carbonate of lime. 

How to prepare bones for manure. If added 
in their unpre(iared state, they will yield an- 
nually a small portion of substance to the crops, 
but a hundred bushels will produce no more 
effect for a single year, when thus applied, than 
five bushels when finely broken or pulverized. 
There are five methods of preparing bones. 

1. Gnjndinjf is an expensive mode. MiUsand 
great outlay are involved. 

2. Burning is a summary process, but is at- 
tended with a loss of fat and albumen, valuable 
for manure, amounting to about onc-lhiid of 
the whole. 

3. Dissolving is an expeditious mode, and 
much practiced. First break the bones with a 
hammer, then throw them into tubs or casks, 
containing a fluid which is five or six parts 
water and one part sulphuric acid ^oil ol vlt- 



40 



FERTILIZERS — QUALITIES, USES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



riol). Let them soak till they become a con- 
Eistent paste. The water then may be evapo- 
rated, and a pure snperpliosphate is left — one 
of tlie most valuable of manures. 

4. Decomposition: If fresh bones are thrown 
into compact heaps and mixed with moist, 
sandy loam and ashes, they will gradually be- 
eonie heated and decomposed. The result will 
be hastened, by occasionally sprinkling with 
mine, or mixing with horse manure. The 
heap should be covered with muck or charcoal 
to retain the ammonia. 

5. Steaming has lately been adopted to some 
extent. This is done by using a .strong boiler 
with a false bottom inside, on which the bones 
are placed. Water is then added so as par- 
tially to cover the bones, and when converted 
into steam, it com()letely envelops them, for 
twenty-four hours, at a pressure of twenty-four 
pounds to the square inch, when they are re- 
duced to an unresisting mass. 

The third or fourth process given will proba- 
bly be found most practicable for the ordinary 
farmer. All should beware, however, of swind- 
lers who go about the country puffing and sell- 
ing the fine sort of calcined bone dust, used up 
and rejected by sugar refiners, which has been 
for months repeatedly burnt over and over, 
until it is perfectly vitrified and worthless. 

Farmers ought to be protected from fraud by 
legislative enactment, providing lor an in- 
spector to visit all manufactories of fertilizers 
within each State, and to declare the whole 
stock confi.scale when adulteration shall be 
discoveied. Cheating in this matter is easy 
and almost universal, and the knaves can be 
circumvented only by heroic remedies. 

Composting.— " See to it that you in- 
crease your dung hill!" said Cato, two thou- 
sand years ago. Special manures can be used 
with great advantage, and adapted to diflerent 
varieties of soil and crop; but the farmer's 
main reliance must always be the compost 
heap — the gatherings from the stable and barn- 
yard. "It is known," says Colman's Raral. 
World, "that green manure, or manuie fresh 
from the stables, will not do to apply to crops. 
This maiuire must in all cases be changed be- 
fore it is applied. It must be decomposed — 
rotted. It is then plant-food, and may be ap- 
plied directly, either as top-dressing or other- 
wise." 

Fresh manure may be profitably plowed 
under sometimes, for this mixes ii with mold, 
and is equivalent to compounding in the barn-j 



yard. But it can not be turned under in 
AVinter, and meanwhile its fertilizing proper- 
ties must be caught and held. Professor S. W. 
Johnson, of Yale College, pronounces the 
following opinion of several farmers "a fact," 
and "one which deserves to be painted in bold 
letters on every barndoor in Connecticut:" 
" That a well made compost of two loads nf muck 
and OM of stable manure is equal to three loiuh nf 
stable manure." 

Alexander Hyde, of Massachusetts, in a 
prize e.ssay, says: "We know that it is said by 
some that the manure is increased in bulk but 
not in value by this operation of composting; 
tliat all the virtue is in the manure, and the 
more c<incentrated we can get it the better. As 
well might it be said that all the virtue is in 
the flour, and there is no need of composting it 
into bread. The increased value of the ma- 
nure is not owing merely to the gases being 
absorbed, which otherwise would have been 
dissipated, but by the combined action of heat, 
air, light, and moisture, chemical changes are 
produced, and the whole rendered the fit food 
for vegetation. The muck acts not only as an 
absorbent, but contains in itself the elements 
of fertility, and by coming in contact with the 
putrescent manure, the process of decay in the 
muck itself is hastened, nuich in the same way 
as one rotten apple generates decay among its 
fellow.s. This influence of contact, catalytic, 
as tlie chemists call it, is wonderful, and fur- 
nishes the key for the indefinite increase of the 
compost heap." 

In the management of farm-yard manure 
three problems require to be considered. First, 
the production of a manure containing the 
greatest possible amount of nitrogen ; secondly, 
the successful conversion of that nitrogen into 
anunonia; and thirdly, the adoption of a meth- 
od which will prevent the escape of the am- 
monia. 

Manure Cellars. — Most of the natural ma- 
nures contain valuable elements that are vola- 
tile and soluble. If the heap be exposed to the 
rain and sun the soluble elements will be dis- 
solved and washed out, and the volatile ele- 
ments evaporated. Experiments of Lord KiN- 
NARD, in England, proved that housed manures 
are worth sixty per cent, more than unhoused. 
"The most convenient arrangement for the 
protection of manures is the bam cellar, and 
this is coming rapidly into use in the Eastern 
and Northern States. In every section of the 
country in which barns are required for the 
.storage of forage and the protection of stock in 



COMPOSTING. 



41 



Winter, we would recommend the barn cellar 
as both a convenient and economical arrange- 
ment. It should be easy of access and of suf- 
fioifut lieiglit, be built of brick or well-pointed 
stone walKs, and witli a bottom impervious to 
water. It should be protected from currents 
(if air, and if possible secured from frost, so 
that kTiUcnialion and putrefaction may go on 
tlunu-li ilie Winter. Material should be pro- 
vided and placed in or near the cellar, and be 
freipicuiiy spread over the fresh droppings of 
tlie animals, in sufflcient quantity to absorb the 
liquids and to taUe up the gases a.s fast as they 
are formed."* This should be under tlie sta- 
bles when practicable. Where this can not be 
made convenient, the compost heap in the yard 
should always be sheltered by 

A Covered Shed. — Every rain that falls on 
your nninure heap washes away silver dollars. 
H. M. Baker, of Virginia, recommends the 
following shed: "Set a row of forked posts 
through the cattle-yard, ten feet high, to .sus- 
tain a range pole. Nine feet distant set another 
row, eight feet high ; and nine feet further an- 
ntlicr row si.v feet high; put range poles upon 
these and cover the whule with old rails or 
poles, and brush, and upon these put straw, 
cornstalks, or sedge, to form a roof, which will 
shed off most of the water and all the sun. 
Urace the corners well to prevent accidents from 
high winds, and you will gain twice the cost 
of the shed every year." 

The size of the yard should be proportioned 
to the amount of stock kept, and its shape sim- 
ilar to a shallow wooden bowl. The barn be- 
ing furnished with eaves troughs, no more 
water will be collected in the yard than is ne- 
cessary for the fermentation of the manure. 
The yard should be slightly concave, and if 
possible have a clay bottom, and it ought al- 
ways 10 face the south. The drainings should 
be caught in a covered lank, immediately below 
the yard, and returned to Ine top of the heap, 
from time to time, in dry weather. Punch the 
liea(i with a crowbar to admit the liquid, and 
it will prevent the manure from oecoming lire- 
fanged. 

JIow lo make the Compost. — Go to the forest in 
the fall, and gather with hay-rake and corn- 
basket ten to a hundred loads of leaves — as 
many as you have time for — and carry them 
and spread them in your barn-yard. They fur- 
nish the best of beds for horses, cattle, sheep, 
and hogs; they prevent any loss of liquid or 

*U. S. AgiicuUural Itcpuit fur ISilj, p. 374. 



solid manure; and they become, after decora 
position, one of the richest of fertilizers. All 
such deciduous leaves contain phosphates and 
other vegetable nutriment, as well as the rich 
ingredients of humus. 

There is also near or on almost every large 
farm, a pond of water, where leaf mold has 
lain for years, or a swamp where peat has ac- 
cumulated for ages. Cart this to the yard* 
by the dozen loads, for luscious fruits and heau- 
tiful flowers, and vegetable food are cnncialed 
in the decaying mud. Mix this with the 
leaves, refuse straw, and excrement from the 
yard and stable, and you have the key to your 
next harvest. Throw a little lime or ashes 
upon the muck (but never on fresh dung, for 
it will release the ammonia), and build up 
your heap with alternate layers. Plaster, or a 
solution of copperas should be sprinkled on 
whenever it is overhauled. 

Of all substances used in composting with ani- 
mal e.\crement, perhaps there is none superior 
to good dry muck; while it absorbs the liquids 
it deodorizes the manures with which it is 
mixed, absorbing and retaining the ammonia 
and other gases, and is ready when applied to 
the soil to impart them to vegetation. It is 
this which is mixed with night-soil in the 
manufacture of poudrette, rendering the night- 
soil managable and easy of transportation and 
application. 

"The greater quantity of humus a soil con- 
tain.s, in a stale of natural decay," says W. H. 
White, " the better prepared is it to support 
vegetation — the greater its capacity to absorb 
and retain heat and moisture, es.sentials in the 
support of plant growth. The great source of 
this humus of the soil is animal and vegetable 
substances, and .is these substances are unequal 
in their decay, it is better to mix them ; the 
animal putrefaction proceeding rapidly tends 
to hasten the vegetable, while the vegetable 
tends to temper the animal, thus together ben- 
efiting each." 

Muck and leaves should also be added to 
the hog-pen occasionally during the Winter, 
and, unless the hog manure is to be kept fot 
corn or garden, the whole should be added 
month by month to the compost heap. It 
should all be worked over fine in early Spring, 
and rendered dry by adding peat, if neces- 
sary. 



•It will be still more valuable if taken out and al- 
lowed to dry for some weeks or months before being us. d 
in the yard. The muck from the pond is better than the 



42 



FEETILIZERS QUALITIES, USES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



By perseverance and industry in this pro- 
cess, few farmers will need to buy manure. 
Any farm may thus be made to manufacture 
all the manure for the crops grown upon it, 
except potatoes, and those should have plaster 
or ashes instead of barn-yard manure, as the 
latter increases their tendency to rot. Millions 
of dollars are yearly expended that ought to 
be eared, for with adequate painstaking, a farm 
whose stock is rightly proportioned to the num- 
ber of acTfS tilled, will furnish all the manure 
necessary to keep the soil constantly increasing 
in fertility. 

The Garden Compost. — In some convenient 
spot, at a distance back of the house, excavate 
a basin ten or fifteen feet in diameter. Cast in 
a few loads of forest leaves, and some dry 
muck, then arrange so that all the soapy water 
from the sink and wash-room may be conveyed 
to it, also the urine made on the premises. 
Add old shoes, old rags, and every dead ani- 
mal. Throw in the rakings from the paths, 
the weeds, line chip-dirt, and sawdust from the 
wood pile, leaves, and, in Autumn, the vines 
from the garden. 

The privy .should be so constructed as to 
yield up readily its accumulations, either from 
a tight box, so hung as to be easily moved, or 
from a sliding drawer, whence the contents 
sliiiuld be conveyed to the heap of absorbent 
refuse. Tlie addiiion of swamp muck, dry 
eartli, or a little chloride of lime to the vault 
now and then, will prevent any offensive odor. 
Or the dry earth may be added in the privy, 
and the whole mixed, so as to render the con- 
tents more manageable. 

The saving of the night-soil of the farm is 
certainly worthy of receiving more attention, 
as it forms one of our best and most concen- 
trated fertilizers, rich in all the elements of 
plant food. Many object to utilizing it from 
the disagreeableness of the manipulaiien or 
prejudice, but would they but adopt some such 
course as the above, there would be little, if 
any, more offense in its manipulation than in 
handling poudrette of commerce, and certainly 
less objection in the whole than in the single 
cleaning the vault, where no absorbent or deo- 
dorizer has been used. 

Now and then a peck of s.alt may be added 
to the pile. If the droppings of the poultry- 
house are not kept for a separate guano, they 
should be brought and emptied int^i tliis gar- 
den mine. Overhaul the whole occasionally, 
and by good management you may have twenty 
or thirty loads of the very richest fertilizer for 



garden and farm. During the Summer, the 
"mine" may be surrounded by pole-beans, 
which will yield a treble tribute, hide the de- 
formity, form a pleasant group, and supply 
the table with wholesome and seasonable vege- 
tables. 

FallO^Tillg' is a process of fertilization 
formerly much in vogue. It consists in plow- 
ing land and exposing it to the influence of the 
atmosphere, to render it friable, clear it of 
weeds, and, sometimes, to give it rest. Unless 
on the first occupation of an exhausted and 
dirty farm, and without the means of manuring 
for fallow cropi5, the system of an entire .Sum- 
mer fallowing is indefensible. Sir II. D.VVY 
.says: "It is scarcely possible to imagine a 
single instance of a cultivated soil, which can 
be supposed to remain fallow for a year with 
advantage to the farmer." An alternation of 
green crops is belter. Half fallowing, and thus 
loosening tlie adhesive particles of earth and 
admitting air, is sometimes very benelicial to 
clayey .soils. Akin to fallowing is 

Cirecn Manuring.— Mold, as has been 
seen, is indispensable to every soil, and a 
healthy s\ipply can be preserved by turning in 
succulent green crops in a deficiency of rich 
composts. This returns to the soil the salts, 
silicates, and humus which the plant has 
drawn from it, with the organic matter which 
it has elaborated from the oxygen and hydro- 
gen, carbon and nitrogen of tlie air and water. 
The Flemish people early added green manur- 
ing to their otherwise careful husbandry, until 
their fields averaged to the acre, in 1S20, thirty- 
two bushels of wheat and rye, fifty -two bushels 
of oats, and three hundred and fifty bushels of 
potatoes. Clover seems to liave been tlieir 
main reliance. 

When green crops are to be employed for 
enriching a soil, they should be (ilowed in, if 
it be po.ssible, when in flower, or at the time 
the flower is beginning to appear; for it is at 
this period that they contain the largest quan- 
tity of easily soluble substances, and that their 
leaves are most active in forming nutritive 
matter. 

lied clover, both in its green and dried state, 
contains a large proportion of lime, magnesia, 
carbonic acid, and potash, and also considerable 
quanlilies of phosphoric and sulphuric acid, 
chlorine and nitrogen, ' and hence its value as a 

N analyzed a first crop of cIovlt from 



GREEN MANURING. 



43 



manure. .\s a pl:mt it lias numerous and strong 
stems, branching upward and sideways from a 
single seed or mot, and broad, succulent, and 
shady leaves, and long, tliicU, and strong t:ip 
roots. When we consider that it is a very 
hardy plant, tillers well, covers the ground 
thickly, displaces weeds, extends its roots more 
deeply into the soil than any of the grasses, 
yields largely to the acre, absorbs much and 
most of its fertilizing gases of carbonic, phos- 
phoric, and sulphuric acid, chlorine, and nitro- 
gen, or ammonia^ from the air, and also grows 
well on every variety of dry soil, we need not 
wonder at its great celebrity as a mnnurial 
plant in our Korthern and Middle Slates. Its 
stems, leaves, and roots, when plowed down as 
a manure, not only render the soil porous, mel- 
low, and permeable to heat, air, and moisture, 
but also in and by their decay draw the fertili- 
zing saline, and mineral elements of the subsoil 
up into the surface soil, and so enrich and fit it 
for the production of all other valuable farm 
crops, such as wheat, corn, and the like. 

It is more popular in Aiuerica than any 
other manurial crop. White clover is also 
grown ; too small for the scythe, it forms 
a most valuable pasturage. Sow plaster, if 
your soil is suitable, to make the clover grow 
rank, and do not mow it — plow it all under, 
and run a subsoiler in every furrow to be sure 
and break up all the tap-roots. Sow lime or 
ashes upon the sod to help the work of decom- 
position. Do this once in three years, and you 
will manure your fields cheaper than you can 
by any purchasable fertilizer. 

Buckwheat straw contains considerable quan- 
tities of lime, magnesia, potash, soda, and phos- 
phoric and sulphuric acid, and hence its value 
as a green manure. It grows up rapidly on 



m were uf laud, aud fuuud it to contaia tlie fullowii 

iigiv,li..iits: 

AMiuni-n, sluteii, and rasiin -130 l».s. 

Kat, oil, etc 113 •• 

Siiirch, siiffar, gum. and lU-xtrine l.'^L'i " 

I'lbie iind'liusk l,15ll " 

3,o54 lbs. 
The value of the ashes mny be estimated by the folio 
.ng pel- centage of its Several elements: 

Potash 12.1M f« cent. 

Soilinni a.414 " 

So la 311.757 " 

l.ini.' KUoS " 

M;i-li.^i:i 6.2152 " 

rii.i~l at- ol [...I, .TUB •' 

rill ,.■ 2.li>lt " 

I'll,. |.l„.lli I,, ..1 2.957 " 

.SiUiOnm- :o-h1 SUI " 

Sil.i i.i l.llfiS " 

1 ill li-li|i ii,j,l 22.9.30 " 

S.io.l and eoal 1.244 " 

ii».7l8 ^ cent. 

• Joiiv F. Wo.,Fi>OER, of Pennsylvania, in U. S. Ag 
culluial Kepolt. 



almost any soil where other plants would .starve. 
It is at once a cleanser and renovator. It blos- 
soms so much earlier than most other plants 
that two crops of it can, if necessary, be grown 
and plowed down on the same land the same 
season, and the ground be seeded with grass or 
a grain crop in September. Lands too poor to 
grow clover have been renewed by rye plowed 
under, and also by oats and corn. 

Kipened cornstalks or straw should never be 
burned, but always be turned under to yield their 
lull fertility. The common pea is a remarka- 
ble fertilizer when plowed under. The stalks 
of bushbeans contain a very large proportion 
of lime, [tutash, carbonic acid, and chloride of 
sodium, aud considerable quantities of mag- 
nesia, soda, phosphoric and sulphuric acid, and 
nitrogen, hence wliere plowed in, after picking 
the beans by hand, tliey impart to the soil far 
more strength than they received from it. The 
vines of peas are equally valuable. They not 
only rid the ground of weed.s, but leave it in a 
light and mellow condition for wheat. They 
succeed best on moi.st and loamy ground. All 
such crops may be pastured slightly, and some 
agricultural writers maintain that sheep are a 
positive advantage. 

George Geddes, of Ontario County, New 
York, said recently, at a meeting of farmers, 
that though now an old man, and having an ex- 
cellent farm, which he has kept constantly im- 
proving for many years, the chief manures he 
has used have been clover and the sheep's foot. 
Other manures were used only to produce the 
clover. 

The wise farmer allows no manure to waste ; 
he composts the droppings of his animals with 
straw and Ihtcr; he makes the swamps and 
woods contribute to his manure heaps; he 
keeps his farm up by one year after another 
enriching difi'erent fields, and he .sends the 
long»rooted clover to bring up the hidden 
wealth of the subsoil. With all this he will 
find it is with the whole farm as it is with the 
single field — in time it will feel the draft, and 
the farmer must look be3'ond the resources of 
the farm itself to supply what he sends away 
in his marketable production, whatever they 
may be. No matter what the farmer sells, he 
sells the inorganic constituents of his soil. If 
he would keep his soil improving, or not de- 
creasing in value, he must restore those in 
some way. 

To Feed or Plow Under. — It ought to be con- 
stantly remembered that green crops plowed 
under will fertilize far more than when fed to 



44 



FERTILIZERS : — QUALITIES, USES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



cattle in tlie barn-yard and subscqnenllj' ap- 
plied in the form of the resulting manure. In 
all vefjeliible mold, carbon and the elements of' 
water are impurlant and indispensable ele- 
ments ; and when hay and gra.ss are eaten by 
farm stock, about sixty per cent, of the elements 
of mold and manure is converted into gas and 
vapor to provide animal heat by ce.aselei-s res- 
l)iration. 

•' J. B. BoussiNGAULT, a practical farmer, a 
man of science, fortune, caution, and integrity, 
has made experiments that bear directly on 
this question.* A horse that neither gained 
nor lo.st weight, consumed 20 lbs. of hay, 6 lbs. 
of oats, and 43 of water in 24 hours.. The hay 
and oats contained 10 lbs. 6 oz. carbon ; 1 lb. 2 
oz. 6 dwt. hydrogen ; 8 lbs. 7 oz. 2 dwt. oxy- 
gen ; and 4 oz. 9 dwt. nitrogen. Of these the 
dung and urine gave on an average in each 24 
hours, carbon 3 lbs. 11 oz. 7 dwt.; hydrogen 6 
oz. 2 dwt.; oxygen 3 lbs. 7 oz. 16 dwt.; nitrogen 
3 oz. 14 dwt. 

It will be seen that ten pounds six ounces of 
carbon are reduced to less than four pounds; 
so that over six-tenths are lost to the manure 
heap and to the mold in the soil. Eight 
pounds and over seven ounces of organized 
oxygen are reduced to less than four pounds; 
and hydrogen in about the same proportion. It 
is remarkable that while the horse consumed 
43 pounds of water as drink, and 3| lbs. in 
hay and oats not perlectly dry, he voided in 
urine only 3 lbs. 6 oz. 15 dwt.. and over 25 lbs. 
in excrement and the balance to make up 60 
lbs. and over as insensible perspiration or cuta- 
neous exhalation. 

A cow that consumed 12 lbs. 10 oz. 13 dwt. 
of carbon in her daily food gave only 5 lbs. 3 
oz. 7 dwt. in her liquid and .solid excrements; 
with other resulls similar to those named in 
feeding the horse. Tlie researches of Thomp- 
son, Lawes, Gilbekt, and several others<ion- 
flrm the general accuracy of those above cited. 

Ilmv to Plow in the Crop. — When the crop is 
ready for the plifW, it ought to be rolled down, 
when the morning dew is on, in the direction 
that the furtvwi are to run. It should be covered 
to the depth of five or six inches only, be- 
cause a greater depth will carry it beyond the 
immediate influence of sun and air.' 

Guano. — This article of commerce has 
been known for ages in Peru, but has been in- 



troduced to the United Slates during the pres- 
ent century. It is ccmiposed of the excrement 
of the sea-birds of the Pacific, which fly above 
and live upon the rocky islands in flocks of 
millions. Professor KoRTON, of Yale College, 
gives the composition of a few leading varieties 
of guano in the following table : 



Viiri.'ty. 



M to M 

.Vi to fili 
.'At to 5ti 

a; to « 



This, it is evident at a glance, is an ex- 
tremely rich manure ; the quantities of ammo- 
nia and of phosphates are remarkably large. 
According to an analysts by VcBLCKER, one 
pound of guano was found to be equal to fifty 
pounds of barn-yard manure. Of this fertilizer 
the Peruvian government estimates that ihe 
Uhincha Islands alone conlain the enormous 
quantitj' of twenty millions of tons! This will 
supply the world, at the present rate, during 
the next fifty years. The American Farmer 
recommends the use of pla.steror charcoal with 
guano to fi.x the ammonia ; while others ad- 
vise a mixture with five or six times its weight 
of dried muck. A series of elaborate experi- 
ments with potatoes, by General Beatson, on 
St. Helena, resulted as follows : 



GiDiuo, or sea-fowl dnriE at .Ift busliels per acre 

Kors.- .luiiK, 3i cart loads per ;iii.- 

liogs' dung. ;)5 cart loads pn- acre 

Soil simple 



With mangel wurzel, the product per acre 
was as follows 



•A lull. 

BINOAllLT'l 



KpoBition of this matter will be found in Bous- 
Ituial Economy, published by OitANor. Juud, 





Leaves, 
•lone. 


Roots. 
Tons. 










3S 

1.31 

1.-.3M 


I'Jii 


11..K 


s' dunsiau.i 


HShe 


, 3l'>0 bushels per 


Gna 


lo, 35 bu-'llel 


5 per 


"■'■'=■•' 


77« 



Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, well known to 
the country as one of its leading pomologists, 
applied eight hundred pounds per acre, and 
harvested from it sixteen hundred bushels of 
carrots. It is believed, however, that the best 
use that can be made of guano at seventy dol- 
lars a ton, is to give a start to poor or ex- 
hausted land. It is best a]iplied in damp or 
showeiy weather, and when put on plowed 
land should be immediatelv harrowed in. 



LIQUID MANURE — LIME. 



45 



Farmers can not be too cautious how they 
"certify " to the good qualities of certain 
guanos. They can not linow, accurately, any- 
thing about it, being able to judge only from 
the eH'ect on their own fields. English dealer.^ 
in fertilizer.s use only the certificates of well- 
known chemists, and these are the certificates 
most to be depended on. 

Liiqilid Mstnure. — The saving and use 
of liiiiiid manures are deserving of more at- 
tention tlian they have hitherto received in this 
country. When cattle are kept in stalls through 
the Winter, and especially where soiling is 
practiced, and cows are kept in the stall through 
the year, the floor slmuld be so arranged as to 
conduct the urine into troughs beneath it, 
which will convey it into a reservoir in the 
cellar or outside the barn. This can be done 
at very little expense. The accumulated urine 
may be pumped into a water cart, to which a 
sprinkler is attached, similar to those used for 
watering the streets. If it is pumped in 
through a strainer the spriidiler does not be- 
come clogged, and it may be immediately con- 
veyed to the field and distributed as a top-dress- 
ing upon grass or grain 

AVhen the soil is not deficient in carbonaceous 
matter there can probably be no better top- 
dressing applied. It is not as permanent in its 
effects as the sojidexcreiijents, but more imme- 
diate, and may be applied two or three times a 
year. For raising green crops for soiling it is 
invaluidde. If plaster, or a .solution of sul- 
phate of iron be added occasionally to the res- 
ervoir, it will act as a deodorizer, while at the 
same time it adds to the e.Ticacy of the manure. 
"Each family, of five hundred families in 
a country town, might save manure to the 
value of five dollars annually that is now 
wasted. This would amount to twenty-five 
hundred dollars, or one dollar for each indi- 
vidual in the town. This would be sufficient 
to pay the highway tax and build one good 
Echocd-house, or it would pay the entire school 
tax of most towns of that luimber of inhab- 
itants." 

Keinember that a pound of urine will pro- 
duce a pound of wheat ! The utilization of 
liquid manures is one of the secrets of the mar- 
velous success of Flemish husbandry, where a 
hundred acres of arable land will support a 
hundred head of cattle. 

Cistei-ns for liquid manure should be made of 
the same material as for rain water, and should 
be tiylit and durable. Wood will answer until 



it decays, but stone laid in water-lime mortar 
or cement and plastered with two or three coats, 
is much better. Where a single reservoir only 
is required, it may be made as shown in the 
following illustration, being contracted toward 
the top like an arch, but with an opening large 
enough for a man to enter to shovel up sedi- 
ment when it accumulates. It should be set in 
an excavation deep enough to admit an earth 
covering a foot or two thick, in the Northern 
States, to prevent freezing, and so placed as to 
receive the liquid portions of the manure from 
the stables and the drainings of the manure 
heap, but not surface water. Liquid nuuiure is 
allowed to stand several weeks before applying, 
and is diluted with some three times its bulk 
of water, which may be drawn from the roofs 
of the buildings. 




L<inie. — Of all the mineral manures, lime 
is (he most powerful and rapid in its effect as a 
promoter of vegetation, and as a chemical mod- 
ifyer of the soil in rendering clays more fria- 
ble. It is an e.ssential ingredient of plant.s, and 
abounds in the stalks and grains of all the ce- 
reals.* Lime, in any slate, applied to the sur- 
face of peat soil (and in such case it should be 
t;iven in large quantities), causes the vegetation 
of white clover and the finer grasses, where 
only the coarsest herbage had previously ap- 
peared ; buTas a general rule, especially where 
it is a costly article, it is most efficaciously ap- 
plied to fallows, and should be harrowed or 
lightly plowed in at the conclusion of the course 
of tillage, as it has a tendency to sink in tlie 
soil. It is almost useless to supply it to any 
land requiring drainage. 



•Twenty-fivo bushels of wheat contain iibout tliiitefn 
pounds of lime; twenty-five bushels of barley contain 
about ten pounds of lime ; fifty bushels of coin contain 
about tweuty-two pounds of lime; two tons of clover 
contain about seventy -seven pounds of lime. 



46 



FERTILIZERS — QUALITIES, USES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



Lime must be among the manures which pro- 
mote tlie permanent fertility of the land, as, un- 
less washed away, it can not escape except by 
preparing food for the cultivator's crops. It is 
protilably applied to old pasture leys at the 
rate of fifty to five hundred bushels per acre; 
and some of the English moors have appro- 
priated fifteen hundred bushels per acre. It is 
valuable in proportion to the amount of vege- 
table mold it has to act on. Indications of 
want of lime in the soil may be seen in heavy 
crops of straw, and light crops of grain ; and 
in root crops where they seem to run to fingers 
and to«s. 

Lime is applicable to every clay soil, every 
peaty soil, and every soil in which vegetable 
fibre does not readily decay, because that is a 
sign that it contains some antiseptic acid, which 
prevents decay. This is the case in peat beds 
and swamps. Sandy, gravelly, or thin soil.s, 
may beoverlimed and more food must be given 
for the lime to act upon. No farmer, who 
knows what the action of lime is, upon all soils, 
will ever do without it as an accessory to his 
manure. 

The effect of lime is not perceptible in the 
soil the first season it is applied, and its full 
influence is seen only after the second or third. 
Its effect is greatest when kept near the surface. 
Lime is har<lly a direct fertilizer, its office being 
to absorb ammonia, reduce it to a salt, and ) ield 
it up to growing i)lants, and thus to anticipate 
the fertilizing properties of vegetable manures 
that are slow in the [irocess of decomposition. 

Muck. — The value of muck, or swamp and 
pond mud, is not yet understood in this coun- 
try. If finel}' pulverized peat be strewn over 
the floors of .stables, piggeries, or cow-houses, 
with a very slight covering of straw over it, it 
will absorb and retain all moi.^ture, disinfect 
the building of every noxious gas injurious to 
cattle, and by its mi.xture with the excreta fmni 
the animals, form a most valuable and portable 
raar.ure fit for immediate use. Sheep folded 
upon it at night wouhl produce wonderful and 
nio.st important results to farmers in the vast 
production of valuable manure. Two or three 
hogs will work up a cubic yard of good muck 
n two days, if furnished on a good floor, and a 
prinkling of corn mixed in for them to find. 

This muck is chiefly formed from decayed 
vegetable matter, the humus of plant-food, and 
when composted, its value is greatly enhanced. 
Muck hauled directly from the bed, and dried 
a few weeks in the sun, will produce excellent 



crops on any good .sandy loam. This is the 
stuff to spread in the barn-yard and hen-house 
in the fall. 

IVigrbt-SoilS. — We return to the manure 

which has already been treated, to impress 
again the value of the privy's contents. The 
compost and the priv)' are premises of which 
the harvest is the logical conclusion. " .\s the 
body of an adult does not increase in weight, it 
needs no particular calculation to make out that 
the collected excrements must contain the ash 
constituents of the bread, meat, and vegetables 
and the whole of the nitrogen of the food."* 
Build your privy square on the gniund, with- 
out any vault underneath. Fix a board to 
swing horizontally on the back side. Turn 
this up occasionally and cast in two or three 
barrow loads of muck, or dry mold, or [ilastcr, 
as a deoderizer and retainer of the valuable 
elements. By such treatment you may deprive 
this place of frequent resort of any offensive- 
ness, and may draw from underneath, from 
time to time, tlie richest poudrette, almost as 
good as the best guano, free from all comnfer- 
cial adulterations. A majority of the privies 
in .\merica are a disgrace to humanity. 

Every town in the country should adopt 
measures, without delay, to utilize these de- 
posits. In no city of continental Europe is 
human ordure allowflil to waste, much less, aa 
in some of our cities, to mingle with the water 
which is to be drawn upon for culinary pur- 
poses. At Nice, it sells so high that every peas- 
ant makes it an article of commerce, anil keeps 
a convenient office for passengers. Night-.soil 
mixed with peat will produce a prodigious 
yiehl of corn or potatoes, and, judiciously 
applied, will double the yield of abnost any 
crop. The farmer living near a city can 
hirdly pay too high a price for it. The in- 
crease of crops which American farms could 
be made to produce by the sy.stematie ajipli- 
caticm of all the night-soil that is now waste<l, 
xtonld be sufficient to pay the national debt in twenty 
years / 

Phosphate of liime.— .\t a meeting 
of the Masachusetts Board of Agriculture in De- 
cember, 1868, Wm. S. Cl.\rk President of the 
State Agricultural College, announced his be- 
lief that " the best farming demands commer 
cial fertilizers," and gave an interesting account 
of the recent discoveries of mines of hidden 
wealth. We quote: 



*LlEIiia's Niitural Litws of HusbaDdry, p. 259. 



PHOSPHATE OF LIME — PLASTER. 



47 



" Now I am one of those who believe that the 
treasures wliieh are necessary for man in his 
highest development, in his highest degree of 
civilization, when the earth is populated more 
densely than it is anywhere to-day — I believe 
that those treasures are in tlie earth, and are to 
be brought forth as gold was in California when 
wanted, as petroleum was in Pennsylvania when 
wanted,asthey have just discovered in Germany, 
at Stassfurlh, a wonderful deposit, as of the boil- 
ing down of an ocean, leaving a mineral deposit 
which will enrich all the continent — twenty-five 
miles square and twelve hundred feet thiclc. 
At the bottom, the least soluble part, is sul- 
phate of lime; above that, a thousand feet of 
rock-salt; above that, sulphate of magnesia 
and sulphate of soda ; and above that, a hun- 
dred feel, more or less, of the chloride of mag- 
nesium, chloride of calcium, and chloride of 
potassium. Here is a supply of mineral wealth 
enough to last the whole continent for centuries. 
I believe that chemistry is to evolve out of that 
mineral deposit an immense mine of wealth for 
the agriculture, not only of this country, but of 
all countries where science is applied to that 
branch of industry. 

" But I rose particularly to call attention to a 
more wonderful discovery in this country than 
that at Slassfnrth. It was said, years ago, by 
Professor Liebig, that we had a supply of phos- 
phates for only twenty years in all the world ; 
that the guano islands would soon be stripped, 
and then where were we to look for phosphates? 
That has been the great problem for those who 
have looked for the future progresss of agricul- 
ture. There is a limit to the number of guano 
or bird islands, and the question was, what 
should we do? They talked about phosphatic 
minerals? Where? Why, there have been 
found small deposits of phosphate of lime, very 
hard and difficult of solutiiui, in Spain, Eng- 
land, and Canada, but furnishing no adequate 
supply for the future, Now we are to supply 
the world with phosphates, and the world may 
thank the Yankees of these United States of 
America for the very thing I have to reveal 
here to-day. 

"The announcement which I have to make 
is this. Tiiat there has been discovered in 
South Carolina a bed of phosphate of lime, the 
fU"igin of which the wisest geologists have as 
yet been unable to discover, which contains, 
after it has been roasted and ground to a fine 
powder, seventy-five per cent, of phosphates, 
easily dissolved in sulphuric acid, and con- 
verted into superphosphates. The quantity 



there is absolutely inexhaustible. The whole 
world may come to Charleston, and run their 
ships up the Ashley and Cooper Rivers and 
take in cargoes of the phosphate anywhere 
along the banks. There are hundreds of tons 
to the acre over just as many acres as you 
please to travel. I compare that, as a discov- 
ery for the interests of agriculture, with the 
discovery of petroleum for enlighteniu;; the 
world. It is of the same sort, and this mineral 
will be utilized and will be of immense benefit 
to mankind." 

The phosphatic nodules hold some seventy 
per cent, of the phosphate of lime, and ten per 
cent, of the sulphate and carbonate. Piofes- 
sor U. C. Shepard, having e.\amined the beds, 
says: 

"The best beds lay at an average depth of 
eighteen inches from the surface; the nodules 
were from the size of a boy's fist to that of a 
man's head; the depth of the stratum from 
twelve to eighteen inches. Some such beds 
extended over hundreds of acres. These nod- 
ules are compact, very hard, sometimes brown 
in color; when dug up, very mucVi of the nuul 
.idheres to them. They lie so close to one an- 
other that the amount produced from the best 
land appears incredible. Where the stratum 
is fifteen to eighteen inches in thickness, the 
actual yield exceeds, in some cases, one thou- 
sand three hundred tons to the acre; and much 
is wasted, the smallest lumps being neglected 
entirely. 

"The mining of the deposits is easy, re- 
quiring only the digging a trench and picking 
out the nodules with a pick, the nodules being 
thrown into carts, placed on railways in sonje 
cases, the loo.se earth being thrown to the rear. 
The phosphates are brought to the river-bank 
and washed in large cylinders. Ves.sels can 
come up to the banks of (he river and load 
there; the river admits as large vessels a.s can 
cross Charleston bar. The raw phosphates, 
clean and dry, were said to bring about fifteen 
dollars a ton in Philadelphia last Winter. 
This appears to me too high, especially if 
labor continues to be as abundant as it is in 
the South, and the extent of the deposit so 
great." 

Professor .\OASSlz is of opinion that this 
remarkable deposit is the result of the dcLon- 
posed bones of extinct animals. 

Plaster, — The gypsum of commerce — 
sometimes also called plaster-of-Parjs, from 
being quarried near that capital. It was in- 



48 



FERTILIZERS — QUALITIES, USES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



trodiiced into Pennsylvania by Benjamin 
Franklin, but experience has not justified 
his estimate of it as a manuie. Tliere are 
only iive commonly cultivated crops whidi 
contain plaster in any sensible proportions, 
and of these there are raised in this country, 
lucern, red clover, and turnips. These are 
precisely the crops for which the farmer 
finds phister, on most soils, to be a fertilizing 
t ip-dressing. Corn, potatoes, and most of 
the grasses, are also somewhat benefited by 
its use. It is a powerful deodorizer, and 
should be used plentilully about barns and 
out-houses. 

iiillt. — Salt applied in considerable quanti- 
ties, as the sea-beach shows, completely steril- 
izes the soil. When used moderately to amend 
certain soils, it has been found very efficacious. 
It also cleans a field of grubs and weeds, and 
is used as a remedy for rust and smut in wheat. 
William Bacon, of Massachusetts, testifies 
that sown in small quantities among fruit- 
trees, it tends to destroy the curculio. Roots 
are sometimes much benefited by it. It is es- 
pecially adaptable to clay loams, tending to 
lighten the soil. "Coarse, sour herbage, re- 
jected or disliked by cattle, will be rendered 
grateful to their taste by the application of a 
Kiifiicient quantity of salt; but this depends 
upon the quality of the land."* Mr. John 
Johnston says that on his wheat land " the 
application of two hundred and eighty to three 
hundred pounds of salt will hasten the matur- 
ing at least four days, besides giving a brighter 
straw, plumper grain, ajid finer sample every 
way, and I think," he says, "that four hundred 
pounds per acre might pay still better." It 
seems to be agreed that on some soils salt is 
detrimental, while on others it is very bene- 
ficial. This point can be ascertained only by 
actual experiment; and no other manure de- 
mands so much caution in its use. 

Sea-Weed, as a manure, is rubject to 
somewhat the same conditions as salt. It ii 
much used all along tlie New England shore, 
where it floats in and lodges in heavy quanti 
ties, and farmers cart it inland, sometimes to 
the distance of ten miles. It should be plowed 
in as soon as gathered, wlien that is practica- 
ble, as it loses a portion of its virtuea, even by 
composliiig. 



•Doyle's Eacyclopejia, p. 386. 



Sca-Sand. — Some farmers have found it 
profitable to adopt the use of sea-sand as a 
bedding for all stock. One ton of sand will go 
about as far as a ton of .straw, and its fertilizing 
effect in the resultant manure is said to be very 
striking. 

Soap-Suds. — "I say now that ar is a 
wicked waste — d'ye know it, neighbor Flan- 
PkyV "What, Uncle Enoch? Dunno as I 
quite understand ye." "Why, throwin' out 
and wastin' that way all them soap-suds, the 
way your gals there is doin'." " What is soap- 
suds worth, Uncle Enoch?" "'Bout a hun- 
dred dollars, I guess; what your folks '11 make 
'tween now and Spring. Ourn was worth 
raore'n that last Winter, and I guess our folks 
don't wash more dishes and clothes 'n yourn." 
" Why, what in natur do you do witli soap- 
suds to make 'em worth that. Uncle Enoch?" 
" Didn't I tell ye? Wal, raly now, I meant to 
done it, and I will now. We .save every mite 
of our suds and dishwater for the garden and 
truck patch, splashin' it over the ground 'bout 
once a week all Winter. A tubful of suds '11 
IS fur as a wheelbarrer load o' manure. Its 
good for gooseberries and currants, and kills a 
powerful lot of bugs and beetles, and pesky 
worms, and fattens the ground more 'n a hun- 
dred dollars' worth besides. That's what soap- 
suds is good for." 

If you do not wish to "splash" your suds 
over the ground in the Winter time, as Uncle 
Enoch did— for it is not the best way — pour 
them upon your compost heap. 

Soot is a powerful stimulant but too scarce 
to justify comment. 

Sulphate of Iron.— The BriUsh Medi- 
cal Journal states, as a new discovery, that 
wonderful effects may be obtained by watering 
fruit-trees and vegetables with a solution of 
sulphate of iron. Under this .system beans 
will grow to nearly double the ordinary size, 
and will acquire a much more savory taste. 
The pear seems to be particularly well adapted 
for this treatment. Old nails thrown into water 
and left to rust there, will impart to it all the 
necessary qualities for forcing vegetatn)n as 
described. Iron dust is also sometimes used 
to heighten the colors of flowers. 

Professor Ville's Slew System. — Is 

Agriculture an exact science? Perhaps so; it 



PROFESSOR VILLE S NEW SYSTEM. 



49 



is certainly rising rapidly from the "hap-j 
hazard" condition, and is becoming every day | 
more rational, systematic, and certain in its 
processes. Among the most brilliant discover- 
ies of tlie day are those of M. George Vili,e, 
Professor of Vegetable Physiology at the 
Museum of Natural History, at Paris, who, 
after an experimental study of ten years, 
seems to have possessed himself of some of 
the important secrets of vegetation. Giving 
up the ordinary complex methods of analysis, 
he returned to first principles — the synthetic 
method. 

He took common flower-pots for his field; 
clean white sand for his soil. To the barren 
snnd he added a few essential properties — for 
instance, the phosphates, potash, nitrogen, and 
lime. He found that when one constituent 
was added, certain plants grew in it, while 
others did not. Another constituent being 
added, a larger number of plants would grow ; 
and when, in short, all these four constituents 
were added, in their proper proportions, a full 
crop of any desired vegetable or plant \Yas ob- 
tained. 

Tlie farmers laughed at Ville's "plant- 
making machinery," but he persevered, and on 
a farm set apart for his use by the Emperor, he 
demonstrated his propositions to be true, and 
prepared an accurate table of the food of plants. 
Patient and careful observation led him to 
recognize — what Liebig had already shown 
analytically — that the aliment preferred by 
cereals is nitrogen; by liguminous plants — peas, 
beans, clover, etc., potash; by roots, the jjhos- 
phates. These are not the exclusive elements, as 
already shown; for these three substances, in 
various proportions, are necessary to each and 
all, and even lime, which humus renders as- 
similable, must be added. One fertilizer is 
attached to each class of plants, only to indi- 
cate that it is the element which is most es- 
sential. 

For four years previous to 1864, many curi- 
ous visitors were shown plots of ground ma- 
nured and sown in accordance with Professor 
Ville's system. Some of them had been 
planted four times in succession with the same 
kind of crop, giving at the commencement 
what he calls a complete manure, and adding 
yearly the ingredients principally absorbed 
by the crop — thus showing the possibility of 
growing the same crop, at the maximum, for a 
series of years, without rotation. Upon others 
the crops were changed yearly, so that each 
year the particular crop required principally 
1 



a difTerent agent; then, after passing through 
the series furnished by the complete manure 
the ingredient principally requireil In* the crop 
proposed should be added, till the crop showed, 
by a falling off, that the complete manure was 
again wanted. Under these circumstances, the 
crops reached to results of irrefutable elo- 
quence. 

By adding nitrogenous matter, phosphate of 
lime, lime, and potassa— that is, a normal ami 
complete manure — to calcined sand — the seed- 
wheat being equal to 1 — the full crop of wheat 
was represented by 23. 

Upon withdrawing the lime from the mix- 
ture of four elements, the crop fell to 21.62. 

Upon restoring the lime, and omitting the 
nitrogenous matter, the crop fell to 8.83. 

Then, withdrawing the potassa, the crop fell 
to 6,57. 

When the phosphate of lime was also with- 
drawn, the crop was reduced to 0.77, vegetation 
cea.sed, and the plant died. 

By adding humus to the complete manure, 
the crop was increased to 33. The lime, which 
in the absence of all organic matter, influences 
the yield but little, manifests a very decisive 
action in the presence of humus. Humus, 
alone, produces no eflect. 

After experimenting on a large scale, Pro- 
fessor ViLLE was able to arrange the following 
table : 

Average liVlieat Crop per Acre. 





3.^ 


|| 


II 


lbs. 

11,1101 
5,>)03 


lbs. 
6.952 
3,617, 


lbs. 

8,.W0 
4,313 

12,893 


lbs. 
10,117 
4,721 


le.wK 


10,569 


14,S3S 



This table .shows that without phosphates the 
crop was nearly equal to that with a complete 
manure — without potash, it sensibly dimin- 
ished ; without nitrogenous matter, it was very 
inferior. The complete majiure gives an in- 
crease over that without nitrates, sixty per 
cent.; without minerals, thirty-one per cent.; 
without potash, fifteen per cent.; without plio- 
phate, seven per cent. These results are al- 
most exactly like those derived from experi- 
ments on a small scale. 

Professor Ville publishes a table of the 
quantity of the four agents contained in the 



50 



FERTILIZERS — QUALITIES, USES, AND COMBINATIONS. 



crops, and in the complete manure, per acre 
We introduce it here: 



■ Spring wheat. 

I K.-^t-root 

liarley 

i I'ms 



13. (a 

ins.ss 

U8.17 



2fi.3fi 

33.22 
35. tin 



112.93 
17f..00 



So that the complete manure contained in 
this case, for the.se four crop.s, 153 pounds of 
nitrogen, 176 pounds of phosphoric acid ; 176 
pounds of potassa, and 17G pounds of lime, 
the nitrogen being in the state of nitrate of 
.soda or of sal ammoniac; the phosphoric acid 
in the state of phosphate of lime; the potassa 
in the state of carbonate of potassa ; and the 
lime in a caustic state. 

By carefully obeying these hints, M. Ville 
insists that he can produce wheat upon wheat, 
peas upon peas, beet upon beet, for an indefi- 
nite term of years, without any rotation ; first 
having recourse to the complete manure (the 
four named ingredients), and afterward admin- 
istering only the (lominant element, until a de- 
crease in the crop shows a lack of the auxiliary 
elements, when the complete manure must be 
renewed. 

John A. Riddle, of New Hampshire, in a 
pamphlet in explanation of Ville's system, 
anticipates that "by the useot; the new method 
we may abolish the old practices and replace 
them by a simpler agriculture, more managea- 
ble and more remunerative. Instead of, by 
great care and precaution, maintaininr/ the fer- 
tility of the soil, we reconstitute it, by means of These pages have already pointed out the most 
the four agents pointed out, which can be de- economical means of obtaining the required 
rived from the great storehouse of nature, and! fertilizers. 



added to the usual stock of farm manure No 
cattle need be kept." 

We trust th.at our readers will not be quite 
so sanguine and enthusiastic as this writer. 
Let no farmer tcir down his barn, or plow up 
his barn-yard or sell his cattle. The agricult- 
ural millenium has not come yet. The compost 
heap must still be the main reliance. Cattle 
and crops must continue to be each the off- 
spring of the other. For, in the first place, 
certain localities require a perfectly raw manure 
a,s a sort of yeast, to create fermentation in the 
soil. In the second phace, it is believed that 
fiirmcrs generally can furnish the elements men 
tioned, cheaper in stable manure than in a 
purer state. As a correspondent says: "If 
we had free tickets to this ' great storehouse of 
Nature,' all would be very fine ; but unfortu- 
nately the sub.stances named are costly. No 
man requires to be told that the addition of 
ground bones, or superphosphate, or guano 
(ammonia), or lime, will bo of advantage to 
the soil. We are all glad to add these thinge 
when we can gel them ; but with superphosphate 
at §.50 to §60, and guano at $80 per ton, it be- 
comes a .serious question as to how far it pays 
to buy these things and dispense with farm-yard 
manure." 

Yet we agree with Levi Baetlett that " the 
principles are correct," and with the JbumaZ of 
Chemistry that "it is impo.ssible to doubt the 
importance of Prof. Ville's investigations." 
Thousands who can not keep cattle, who live 
near cities, who desire to crop without rotation, 
can apply the system with great benefit. In- 
deed, all intelligent farmers can advantageously 
study it, and use it as an assistant and regula- 
tor of the inaccurate present method of culture, 



PLOWTNG: 



Practical Effect of Puxverization. — How to Plow and When. 



We ought to cultivate more land ! — not side- 
ways but downward — toward China instead of 
toward sunset. Farmers plow too wide and too 
shallow; if they would digdeeper and narrower, 
on almost all soils, thej' would reap greater 
harvests at less expense. " We must, more than 
ever before," says the Genessee Farmer, '' realize 
the fact that tillage is manure — that the literal 
meaning of the word ' manure ' {maniis, hand, 
ouvrer, to work), is hand-labor. To manure the 
land is to hoe, to dig, to stir the soil, to expose 
it to the atmosphere, to plow, to harrow, to cul- 
tivate. Tlie ancient Romans made Stercutius 
a god because he discovered tliat the droppings 
of animals had the same effect in enriching the 
soil as to hoe it." 

Merely to alter the texture of a soil by me- 
chanical means has the effect to fertilize it by 
allowing a more free transition of air and miter, 
these substances imparting some element held 
in combination, such element uniting with some 
of the other elements of the soil, and .setting 
others free, ready to form new combinations, or 
to enter into plant structure as food. 

Suppose a soil whicli weighs about 1,000 tons 
per acre is pulverized so as to be freely perme- 
able by the atmosphere, and that such a soil, 
after being thoroughly dried, is exposed to 
the air, then we find from the experiments of 
ScHUBLER, that it will absorb water in twenty- 
four hours: 

If a sandy clay, equal to 26 tons. 

If a loamy clay 30 *• 

If a stiff clay 3fi " 

If a garden mold is " 

The inquiry is closely connected with the 
good effects produced in most soils by deepen- 
ing and pulverizing them. Well-pulverized 
soils absorb much more dew than when suffered 
to remain close. 

Deep plowing gives the descending rains a 
deeper lodgment in the soils, and so provides a 
storehouse for retaining the ammonia till it is 



needed for plants. In the West, especially, it 
matters little how deep the plow goes. Almost 
every fivrm is made up of half a dozen farms 
laid one upou another; and there is no danger 
of plowing through. A trial is the best proof; 
plow two feet deep next year, and test the har- 
vest. The Belgians plow three feet deep. 

The Journal of Applied Chemistry thus gives 
the philosophy of plowing: "The effects of 
pulverizing or stirring the soil are numerous: 

1. It gives free scope to the roots of vegeta- 
bles, and they become more fibrous in a loose 
than in a hard soil, by which the mouths of the 
pores become more numerous, and such food as 
is in the auil has a better chance of being 
sought after and taken up by them. 

2. It admits the atmospheric air to the spon- 
gioles of the roots, without which no plant can 
make a healthy growth. 

•3. It increnses the capillary attraction or 
sponge-like property of soils, by which their 
humidity is rendered more uniform, and in a 
hot season it increases the deposit of dew, and 
and admits it to the roots. 

4. It increases the temperature of the soil in 
the spring by admitting the warm air and tepid 
rain. 

5. It increases the supply of organic food. 
The atmosphere contains carbonic acid, ammo- 
nia, and nitric acid, all most powerful fertilizers 
and solvent.s. A loose soil contracts and con- 
denses them. Kain and dew also contain them. 
And when these fertilizing gases are carried into 
the soil by rain water, they are absorbed and 
retained by the soil for the u.se of plants. On 
the other hand, if the soil be hard, the water 
runs off the surface, and instead of leaving these 
gases in the soil, carries off some of the best 
portions of the soil with it. 

6. By means of pulverization, a portion of 
atmospheric air is buried in the soil, and it is 
.suppo.sed that ammonia and nitric acid are 
formed by the mutual decomposition of this air 

(51) 



52 



PLOWING — PRACTICAL EFFECT OF PULVERIZATION. 



and the moisture of the soil, heat also being 
evolved by the changes. 

7. Pulverization of the surface of the soiU 
serves to retain the moisture of the subsoil, and 
to prevent it from being penetrated by heat 
from a warmer, as well as from radiating its 
heat to a colder, atmosphere than itself. These 
effects are produced by the porosity of the pul- 
verized stratum, which acts as a mulcli, espe- 
cially on heavy soils. 

8. Pulverization also, as the combined effect 
of several of the preceding causes, accelerates 
the decomposition of the organic matter in the 
soil, and the disintegration of the mineral mat- 
ter, and thus prepares the inert matter of the 
soil for assimilation by the plants." 

Horace Gkeeley read an excellent Essay 
on deep plowing, before the American Institute 
Farmers' Club, December 1, 1868. We quote 
it entire : 

" Many controversies result from imperfect 
definitions. The same words and phrases con- 
vey different ideas to the rival disputants. 

Let mebegin, then, by making my,self clearly 
understood. To save time, I will define by ne- 
gation or exclusion — as follows: 

All soils do not require plowiny to the same depth, 
because 

1. A large portion of the earth's surface 
should never be plowed at all. No wet lands 
should be plowed until thoroughly permanently 
drained; plowing them while still wet, or cer- 
tain to become so after rains, is throwing labor 
away. A very large area, consisting of swamps, 
marshes, bogs, fens, sea, lake, river, and brook 
margin, or intervales frequently submerged or 
sodden, should never be plowed until drained 
or embanksd. 

2. Then a great proportion of the rocky hill- 
side or crests, which consist mainly of rocks 
thinly covered by and often protruding through 
the soil, should never be plowed, but should be 
kept always in forest from which timber is 
taken from time to time, but never to such ex- 
tent as to reveal its ruggedness. Westchester 
County alone has thousands of acres, now de- 
nuded and devoted to grazing, which should 
never have been cleared. Cut off the timber, 
if you are not content with cutting out, but keep 
sucli rough land always in wood. Its cultiva- 
tion can never pay; its grass is burnt up by a 
sultry week; while stripping it of timber tends 
to render our springs and streams scanty and 
capricious. There is nothing worse in our rural 
economy than this uncovering of rocky steeps 
that ought to remain timbered evermore. 



3. There are, moreover, lands too sterile to 
be cultivated with profit, at least while so much 
good land lies idle and useless. These lands 
are often, level enough, and not too stony; but 

t will cost more to bring them to a proper state 
of fertility than they will then be worth. Some 
of these might be, and probably ought forthwith 
to be, sowed with nuts and tree-seeds, and so 
covered with timber ; probably the plow might 
be advantageously used in the process; but it 
would be unwise to subject them to other cul- 
ture for ages yet, if ever. 

4. Then there are lands which have a good 
though shallow surface soil, but covering a poi- 
sonous subsoil, which must not be disturbed. 
Professor Mapes found such a tract in West 
Jersey, where a stratum of sulphate of iron 
(copperas) lay but eight inches below the sur- 
face. To plow into this and mix it With the 
surface soil, arrested vegetation altogether. 

5. And again : There are soils mainly allu- 
vial, at once so mellow and so fertile that the 
roots of the cereals, and of most plants, will 
permeate and draw sustenance from them, if 
tliey are never disturbed by the plow. I pre- 
sume the annually flooded intervale of the Nile 
is of this class. I judge that the valley south 
of Marysville, California, annually covered 
many feet deep by the turbid floods of the Yuba, 
Feather, and American rivers, is mucli the 
same. There are portions of the intervale of 
the Illinois, where the muck is sixteen feet 
deep, very loose, and very rich. I was told in 
California that the grape, though it had to be 
watered sparingly during its first two Summer.s, 
needed no irrigation thereafter in the valleys 
of that State, though they are dried up in Sum 
mer to a depth of several feet. The roots strike 
down through the rich loam below till they find 
moisture that they can appropriate and thrive 
upon. I judge that the valley of the Sacra- 
mento and its main tributaries is often parched 
to a depth of four or five feet. 

I have thus fully conceded that deep plowing 
is not everywhere requisite. Now let me show 
where and why it is needed: 

1. It has been abundantly demonstrated here 
that the roots of plants are often found at a 
distance of several feet from the stem.* Any 



• in the New Tork State Agricultural Society, in isf.5, 
Mr. P. T. Qdink, urging the necessity of deeper plowins, 
said: "Why, come over to my farm, gentlemen, and I 
will show you celery, common celery, sending down roots 
thirty-one inches— corn going from thirty to thirty-six 
inches into the earth— squashes sending out rootlets four 
or five feet, and going down sixteen inches. Can I be 
persuaded that these plants gain nothing by having a 



NECESSITV OF DEEP PLOWING. 



53 



nf us may have seen that this is as true of In- 
dian corn as of Canada thistles ; with a micro- 
scope and due patience, the roots of wheat mav 
be traced from four to six feet. Of course, these 
roots seek nourishment and find it. Nature, in 
the broad view, makes no abortive, at least no 
wanton, effort. Roots wander in search of food 
not otherwise to be found. 

2. Our subsoils are generally compact and 
rcpellant. Wherever a ditcher would naturally 
n«e a pick, there few roots can make their way, 
except very slowljand by wasting eftbrt. Few 
or no cereals or edible roots can feed and flourish 
on the penetration of such subsoils. And, while 
our sands and looser gravels are more easily 
traversed, they seldom contain the plant-food 
whereof the roots are in search. They either 
remain unpenetrated, or the effort is unrewarded 
by any gain of nutrition to the plant. 

3. Our Summers and Autumns are often per- 
sistently liot and dry. The continuously torrid 
suns wliich this year destroyed half the later 
crop of Europe, are here encountered as often 
as every third year. Drouth is one of the 
foremost causes of the failure of our crop.s. 
Our ancestors mainly emigrated hither from 
the British Isles, from Holland, and the coasts 
of Nortliern and Western Europe, where hu- 
midity is the rule, protracted drouth the excep- 
tion. Sixteen inches of soil in our climate is 
hardly equal, a.s an aiUidote to drouth, to"six 
inches in Ireland or Holland. And yet the best 
farmers of those countries agree in commending 
deeper plowing. 

4. What we advocate is not the burying of 
the vegetable mold, or natural surface-soil, 
under several inches of cold, lifeless clay, sand, 
or gravel. If the subsoil is not to be enriched, 
it may better remain the subsoil; but that does 
not prove that it ought not to be lifted, stirred, 
aerated, pulverized. The right thing to do is 
to enrich as well as mellow and aerate the entire 
soil to a depth of fully eighteen inches, though 
twelve may answer as a beginning. Use a 
Michigan or a subsoil plow, if you will, and 
keep the various strata where Nature placed 
them; but give your plants, like your cattle, a 
chance to reach food and drink at all times. 
Let down the bars that would keep them from 
the life-giving springs. 

5. Plants look to the soil for 1, anchorage; 
2, moisture , 3, most of their food. If they can 



dei'p as well as rich soil 7 Take the crop of cabbages, ami 
sliow me a farmer who can make anything on calibitfees 
with Ave inch plowing." General Hahmon, of Monroe 
County, said he had traced wheat rcots to the depth of 
fonr feet. 



not find these more certainly and more abund- 
antly in twelve to eighteen inches of soil than 
in six, then reason is a fool, mathematics a con- 
jectural science, and a farmer should prefer a 
balance in bank to his credit of $600 to one of 
$1,800. 

6. We are told that roots prefer to run near 
the surface, loving the warmth of the sun. Let 
thera run there, then; we do not hinder iheiii. 
Make the soil rich as well as deep, and let them 
run near the surface for warmth, or descend for 
moisture, or both, as they shall see fit. We 
proffer them freedom of choice. If a wet season 
attracts them to the surface, a dry one must 
constrain them to dive for moisture. It is our 
duty so to provide that they may flourish, how- 
ever wayward the season. 

7. I have a steep hillside, which I choose to 
cultivate, the soil being warm and kind. Plow 
this six inches deep, and the first hard shower 
sweeps its soil, by cart-loads, into the brook 
below, where it is useless. Plow it twice as 
deep, and not a peck of soil will be flooded off 
in a lifetime. 

8. In a wet season deep plowing does, at the 
worst, no harm. In a dry season it doubles the 
crop. 

9. Unless a small army is more effective than 
a large one, an empty pocket-book better than 
a full one, a lean crop preferable to a large one, 
then a deep soil must be more productive than 
a shallow one." — HoR.vcE Greeley. 

The fact is placed beyond controversy that 
plowing twice as deep as the present average, 
on almost any arable soil, "will prove a striking 
advantage to the crops, and, with fair manuring, 
is the best means of renovating exhausted land. 

Hon. Horace Capron, Commissioner of 
Agriculture, thus sets forth the necessity of 
deep plowing, in his report for 1867: "We 
may not be able to calculate the precise amount 
of increase in production due to an additional 
inch in depth of cultivation, but experiments 
have shown that in many soils it bears, rela- 
tively, a near proportion to the increase in 
depth of culture; so that, where the soil is now 
worked to six inches, an inch greater depth of 
cultivation would give nearly one-sixth more 
production. The agricultural produce of 1867, 
of those articles which would be influenced by 
depth of culture, ha^ a total value of at le.ist 
$1,. 500,000,000. Now, an increase of even one- 
tenth of this amount by an additional inch of 
culture, would add §150,000,000 to the value 
of the annual agricultural productions of the 
country !" 



54 



PLOWING — PALL PLOWING. 



Hovr to Plow. — ^The following practical j is believed that by exposure to rains and wind 
comuieiits are from a paper b)' Donald G. ' the light, soluble manures are exhaled, or 

washed out. 



Mitchell, in Hours at Home: "One of the 
most Btrilcing of tliose contrasts whicli arrest 
the attention of an intelligent agricultural ob 
server, between tlie tillage of English fields and 
those of New England, as well as of America 
generally, i.s in the matter of plowing. In 
England, bad plowing is rare ; in New Englan<l, 
good plowing is even rarer. Something ia to 
be allowed, of course, for the irregular and 
rocky surface of new lands, but even upon the 
best meadow bottoms along our river courses, a 
clean, straight furrow, well turned, so as to 
offer the largest possible amount of friable 
mold for a seed bed, is a sight so unusual, that 
in a month of Spring travel we might count the 
number on our fingers. I go still further, and 
say — though doubtless offending the patriotic 
susceptibilities of a great many — that not one 
American farmer in twenty knows what really 
good plowing i-s. Over and over the wiseacres 
at the county fairs give tlicir first premiums lo 
the man who, by a little deft handling of the 
plow, can turn a flat furrow, and who wins his 
honors by his capacity to hide every vestige of 
the stubble, and to leave an utterly level sur- 
face. But a flat furrow, with ordinary imple 
ments, involve.s a broad cut and a consequent 
diminution of depth. The perfection of plow- 
ing upon sward land implies on the contrary, 
little pyramidal ridgelets of mold, running, 
like an arrow's flight, the full length of the 
field — all which a good cross-harrowing will 
break down into fine and even tilth, like a 
garden-bed." 

Fall Plowing'. — If heavy clay or loamy 
soils are plowed in the fall, the natural agents, 
air, water, and frost, will be silently at work all 
Winter, enriching the ground and mellowing it 
better than could be done by any work of man. 
The Country Gentleman, objects to this, how- 
ever, in cases wliere there lias been no under- 
draining, unless the lands are so situated that 
surplus water may be readily carried off. It is 
claimed by many that sandy soils do not receive 
so much benefit as injury from fall plowing, as it 



A correspondent of the New England Farmer, 
names the following as some prominent advan- 
tages to be derived from fall plowing: 

1. August and September is a good time to 
turn over bound-out sod land, and manure and 
re-seed it at once to grass, obtaining a crop of 
hay the following year. 

2. October and November is an excellent 
time to break up sod land for planting the fol- 
lowing Spring. 

3. The weather is then cool and bracing, and 
the team strong and hearty for the work; while 
the weather in the Spring is more relaxing and 
team less able; and Spring work being alway.^ 
hurrying, it saves time to dispatch as much as 
possible during the previous Autumn. 

4. Sod land, broken up late in Autumn, will 
be quite free from growing grasis the following 
Spring; the roots of the late overturned sward 
being so generally killed by the immediately 
succeeding Winter that not much grass will 
readily start in Spring. 

5. The frosts of Winter disintegrate the 
plowed land, so that it readily crumbles in fine 
particles in Spring, and a deep, mellow, seed- 
bed is ea.sily made. The chemical changes and 
modifications resulting from atmospheric action 
during the Winter, develop latent fertility in 
the upturned furrows, which, together with the 
mellowing influences, materially increase the 
crop. 

G. Most kinds of insects are either wholly 
destroyed, or their depredations materially 
checked by late fall plowing, especially tho 
common white grub and the cut worm. 

7. Corn stubble land may be plowed late in 
the fall, and thus be all ready for very early 
sowing in Spring, thereby going far to insure 
a good catch of grass; the roots of the new 
seeding getting hold well, or being well es- 
tablished before the drouths of Summer come 
on. 

All Western farmers know that some of the 
above rules can not be applied profitably to 
breaking prairie laud. 



DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION; 



Methods and Advantages Considered. 



Dbainaqe and Irrigation — the former hav- 
ing for its primary purpose the relief of fields 
that are too wet, and tlie latter the replenish- 
ment of fields that are too dry — are not so much 
practiced in this country as in Great Britain* 
and continental Europe, where labor is plenty 
and lands scarce and high. They ought rap- 
idly to increase amon^ us, however, as popula- 
tion becomes denser. 

The philosophy of both processes was well 
enough illustrated by the professor in a French 
College before his class: "Take this flower- 
pot," said lie, "what is the use of this small 
hole at the bottom ? To enable us to renew and 
remove the water. Why is this necessary ? 
Because water gives life or death; life, when it 
is only made to pass through the bed of earth, 
for it leaves with the soil its productive princi- 
ples, and renders soluble the nutritive proper- 
ties destined to nourish the plant ; death, on the 
other hand, when it rem.ains in the pot, for it 
soon becomes putrid, ami rots the roots, or ac- 
cumulates and drives out the air which is the 
breath of vegetation." 

Drailiag^e. — I may be asked, observes 
the great English agriculturist, Mechi, why I 
attach so much importance to drainage. Why, 
you might as well ask, do I attach so much impor- 
tance to circulation, vital or monetary. Stag- 
nant water, or stagnant air, are as ruinous to 
plants as they would be to our own vitality. 
Fix a cork in the drainage-hole of your flower- 
pot, and you will soon have a practical illus- 
tration of my meaning. The sallow and bilious 
plants (like many turnip crops I know of on 
undrained land), will show by their expression 
what is denied to them in speech. This is not 
the occasion to enter into subterranean examin- 
ation of gravity, capillary attraction, aeration. 



•As I 



liyt 



i»55, there had bceu l,36.i,l»j() acres perma- 
nently draiueil in Great Britain ; auj the Duke of Port- 
laud had made on his estates more than secen thotuand 
miles of diii\na,~£stimutes uj J. Bailey Denton. 



or filteration, much less of all those affectionate 
or repulsive interchanges that turn air, water, 
and earth into food for man and beast: But 
be assured, circulation is vitality — stagnation, 
death and ruin. 

Ealph Waldo Emerson, in a characteris- 
tic address in his native town, said: "Concord 
is one of the oldest towns in the country — far 
on now in its third century. The selectmen 
have once ill five years perambulated its bounds, 
and yet, in this year, a very large quantity of 
land has been discovered and added to the 
agricultural land, and without a murmur of 
complaint from any neighbor. By drainage, 
we have gone to the subsoil, and we have a 
Concord under Concord, a Middlesex under 
Middlesex, and a basement-story of Massachu- 
setts more valuable than all the superstructure. 
Tiles are political economists. They are so 
many Young Americans announcing a better 
era, and a day of fat things." 

Some of the beneficial results of drainage are 
generally recognized. Drainage removes stag- 
nant water from the surface and surplus water 
from under the surface. It lengthens the sea- 
sons. It deepens the soil. It warms the sub.soil. 
It equalizes the temperature of the earth that 
comes in contact with plants. It increases the 
quantity of crops, and improves their quality. 
It augments the eft'ect of manure. It lends to 
prevent Winter-killing, injury from drought, 
rust in wheat, and rot in potatoes. It drives 
out weeds and the ox-eyed daisy. 

Drainage is full of paradoxes. It makes cold 
land warmer, and warm land cooler; wet land 
drier, and dry land wetter; heavy land lighter, 
and light land, in some cases, heavier. Ii 
brings up moisture from the depths below, ami 
with it soluble food that else could not rise suf- 
ficiently near the surface; while it tempts the 
plant-roots to seek the lower strata where they 
find fresh water without losing their food and 
light and air. 

(55) 



5G 



DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION: 



The Secretary of the New York State Agri- 
cultural Society, in one of his reports, says: 
" The testimony of farmers in difierent sections 
of the Stale, is almost unanimous, that drained 
lands have suffered far less from drought than 
nndrained." Alleghany County reports that 
"drained lands have been less affected by the 
drought than undrained;" Chatauqua County, 
that "the drained lands have stood the drought 
better than the undrained." The report from 
Clinton County, says: "Drained lands have 
been less affected by the drought than un- 
drained." Montgomery County reports : "We 
find tliat drained lands have a better crop in 
either wet or dry seasons than undrained." 

B. F. NouRSE, of Orrington, Maine, says that 
on his drained lauds, in that State, "during the 
drought, there was at all times sufficient damp- 
ness apparent on scraping the surface of the 
ground with his foot, in passing, and a crop of 
beans was planted, grown, and gathered there- 




in the first figure, 1 represents the surface- 
soil, in which evaporation takes place, using up 
the water which might otherwise go to the 
roots of plants; b, represents the water-table, or 
surface of stagnant water, below which roots 
seldom go; a, water of evaporation ; ft, water of 
capillary attraction; c, water of drainage, or 
stagnant water. 

In the second figure, 1 represents thesurface- 



from, without as much rain as will usually fall 
in a shower of fifteen minutes' duration, while 
vegetation on the next field was parching for 
lack of moisture. 

A committee of the New York Farmers' 
Club, which visited the farm of Professor 
Mapes, in New Jersey, in the time of a severe 
drought in 1855, reported that the professor's 
fences were the boundaries of the drought, all 
the lands outside being affected by it, while his 
remained free from injury. This was attributed, 
both by the committee and by Profes.sor Mapes 
him.'^elf, to thorough drainage and deep tillage 
with the snbsoil plow. 

The accompanying engravings will show the 
effect which stagnant water within a foot or two 
of the surface, has on the roots of wheat plants. 
They should enable the reader to see wliy 
thorough underdraining is beneficial in time of 
drought: 




.soil warmed by the sun and Summer rains; 2, 
the water-table nearly four feet below the sur- 
face; d, water of capillary attraction; e, water 
of drainage, or stagnant water. 

In a well-drained soil, the earth is permeable 
to rain and dew, and the numerous roots absorb 
it readily in seasons when the ground in the 
undrained soil is baked and the few roots fam- 
ished. 



METHODS AND ADVANTAGES CONSIDERED. 



57 



Drainage improves the healtlifulness of the 
locality. A doctor took one of the Sanitary 
Comraisifiioners to a hill overlooking his district. 
"There," said he, "wherever yon see those 
patches of white mist I have, frequent illness, 
and if there is a ce.ss-pool, or other nuisance as 
well, I can reckon on typhus every now and 
then. Outside these mists I am rarely wanted." 
Dr. BoWDiTCH testifies that "there are two or 
three times as many deaths from consumption 
in wet places as in dry." 

Will Draining Payt — Yes. Draining 
by some method will pay in almost every in- 
stance wliere arable or meadow land is too wet, 
even in America. To lay manure on wet soils 
is to throw money away. Daniel Gates, of 
New York St.ate, testifies that draining has in- 
creased his land to "three times its former value." 
Mr. LuTTON slid, in the New York State Agri- 
cultural Society, that for four successive years 
he applied twenty-five loads of manure per acre 
to seven acres, and reaped thirly-one bushels 
of oats per acre ;■ he then drained the same land, 
and without manure, it produced eighty-nine 
and a half bushels per acre. 

John Johnston, a Scotchman, came to this 
country poor; purchased a farm in 1835, near 
Geneva, New York, said to be the poorest land 
in that section of the State. It was a heavy, 
gravely clay, with a close clay subsoil ; and it 
had been cropped down by former owners, until, 
instead of being a farm to live on, it had be- 
come proverbially a place to starve on; but by a 
thorough system of tile drainage (not then 
much known in the country), followed by deep 
plowing and manuring, Mr. Johnston soon 
made it produce better crops than the best 
farms in that section, and by its help found him- 
self owner of three hundred aci-es of the most 
productive land in the county. He was never 
a capitalist, and never engaged in fortunate 
outside speculations. He was solely a working 
farmer, and he owed his success chiefly to his 
system of subsoil drainage. His drains are 
fifty miles in length. 

Wliat Liands require Dralnag^el— 

Mr. Gkeeley thinks that a^Hands worth plow- 
ing would be improved by draining. But Hon. 
Henry F. French, in his admirable little 
manual on Farm Draining, insists that some 
land does not require it, as nature herself has 
thorou^^hly drained a large proportion of the 
soil. He sets forth the following descriptions 
of soil as requiring drainage: all lands over- 



flowed in Summer; all swamps and bogs; and 
all soils that contain too much water at any 
time. There is probably not one farm in fifty 
that does not need considerable thorough drain- 
ihg; and the venerable John Johnston, the 
original tile-drainer of this country, thinks 
that four-fifths of all our lands require this 
relief. 

TVlll Underdrainln? Pay t— This 
depends on circumstances. If good, n.iturally 
underdrained land can be obtained in your 
neighborhood — as in most of the counties of the 
West — for from $15 to S20 per acre, it would 
not pay, in all probability, to expend $30 per 
acre in underdraining low, wet, springy land; 
but in all districts where land is worth $.50 per 
acre, nothing can pay better than to expend 
$20 to $30 per acre in judicious underdraining. 
The labor of cultivation is much reduced, while 
the produce is generally increased one-lialf,and is 
not un frequently doubled ; and it must be remem- 
bered that the increase is net profit. If we get $15 
worth of wheat from one acre and $20 worth 
from the other, and the expense of cultivation 
is $10 in both eases, the profit from one is 
twice as much as from the other. That judi- 
cious underdraining will increase the crops 
one-third, can not be doubted by any one who 
has witnessed its effects. If it should double 
the crops, as it often does, the profit would be 
four-fold. Mr. Johnston estimates that the 
average surplus profit on two years' crop will 
pay for the drainage. 

Surface Draining:. — On cheap lands, 
where tile drainage seems too expensive, surface 
draining will afford to wet lands a partial relief, 
and will answer a very good purpose on all 
swales and wet places that are not fed by 
springs. If necessary, let oS" the water by 
plowing a furrow, or by opening a trench with 
the spade; then plow the field. After the sod 
has rotted so that you can plow to advantage, 
mark out a land, the center of which will be 
where you want your drain, with the outside 
extending, if practicable, to where the ground 
ascends. Plow deep, repeatedly lessening the 
land a little at each plowing, so as not to leave 
a ridge between the outside of the field and the 
center. By plowing from three to five times, 
and clearing out the dead furrow in the center, 
with a shovel or spade, you will have a drain 
two or three feet deep, that will last lor years. 
This can be stoned up, if you prefer it, and be- 
come permanent in the form of an open ditch. 



5S 



DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION : 



And such ditches may be multiplied as the 
land seems to require it. They are very bene- 
ficial, as compared with none at all; but they 
are expensive ; they obstruct good husbandry, 
especially impeding mowing machines; tJiey 
occupy too much land; they carry 08' much of 
the manure; they are but a clumsy expedient; 
and something better should be substituted for 
them as soon as practicable. But remember 
that the sides of an open ditch should always 
slant, at least forty-five degrees. 

Under Drains. — Among the first covered 
draias in use, were those made by throwing 
stones into the bottom of a ditch, and replacing 
the earth above them. These " blind ditches" 
have sometimes produced marvelous eHects, 
drying up the moist lands and bringing in 
clover plentifully — but in two or three years 
they generally fail entirely. They become 
choked with earth or weeds ; the stagnant 
water again soaks in the soil, and the wild 
grass re-appears 

Brush draining — that is, blind ditches filled 
with brush instead of stones — have been some- 
what used. In a peat or clay soil, they last a 
number of years — sometimes ten or twenty, 
though alwayo liable to clog ; but in sandy soil 
they are quite unreliable. In fact, both the 
stone and the brush drain, are generally in the 
end more expensive than the tile diain. The 
mole-plow is somewhat used in the West, and 
lias been found serviceable in soils that are ex- 
clusively clay. But for general use, nothing 
yet has been found to be equal to 

TUe Drains. — Tiles form the most per- 
fect channels for underdrains. They may be 








tubular, as shown in figure 1, and laid in the 
bottom as represented by figure 4 ; or, they may 
be in the horse-shoe form, like figure 2, whicii 
answers a good purpose when placed on a very 
hard or rocky bottom; or, if the bottom be not 
hard, which is most usually the case, plates of 
tile, termed soles, are first laid, to prevent the 



heavy weight of earth above from sinking the 
edges into the soil (figme 3). This is, however, 
complex and expensive, and hence the tubular 
tile is now generally used. They are most 
=^===^^== rapidly and easily laid 
I by means of the tile 
Fig. 5. Tile Hook. hook (figure 5), which 
is simply placed within the bore, and they are 
lowered to their place. A little earth is then 
rammed down on each side, to keep tlieru 
straight until covered. Where the soil is quite 
soft, they must be laid upon flat stone, tile soles, 
or narrow boards of durable wood. They may 
be first covered with straw, small brush, gravel, 
or small stone, or, if collars are placed on the 
joints, inverted turf may be laid in direct con- 
tact with the tile. If in hard clayey earth, 
small stone alone will answer, with straw or 
turf placed upon them before the earth is filled 
in. But if the sub.soil approaches the nature 
of quicksand, more care will be required, and 
fine gravel, with a heavy coating of straw, may 
be necessary. 

The importance of filling roost of the ditch 
above the tile with stone, is sometimes urged, 
under the belief that water can not find its way 
down to the bottom through three feet of earth. 
But a moment's thought will show the fallacy 
of this objection, for if the drain will carry oflf 
the water lying one rod distant horizontally it 
will convey away with far greater ease what 
happens to be only two or three feet directly 
above. 

It was once the practice to perfov.ite tile with 
small holes, to let the water pass into them ; 
but it has been since found that the joints at 
the ends and the porosity of the tile will admit 
all that is required. 

liaying- out Drains.— The first opera- 
tion necessary upon a field intended to be 
drained, is the examination of the strata, or 
veins of earth of which it is composed; and 
this is commonly effected with the boring auger, 
or by digging small pits, or open drains, as by 
this means the oozings or weepings will speediy 
display themselves, and indicate pretty correctly 
the source whence the superabundant water pro- 
ceeds. This being ascertained, the direction 
of the underdrains will be the more easily de- 
cided. In the formation of these drains the work- 
man always commences on the lowest extremity ;' 
by this means, besides other advantages, the 
water, as he arrives at it, drains away from him, 
and shows him, by its escape, that he is pre- 
serving a proper fall. 



LAYING OUT DRAINS. 



59 



ROUND TILE. 
1/^ inch diameter, £15 per 1000. 



SOLE TILE. 



The simplest mode of proceeding is most I Cost of Tile Drainage. — Tubular tile, with two- 
practiced, and is believed to be the best; that inch bore, which is large enough generally, 
is, to run the parallel drains directly down the except for m.ain drains or those nearly level, 
natural slope of the land, tapping them once or usually costs about ten dollars at the manufac- 
twice if the locations of water should render it tory, for enough to lay sixty rods. To be more 
necessary. Never step in the bottom of the definite, the following are the prices, by the 1000 
ditch when laying tile. A spirit-level will be pieces, at some of the prominent Tile Works in 
found convenient. the country: 

Depth and distance of jDroins.— Experience 
has determined that twenty-five to thirty feet 
apart, for compact or clayey soils, and thirty- 
five to sixty for light and porous soils, are 
uroper distances for accomjjlishing speedy and 
effectual drainage. Three or four feet is the 
most economical depth. When draining was 
first introduced into some parts of Great Britain, 
the drains were made one and a half or two 
feet deep, and eighteen feet apart. After many 
thousand miles were laid, they became defective. 
They were then made about three feet deep, 
and twice as far apart. Thisco.st less, and was 
more efficient. 

Size of Tile. — The larger tiles should be used 

near the outlet. Large mains and small feeders 

is the rule. The larger sizes are also necessary 

where the grade is slight; for example, a two 

inch tile with ordinary imperfections in laying, 

will carry off eight hundred or nine hundred , , . , 

, , J ■ , . /■ I ..1 I 1 i but drying shortens them to twelve and a hall 

hogsheads in twenty-tour nouns, with a descent ! . , , , ■ 

of one foot in ten; while a four-inch tile will 



nORSE-SHOE TILE 



Sloper 1000. 



Bound pipe tiles are generally preferred in 
England, and are rapidly coming into use in 
this country. They are much the most reliable. 
Tiles are cut thirteen to fourteen inches long, 



carry o2 about twice as much with a descent 
of only one foot in a hundi-ed. 

The size of a drain depends on two circum- 
stances : its rate of descent and its length (the 
aggregate of main and branches). "The drains 
should be of such a magnitude as to carry off a 
thousand hogsheads per acre, in twenty-four 
hours. If each drain relieves a space of a rod 
on each side, or a strip of land two rods wide, 
it must be pighty feet long for an acre of this 
breadth, and carry off forty -two hogsheads every 
hour, forty-six gallons per minute, or three- 
fourtlis of a gallon per second. A tubular tile, 
two inches in diameter, and perfectly smooth 
and straight, would accomplish this if it had a 
descent of one foot in twenty. With ordinary 
imperfections, it would require a descent of 
about one foot in ten or twelve. If the descent 
was only one foot in fifty, it would require a 
three inch bore."* Almost any field can be 
drained, however flat. Rivers will run with a 
• fall of only two inches in a mile.t 

•Seciind Volume Aunual Register Rural Affairs, p. 172. 

f VELOciffV OF Water in Tile Drains.— An acre of land, 
in a wet time, contains about I.UOl) spare hoesheads of 
water. An underdrain will carry off from a strip of land 



inches, and a fraction must be allowed for 
breakage; so it is estimated that a thousand 
tiles will lay a thousand feet of drain on an 
average. 

Judge French, in his "Farm Drainage," 
gives the following experience under the head 
of "Expense:" "We have opened our drains 
of 4 foot depth, but 20 inches at top and 4 inches 



about two rods wide, ami one eighty rods long will drain 
an acre. The following table will show the size of the 
tile required to drain an acre in two days' time (the 
longest admissible), at different rates of descent; or the 
size for any larger area : 



Diameter 


Rate of 


Velocity 


Hogsheads 






of current 


discharged 






pi>r second. 


in 24 hrs. 


2 inches. 


1 foot in 100 


22 inches. 


4IM 


2 inches. 


1 foot Jn M 


■i2 inches. 


660 




1 foot in 20 


01 inches. 


900 


2 inches. 


I foot in Ifl 


73 inches. 


1290 


3 inches. 


1 foot in 100 


27 inches. 


1170 


3 inches. 


1 fiot in 50 


3s inches. 


1640 


3 inches. 


1 foot in 20 


67 inches. 


3100 




1 foot in 10 


S4 inches. 


.3600 


4 inches. 


1 foot in ion 


32 inches. 


2500 




I foot in 50 


45 inches. 


35<l<l 




1 foot in 20 


72 inches. 


561 Kl 


4 inchey. 


1 foot in 10 


100 inches. 


7S00 



A dednrtion of one-third to one-half must be made fur 
he roughness of the tile or imperfection in laying. The 
Irains must be of some length to give the water velocity, 
iiid these numbers do not, therefore, apply to very short 



60 



DRAINAGE AND IRRIGATION: 



at bottom, giving a mean width of 12 inches. In 
one instance, in the Summer of 1858, two men 
opened 14 rods of such drain in one day. In 
BLX days, the same two men opened, laid, and 
filled 947 feet, or about 57J rods of such drain. 
Their labor was worth $12 00, or 21 cents per 
rod. The actual cost of this job was as fol- 
lows : 

847 two-inch tiles, at $13 per 1000 $11 01 

100 throe-inch, for main 2 .'lO 

70 bushels of tun to protect the joints 70 

Horse to haul tiles and tan ^ 

Labor, twelve days, at $1 12 00 

Total $2') 71 

"This is 46i cents per rod, besides our own 
time and skill in laying out and superintending 
the work." 

The following table gives the number of 
twelve-inch tiles required to drain an acre, be- 
ing laid at different distances apart, and the 
number of rods of such drain to the acre : 



In 


ervals be 
Drains, i 


ween 
a feet 


the 


Twelve-inch 
ripe. 


Rods per Acre. 




2il04 
2-120 
2(174 
IS15 
ItilS 
14S2 
1320 
1210 
1117 
1037 


















«7 7-9 












73 1-3 








62 i;-7 







We may calculate that in the average of 
.soils, at least three rods of four-foot ditch, 
twelve inches wide, will be dug and refilled by 
one man in a day. This would reduce the ex- 
pense to the following statement : 

Opining and fillins, per rod 331< cents. 

Tiles, at two cents each 33,'^ " 



Total cost of each rod m^ cents. 

Multiply the number of rods to the acre, as 
shown in the above table, by two, and divide 
by three, and the answer will be about the 
number of dollars tile-drainage will cost per 
acre, at the different distances. Tiles ought to 
be furnished much cheaper than the above 
rates, and doubtless will be as soon as their 
use becomes more general. 

There are now tile factories in every North- 
ern State — no less than sixty in Ohio alone. No 
department of agriculture is making more rapid 
general progress than that of subsoil drainage. 

Irrigation in its agricultural sense, implies 
the watering of grass lands with running water 
at certain intervals, by means of artificial con- 
structions. It is the reverse of draining — they 
are the balancing forces in farming economy. 
Irrigation is least important, however, because 



the average of lands have too much water. 
Yet it is no slight auxiliary. Snow has been 
called "the poor man's manure," and properly, 
for it not only warms, but possesses positive 
fertilizing elements. So does fresh water of 
almost any kind, when applied in moderate 
quantities, and as freely removed. 

Early Irrig-atlon.— The ancients learn- 
ed and practiced this art. ViRGiL advised his 
people to "bring down the waters of the river 
upon the sunned corn, and when the field is 
parched and the plants drying, convey it from 
the brow of the hill in channels." The most won- 
derful remains of antiquity among the Chine.se, 
Indians, Greeks, Romans, Syrians, Peruvians, 
and other nations are the immense aqueducts 
for the purpose of irrigation. No amount of 
labor or expense was deemed incommen.surate 
with their importance and value to the nation. 
Through mountains and over valleys, spanning 
rivers and climbing precipices, for hundreds 
of miles went great arteries of stone, that car- 
ried the life-fluid through the parched and 
barren land. At the present day in many Eu- 
ropean and Asiatic countries the irrigation of 
land is by far the most important process of 
agriculture. By irrigation in the valley of the 
Po, "every rood of earth maintains its man." 
In Egypt the overflowing of the Nile is the 
source of all the fertility and wealth of the 
land; and in China and India, and on many 
parts of the Mediterranean coast, sowing and 
reaping are not more a matter of course than 
regular watering. In Italy canals are in some 
sections as numerous as roads, running along 
thera for miles, with branches to the various 
farms and vineyards, and companies are estab- 
lished which have the privilege of supplying 
the farms with water at a prescribed tariff. 
In Germany, France, and even in the moist 
climate of England, the irrigation of fields 
has become a very common and profitable 
practice. 

Irrig'atlon In America. — There are 
several of our States, especially in the East, 
where the necessity of irrigation will soon force 
itself upon the public attention. In some 
neighborhoods the farmers already complain, 
about every other season, that their fruit falls 
untimely to the ground, their grain withers in 
the field, their potatoes bake in the earth, and 
their pastures scorch and dry up, till scarcely 
a green blade or a drop of water can be found 
for the stock. 



METHOD OP IRRIGATION — SOILS TO WHICH IT IS ADAPTED. 



61 



It is evident that tlie seasons are gradually 
growing drier and kotter, owing to the vandal- 
ism of man in cutting off the forests, which 
attract and retain the moisture, and temper the 
winds that sweep over the earth. Many scien- 
tific writers have been for the last score of 
years warning our utilitarian people against 
the error of destroying our noble forests, but 
so long as there was a market for wood and 
lumber, or the land could be turned to a few 
dollars more account for some other purpose, 
they were laughed at as a set of croakers, and 
the present advantage was seized at the ex- 
pense of the future. But within one or two 
years almost every agricultural society has 
begun to discuss the matter, and to evince a 
determination to plant again the forests which 
have been so ruthlessly destroyed. 

The destruction of forests is not the only 
cause of the dryness of the seasons. The great 
net-work of railroads and telegraph wires 
which covers the face of the civilized globe, 
to say nothing of millions of lightning rods, 
with their thievish fingers thrust up into the 
clouds, are con.stantly drawing away the elec- 
tricity, and by restoring the equilibrium be- 
tween the clouds and the earth, prevent the 
Btorms that accomplish the same purpose in a 
noisy way. It is a man's mission to conquer 
the earth and subdue it, but in meeting the 
forces of nature .and seeking to conquer them 
and render them subservient to his own ends, 
he should take care lest they flank him, and 
in the end turn his own batteries upon him- 
self. It is never too late to mend, but it will 
take half a century to restore the trees that 



were destroyed in a day. In the meantime 
many of our hills and dry places should be 
supplied with artificial sustenance, by means 
of a system of irrigation. 

Metbod of Irrigation.— The whole 
art of irrigation may be deduced from two 
simple rules; which are, first, to give a sufii- 
cient supply of water during all the time the 
plants are growing; and, secondly, never to 
allow it to accumulate so long as to stagnate. 
As the water must flow in a sheet over the 
land, or in channels through it, the supply 
must be ahove the level of the land to be irri- 
gated. This is one of the chief points to be 
considered. A main conductor should run 
along the top of the field, with small conduits 
passing out of it. The water must be drained 
ofi" easily after being used. 

Soils to vrliicli it is Adapted.— 

Light, porous soils show the effect of irrigation 
in a marked degree; and all sorts of dry and 
warm land receive almost instantaneous im- 
provement from it. Boggy land, even in its 
natural state, is also greatly helped by it, and 
produces in consequence heavy crops of coarse 
hay, serviceable for store cattle ; but clay soils 
are the least susceptible of benefit, unless they 
are first thoroughly underdrained. On a dry 
sloping meadow, where irrigation is practica- 
ble, it pays better than any other form of fer- 
tilization. 

Many parts of the West are permanently de- 
prived of its advantages, not possessing streama 
that can be thus utilized. 



FIELD CROPS 



1 



Cereals, Grasses, Vegetables, Textiles, Etc. — Benefits of Kotation and 
Modes op Culture. 



At the time of the revival of letters, hardly 
1,500 plants were known from the descriptions 
of the ancients. A hundred years ago, the 
Swede, Charles Linne, generally called Lin 
VJEUS, the father of botany, reckoned about 
8,000 varieties; Humboldt mentions 44,000; 
hater observers have carried the number of as 
certained sorts up to 100,000; and Ao.\ssiz has 
since returned from South America, and added 
largely to the enumeration. A chronicler of 
curious things estimates that "there are 15,000 
useful plilnts known in the world ; of these 
3,000 are edible fruits, berries and seeds; 250 
cereals; 75 kinds of Indian corn; 2,500 vege- 
tables and salads;" 300 shrubs, etc., which yield 
various drinks; and 260 aroraatics. There are 
50 substitutes for coffee, and 129 for tea. About 
900 known plants are poisonous." 

Amount of Different Crops.— A 

comparison of the total productions of the 
more important staples of the country, as re- 
turned by the census of 1850 and of 18ti0, with 
the estimates of 1867 for the same products, 
indicates a fair progression, under the adverse 
circumstances connected with a civil war which 
devastated one section and withdrew a heavy 
percentage of agricultural labor from the other. 
In the following table, which makes this ex- 
hibit, the items of corn and potatoes of 1867 
are unusually small, those crops having suffered 
greater injury than for several years previous: 





1850. 


1S60. 


1867. 




592,071,101 

10(1,485.944 

14,18.S,813 

146,5*4,190 

5,1117,015 

8,95«,912 

66,797,89(1 

199,752,66;-. 

13,838.642 

2,445,793 

52,516,959 


838, 792,740 
173,104,!I24 

21,10l.i<0 
172,643.185 

I5,825.»9S 

17,571,MS 
111,148,867 
434,209,461 

19,083,896 
5,.337,0.i2 

60,264,9W 


768,.12n,000 

217,870.400 
23,490,1100 

276,098.000 
25,727.0(10 
21,359.000 
67,783.000 

323,724,000 
26.277,000 
2,.30O.0(lO 

112,000,000 










Durkwheat, bushels.. 

Pntatoye, bii8lic>ls 

Titbacro, pounds 









•Fbakixo BrKR in his, well-known book, enumerates 
learly l,luo varieties of the field and garden vegetables of 

C62) 



Comparative Prices of Twelve 
Years. — The Journal of Commerce contains an 
interesting table of the comparative prices of 
various articles at New York on the first of 
May in each of the past twelve years. We 
quote some of these figures below : 





Wheat. 


Bye. 


Oats 


Corn. 


Hay. 


Hops. 




SI. 35 
1.70 
1.65 
1.65 
1.42 
1.80 
1.88 
1.85 
2.65 
3.40 
3.10 
1.90 


S 66 

84 

84 

68 

80 

1 03 

1 63 

1 03 

78 

1 .58 

2 15 
1 30 


» 4i; 

54 

43 

36 

40 

85 

86 

72 

61 

S3 

S5)^ 

90 


$ 73 

86 

82 

67 

58 

94 

1 38 

1 48 

86 

1 40 

1 20 

90 


% 45 
75 
95 

si) 

1 60 

90 
60 
I 90 
80 
60 


* 8 

13 
10 














2S 


























Mirss Polk 


1 Mess Bei-f. 


Bntter. 


Cheese 


\v„oi; 

Merino 




»18 75 

16 35 

17 75 
17 87 
12 62 
15 00 
26 .50 
26 00 
26 00 
22 80 
28 00 
31 (10 


$11 .50 
8 25 
.5 25 

6 (Kl 
6 00 

13 00 

14 (10 
2(1 (H) 

16 no 

20 00 


■mi 

18 
16 
18 

19 
31 
ai 
.511 
28 
48 
38 


$ SJ^ 
10 
10 

7 

8>^ 
12 

\m 

20 
20 
19 
15 
22 






58 






6S 
49 

78 
77 




isn.i ,. 






62 






.57 








1 





If these quotation.? are trustworthy, as from 
their source we presume to be the case, we may 
judge of present prices (1869), more justly by 
reducing them to a gold standard (calling gold 
$1 35) and placing them side by side with the 
aver.age prices of the three years before the war, 
1858-9-60, which were years of general pros- 
perity with gold at par : 



Wheat, per bushel $1 67 

Rye, " " 78 

Oats, " " 48 

Corn, " '• 80 

Hay, per 100 pounds..., 72 
Miss Pork, per bri.... 17 li2 

Mess Beef, " 6 33 

Butter, per pound 22 

(Jheese. " " 9> 

Merino Wool, " 49 



Bniter, per pound.. 



WEIGHT OF GRAIN ROTATION OF CROPS. 



63 



Thus, of the ten .article's, four are lower now 
than before the war, and six are higher — the 
Tnost marked decrease being in hay, and the 
largest advance on cheese, oats, mess pork, but- 
ter, and rye, in the order named. 

Weight of Grain, etc., per bnsli- 

el. — Wheat is 60 pounds to the bushel in all 
the States except Connecticut, where it is 56 
pounds; Rye is 56 pounds in nearly all the 
States; Corn 56 pounds in nearly all, but 5S in 
Xew York ; Oats 32 pounds ; Barley 4S pounds ; 
Buckwheat 46 to 50 pounds, but mostly 48; 
Clover Seed mostly 60 pounds, but 64 in Ohio 
and New Jersey; Timothy 44 poHnds; Flax 
Seed 56 pounds; Potatoes 60 pounds; Beans 
mostly 60 pounds, but 62 in New York, and 56 
in Ohio; Blue-grass Seed 14 pounds; Hemp 
Seed 44 pounds ; Dried Peaches 28 to 33 pounds ; 
Dried Apples 22 to 28 pounds. 

Rotation of Crops. — The necessity for 
a rotation in crops does not seem to have been 
at all felt until the middle of the last century, 
and not till after 1800 did it find its way to 
America to supersede the expensive habit of 
naked fallowing. It was then seen that the 
same crop, planted successively, year after year, 
gradually ran out, and demanded transplanta- 
tion. Science has more recently taught us the 
reason for this, in the fact that each crop draws 
from the soil certain elements which are its 
natural food, and which it exhausts year by 
year. Meantime, those elements which would 
produce a vigorous growth of some other phant, 
lie dormant, or expend their force in the pro- 
duction and propagation of some vile weed 
which you do not want. "The true general 
reason why a second or third crop of the same 
kind will not grow well, is that it contains too 
little of one or more kinds of matter. If, after 
manuring, turnips grow luxuriantly, it is be- 
cause the soil has been enriched with all that 
the crop requires. If a healthy barley crop 
follow the turnips, it is because the soil still 
contains all the food of this new plant. If clover 
thrive after this, it is because it naturally re- 
quires certain other kinds of nourishment which 
neither of the former crops has exhausted. If, 
again, luxuriant wheat succeeds, it is becau.se 
tlie soil abounds still in all that the wheat crop 
needs — the failing vegetable and other matters 
of the surface being increased and renewed by 
the enriching roots of the preceding clover. 
And if now turnips refuse again to give a fair 
return, it is because you have not added to the 



soil a fresh supply of that manure without 
which they can not thrive. Add the manure, 
and the same rotation of crops may again 
ensue." 

On some of the rich, deep hands of the West, 
corn, and even wheat, have been occasionally 
produced, year after year, without obvious de- 
terioration ; but this is doubtful economy, even 
where the result seems to justify it, for in the 
end, the wastefulness of the method will make 
itself felt. Wherever Nature is left untram- 
meled by the farmer, she almost invariably 
produces a rotation of crops. Our artificial 
grasses soon cease to struggle with the natural 
ones ; and even the latter succeed one another 
in almost regular order. In our Southern 
States, when the pine and other soft woods are 
cut off, the .scrub oak and other hard woods 
succeed them, to give place in their time to 
softer ones. All have noticed in the Northern 
section of the Union, that when a forest of oak, 
hickory, or other hard wood, is cleared oif, it is 
generally followed by a growth of soft wood. 

No two varieties of crops extract their food 
in the same proportion. Johnston gives the 
following table, showing the amount of salts ex- 
tracted by a crop of turnips, growing five tons 
to the acre ; of barley, 38 bushels ; one ton each 
of dry clover or rye grass; and of wheat 25 
bushels. 







H 


Barley. 


a 


a 


Wheat. 


•i 




gs 




a. 








^ 




a 


M 


o 


S 


:i 










































? 


? 


.-^ 


3 


.= 


« 




Potash 


U,'...! 


5.6 


4.!> 


4-i.O 


28,5 


3.3 


0.6 


233.0 




M.3 


i.» 


1.1 


12.11, 9.0 


3.5 


0.9 


>«>.6 




I'i.^ 


2.1 


12.9 


cc. 


16. .1 


X.5 


7.2 


149.0 


Masne.^iu. 


I-...i 


3.6 


1.8 


I.b 


2.(1 


1.5 


1.0 


32.9 


Alumina.. 


2.2 


O.ii 


Z.4 


U.3 




0.4 


2.7 


10.3 


Silica 


2.3.fi 


?;<.« 


90.0 


8.(1 


62 (1 


fi.O 




299.2 


.Sill, Aci.l. 


49.0 


1.2 


2.8 iin.fl 


8 (1 


0.8 


1.0 


72.8 


Ph. 18. " 


2.'.4 


4.2 


3.7 1.5. i: 




U.6 


.i.O 


.il.5 


Chlorine . . 


14.5 


0.4 


1.5 S.O 


0.1 


0.2 


0.9 


25.6 
970. 9» 



It is necessary that each plant shall find 
these salts in the soil, in quantities and condi- 
tions adapted to its use; rotation efTects this 
end. 



A planter near Jacksonville, Florida, had 
kept one hundred and ninety-five acres of rich 
land under continual cultivation of corn and 
cotton, for a period of nearly fifty years, until 
they were completely worn out by the meager 
rotation — being incapable of producing five 
bushels of corn or fifty pounds of seed cotton 



c JoKSSTON's ChemiBtry. 



64 



FIELD crops: 



per acre. He planted it to cane, and produced 
twenty-five hogsheads of very superior sugar, 
averaging one thousand pounds, from the one 
hundred and ninety-five acres. 

George Sinclair took the following view 
of the cause of the exhaustion of soils: "If," 
he says. " a plant impoverishes a soil in pro- 
portion to the weight of vegetable matter it 
produces on a given space of ground, the fol- 
lowing will be the order in which the under- 
mentioned plants exhaust the ground, being 
the proportion they bear to each other with 
respect to weight of produce : 

Mangpl wurzel 25 

Ciibbaui'S 25 

■\Vliil.. turnip 16 

Poliitm-s 15 

Kolil iHbi kbulli -stalked cabbage 14 

Swedish turnip 13 

Carrots 11 

" But when we take the weight of nutritive 
matter which a plant affords from a given 
space of ground, the results are very diflerent, 
and will be found to agree with the daily ex- 
perience in the garden and the farm. 

" The following figures represent the propor- 
tion in which they stand to each other with 
respect to the weight of nutritive matter per 
acre, and in exhausting the land : 

Potatoes r.s 

CabbiiEci 42 

Mangel wurzel „ 2.S 

Carrots 24 

Kohl-riibi 17 

Swedish turnip 1(> 

Common turnip 14 

" Change of crops also suppresses weeds, and 
prevents very materially the increase of the 
predatory grub and insects which also more or 
less prey upon the farmer's crops." 

The German farmers pay much more atten- 
tion to a systematic rotation of crops than has 
been customary in this country. On this point, 
John H. Klippart, Secretary of the Ohio 
Agricultural Society, recently said, in an ad- 
dress in that State: "In Europe there is a 
regular rotation of crops adapted to the soil — 
a three course system, a four course system, a 
six, eight, ten or twelve course system — accord- 
ing to the size of the farm and quality of the 
soil. The farm is divided into as many fields 
as there are rotations in the course, or else into 
multiples of the rotations; then, the kind of 
crop which was grown in field No. 1 last year, 
is grown in field No. 2 this year, and will be 
grown in field No. 3 next year, and so on till 
the course is completed ; this insui-cs a crop of 
wheat every year on a different field, and has 
many advantages; it has the advantage of hav- 
ing the soil properly prepared by previous 



crops; it is very much less liable to insect dep- 
redations, and the crop is every year on a com- 
paratively new soil, and there is, as a rule, a 
good wheat crop every year." 

Tucker'.? Sural Affairs, for 1868, proposes a 
similar methodical practice for this country. 
"The following simple three and four course 
systems may be adopted in grain growing dis- 
tricts : 

"Three-course system — First year, corn and 
roots, well manured ; second year, wheat ; third 
year, clover one or more years, according to 
fertility and amount of manure at hand. Early 
corn should be planted to admit of early re- 
moval for sowing the wheat. 

" Four-course system — First year, corn and 
roots with all the manure ; second year, barley 
or peas, or both ; third year, wheat ; fourth 
year, clover, one or more years. 

" Oats is a severe crop anywhere in a rota- 
tion, but may be admitted on strong soils, the 
.second year, if followed with fine manure. An 
experienced farmer, who adopts the preceding 
three-course system, never permits oats to grow 
on land fit for wheat, but confines the crop ex- 
clusively to the more moist parts of his farm, 
otherwise devoted to meadow and pasture. 

"The following course occupies nine fields: 
First year, corn and roots with all the manure ; 
second year, barley; third year, wheat seeded 
with clover; fourth year, pasture; fifth year, 
meadow ; sixth year, fallow ; seventh year, 
wheat ; eighth year, oats or barley with clover ; 
ninth year, pasture or meadow. 

" A rotation used by some good farmers in 
Maryland is this : First year, corn with ma- 
nure; second year, oats with one hundred and 
fifty pounds ol guano, and buckwheat turned 
under as manure; third year, whe.tt, clover 
and timothy ; fourth year, meadow ; fifth year, 
pasture; sixth year, buckwheat, root crops, and 
peas. 

"The rotation below is well adapted to stony 
soils when the dairy is a prominent business: 
First year, after fall plowing, sow in Spring 
oats; second year, after fall plowing, plant 
corn in Spring, applying a compost of muck, 
manure, and ashes, and top-dressing with plas- 
ter; tliird year, after fall plowing, sow early in 
Spring to wheat, barley, or a thinly seeded crop 
of oats, seeding down to clover and timothy, 
and top-dressing with one bushel of plaster to 
the acre; fourth, let the land lie in grass as 
long as it produces well, with the help of plas- 
ter and a triennial dressing in Autumn. 

"The following course is used where little 



ROTATION OF CROPS. 



G5 



el.*c Ih.iii the daily is depended on for profit, 
the wlieut or flour being purchased: First year, 
corn or sward with manure from barn-yard 
(applied and spread in Autumn or during 
Winter), and one busliel of plaster to the acre, 
jiutling the old or composted manure and plas- 
ter in the hills ; second year, sow barley. Spring 
wheat nr a thinly seeded crop of oats, with 
liiiicilliy and clover; third, pasture or mow five 
(irsi.K years, and top-dress with manure in Au 
tnuin. The grass seed should be sown at the 
rate of about half a bushel per acre, that the 
pasture may be fcie and rich like old fields." 

Tlie following diagram exhibits, to such as 
may not be familiar with the subject, the man- 
ner of laying out a farm witli fields, each being 
alhited to its regular course, with the following 
rotation in each field for the si.i: years. Wheat, 
corn, and roots, barley, wheat, clover, grass : 



No. 1. 


No. 2. 


No. 3. 


isr,.'.— Wheat. 
1.^61.— Corn and 

l>f.7-B;irliT; 
IN'S-Wheat. 
1M>9— CloVL-r. 
1«70-Gras8. 


186.1- Corn and 

roots. 
Iiififi— Bailey. 
1867-Wlieat. 
l>68-Clover. 
1S69— Grass. 
1870-Whtat. 


l.«r.5-B.arlHy. 
166H-Wbiat. 
l.slw-Clovi-r. 
Is6.s-Grasa. 
18i.9-Whfat. 
ISTU-Corn and 
roots. 






No. 6. 


No. 5. 


No. i. 


I,v..',— Gr:iss. 
lsi;.;-\vii«it. 
lsS7-rmn and 

isfis— Barli-y.' 
1»,9-Whi.at. 
l.-7ll-Clover. 


isi-o-ciover. 
ISf,.,— lirass. 
ls<7-Wlicat. 
l,M',,s^i.'oin and 

roots. 
Isfia-Barley. 
1871)— Wheat. 


I,«r..5-Whcaf.' 
l.sw- ClovL-r. 
Ii'.f.7-Grnss. 
ISiW— Wliiat. 
1869-Corn and 

roots. 
lS70-Barley. 



Of course the .selection and arrangement of 
the best rotation must depend upon the climate, 
soil, size of farm, and local jrosition (for a 
market.) It will be governed, also, by the cir- 
cumstance whether the farmer choose.s, or finds 
it for his interest, to devote his farm mainly, 
1st, to stock for sale; 2d, to crops for sale; 3d, 
to mi.xed crops, partly for sale and partly for 
u.se; 4th, to dairying; or 5th, to wool. In a 
majority of instances, every farmer will find it 
to his interest to engage to .some extent in each 
of tlie specialties, but if he is wise he will 
make some of them his main object, to which 
all of his farm work will be made to contribute. 
Having settled these preliminary questions, the 
farmer is prepared to consider the .subject of 
rotaiion intelligently. 

notation secures another important advan- 
tage; it enables the farmer to apply manures 
in advance to those sensitive crops which, 
might be injured by a direct contact with it. 
AVheat is liable to mildew, rust, and an over- 



growth of straw with a diminution of kernel, 
if manured heavily from the barn-yard; but 
who ever knew corn and most of the other 
hoed crops to be overfed? By rotation the 
.sensitive cereals can be safely fertilized by 
being placed in a soil whose richness has been 
modified by the grass feed of the previous 
season. 

The following alternation of crops is foiiiid 
by some farmers to produce e.xcellent results 
on a good medium loam: 

First year — Corn on sod. 

Second year — Barley, followed by clover, not 
cut nor pastured, but allowed to rot down. 

Third year — Clover plowed under when full 
grown, and after pulverizing the top of the in- 
verted sod with a two-hor.se cultivator, sowing 
with wheat. 

Fourth year — Wheat. 

Fifth year — Clover and timothy meadow. 

Sixth year — Pasture. 

It will be seen that only two tillage crops 
are allowed in succession, it being noticed that 
three always make the land "sleepy." 

Farmers are often driven by necessity to the 
successive culture of those crops which will 
make the heaviest immediate cash returns, 
without much regard for the wear and tear of 
land. This will generally be found poor econ- 
omy, and !?hould be avoided where it can be. 
Even a narrow course of rotation between 
wheat and clover is a vast improvement on 
the old-fashioned way of wedding a crop to a 
field for the life-time of the owner. 

" For thirty years," says a correspondent of 
the Prairie Farmer, " I have practiced a rota- 
tion in farming, which to me is good. I put 
two years in grain, and two years in grass. 
My grass seed is mixed — two parts timothy 
and one part clover, and I sow one peck to the 
acre. This is a good proportion for both 
meadow and pasture; it will keep down the 
\Teeds better than any other course that I have 
seen or practiced. Torn over the sod at two, 
years old; to lie longer, in some places, the^ 
grass gets out and weeds, or something else, 
gets in, to the injury of the other crops or 
working of the land. The second grain crop 
is the best time for the grass seed to grow, for 
then it has the full benefit of the decomposed 
sod. Corn is, I think, the best cro2> on the 
sod, where the land is suitable, for corn is more 
easily attended, and is less troubled with weeds ; 
other crops are grown as circumstances direct. 

'In the beginning of my experience in ro- 
tation, I tried with the two years' course one 



66 



FIELD CROPS : 



field for fifteen years without manure; at the 
end of lliat time it was worth twice as much 
for farming purposes as when I began; and to- 
day I think as well of it, or better than ever. 
I keep as much stock as will eat up all the 
hay and pasture, and work up all tlie straw, 
and return the whole to the farm in manure." 
We shall here take up the field crops sepa- 
r.itely, treating under an alphabetical arrange- 
nicnl, such as are exelu.sively or frequently 
gi-.nvn in large quantities on the field. 

Barley. — Barley seems to have been the 
earliest known of the cereals, and in Europe it 
ranks next to wheat in importance. In this 
country it yields precedence to corn, rye, and 
oats. The subjoined table, compiled by M. 
Payen, shows the proportions of the proxi- 
mate principles of the cereal grains : 



58.12 
6.'>.lv) 
115.43 
1111.51 
t>7.55 
851. 15 



22.75 
13.5(1 
13.% 
14.39 
12.511 
T.05 



3.10 
3.25 
1.25 



It appears that barley is much less valuable 
than wheat, containing more starch and less 
gluten. It ranks nearly the same as rye, as 
food for man. The following indicates the 
price of the cereals at Chicago at the times 
mentioned, and may serve as an approximate 
answer to the inquiry, "Is barley a profitable 
crop?" 

Wheat, September, 1863-4, SI 08 to $2 05 
corn, $0 76 to $1 30; oats, $0 54 to 50 84; rye, 
$0 82 to SI 50; barley, $1 17 to SI 40. 

The extraordinary demand for barley, for 
malting purposes, wliicli has sprung up since 
1850, and which continues to increase, renders 
its more general cultivation inevitable. The 
rapid growtli in its production in the United 
States is shown by the following statement : 
There were raised in 1840, 4,038,315 bushels ; 
1850, 5,109,054 bushels; 1860, 15,433,297 bush- 
els; 1863, 17,754,351 bushels. The wheat crop 
increased 70 per cent, between 1850 and 1860; 
the barley crop, 300 per cent. The New Eng- 
land States produced of barley in 1850, 414,496 
bushels— in 1860, 1,199,119; the Middle States, 



in 1850, 3.758,011 — in 1860, 4,763,469; the 
Southern States, in 1850, 56,132 — in 1860, 
219,930; the Western States, in 1850, 717,168— 
in 1860, 4,472,101 ; the Pacific States, in 1850, 
11,516— in 1860, 4,462,376. 

In California, barley supplies the place that 
is occupied by oats and corn in the States east 
of the Rocky Mountains; it is the principal 
feed grain. In 1866, California had 472,621 
acres — one-fourth of all its cultivated land — in 
barley, producing more than eleven million 
bushels — as much as all the rest of the States. 
It grew only one-fifth as many bushels of oats 
and corn combined. 

Barley is much more nutritious than oats, 
and is one of the very best articles for fatten- 
ing swine, and forms excellent food for poultr)'. 
The green crop is much used in England as 
Spring pasturage for cows and sheep. It is a 
remarkably hardy plant, is subject to fewer 
diseases, and will stand, without serious injury, 
a longer drought than any otlier cereal. The 
soil best adapted to barley is a light sandy 
loam. To grow good crops the soil should be 
rich, and should be deeply plowed and com- 
pletely pulverized by frequent harrowings and 
rollings. 

In some sections of the country where wheat 
ha-s failed, farmers have been led to the culture 
of barley as a sort of substitute therefor. It 
makes a fair quality of family flour, and hot 
barley cakes are very palatable. It is le.ss lia- 
ble to the attack of insects than wheat, and is 
regarded as a safe crop. Its average yield in 
Maine, where it is largely cultivated, is twenty- 
nine bushels to the acre, and forty bushels are 
counted upon in good seasons, where the crop 
is sowed in drills. 

Beans. — Beans are principally raised for 
human food, though there is hardly anything 
equal to bean-meal as food for hard-worked 
horses and fattening swine and cattle. The 
United States Census Statistics, for 1860, give 
15,061,995 bushels as our annual product of 
beans and peas, or nearly a half bushel to each 
inhabitant. 

Beans as a field crop are quite profitable. 
They can be grown on very poor, light lands, 
but the yield will be small in comparison willi 
crops grown on good soil. Some have the im- 
pression that only poor soils are adapted to 
beans, but they thrive best on strong, ricli soil, 
and under good cultivation make a much nioie 
remunerative crop than is generally supposed. 



C7 



The hean contains mnre nntritive matter than 
most other vegetables. From the analysis by 
Sir H. Davy, more than half its weight con- 
sists of prineiples fit for nutriment. Ripe beans 
contain, according to EiNHOFF, eighty-four per 
cent, of nutritive matter, of which fifty is pure 
farina, the rest chiefly gluten and mucilage. 

The field culture of bush beans is exten- 
sively practiced in nearly every State in the 
Union, with varying success. On proper soil, 
few crops give more lucrative returns. In 
former years beans were profitably raised at 
one dollar per bushel ; they now command as 
high as $2 50 for extras, and were much higher 
during the late war. It is believed that the 
cost of raising a bushel of beans is but a trifle 
piore than that of potatoes, and only about 
double that of oats. 

Preparation of Soil. — Tlie Agriculturist gives 
the following directions for the culture of while 
beans : If the soil be light, plow it when the 
apple trees are in blossom, and in about two 
weeks afterward harrow thoroughly and put in 
the seed. If the soil be rather heavy, plow it 
twice, once at the time mentioned, and again 
two weeks after. Harrow and roll, if there are 
lumps, and put in the seed as soon as practica- 
ble after harrowing. Beans, as well as other 
seed, will vegetate much sooner in fresh soil, 
than when it has been plowed several days. If 
the ground be in sod, and a light open .soil, 
plow with a flat furrow slice, harrow, plant, 
and roll. By putting off the planting in wet 
ground until it has become warm, settled, and 
dry enough to pulverize well, the beans will 
vegetate in a short time; get the start of the 
weeds, and thus save much labor in hoeing. 

Planting. — There are several ways of plant- 
ing beans. One is to plant in hills, aboat 
two feet apart each way. Another is in hills 
with rows only one way. Still another is to put 
in the seeds with a single drill, or scatter the 
beans along in a shallow, furrow, a few inches 
apart. The most expeditious way of planting 
is, to put them in with a two-horse grain drill, 
adjusting it so that every third tube or tooth 
will plant a row. By this arrangement the 
rows will be about two feet apart, which will 
allow a horse and cultivator to pass between 
thoni. The drill should be adjusted to scatter 
the beans about two inches apart. A greater 
crop can be procured in this way than to plant 
in hills, because the seed is distributed more 
evenly over the entire ground. There is noth- 
ing gained by planting beans too thickly, as 



four or five stalks ,in a hill will yield a maxi- 
mum product. The quantity of seed per acre 
will depend entirely on the size of the beans, 
and the di.stance apart — usually 'from two four 
bushels per acre. 

Harvesting. — The back-aching operation of 
pulling is now obviated by a handy little ma- 
chine, called the bean harvester. It is worked 
by horse, and pulls the plants, delivering them 
in a row with the roots all one way in good 
order. If the weather is dry they need not be 
moved until time to draw them in, but if the 
weath'er is damp they should be stacked loosely 
around poles and covered with straw to shed 
rain. It will be better to avoid stacking if 
possible, since in the operation there is apt to 
be loss from shelling. 

What is the Be.it Kind? — In this matter the 
reader is respectfully invited to make his own 
.selection, as the field of choice is wide. Fear- 
ing BuBR, in his Field and Garden Vegetables 
of America, specifies and describes one hundred 
and fifty varieties of beans. The white mar- 
row is generally preferred; and for family use 
is probably the best. It is a handsome, round- 
ish, white bean, cooks in much less time than 
the other varieties, sells higher, and yields ' 
good crops in favorable seasons. The blue- 
pod is better, or rather preferred for shipping 
long distances; being firmer, sells more readily, 
and is some ten days or more earlier than the 
marrow; a material advantage for escaping 
early frosts, or when the crop is to be followed 
by "Winter grain, for which the ground is admi- 
rably fitted. On poorish land, the smalbr 
varieties yield the best; shell the worst in 
gathering, and the best in threshing. The 
marrows have larger vines with fewer stalks; 
pull easier, and come up ready to hoe some 
days earlier than the others, which is a mate- 
rial advantage in weedy land. 

Beets. — Burr describes sixty varieties of 
beet raised in America, but most of these are 
confined to garden culture. 

Mangel Wurzcl. — This is a red beet, and ac- 
cording to Von Thaer, is a mongrel between 
the red and white beet. It has been long cul- 
tivated in France, Germany, and Switzerland, 
partly as food for cattle, and partly to be used 
in distillation, and in the extraction of .sugar. 
It has been largely introduced into America, 
and is much esteemed for its strong nutritive 
qualities. The following is the analysis of Sir 
H. Davy: 



FIELD CRors: 



KOOTS. 


Qiiiin. of Kutritite Matter in 1,000 parts. 


i?pi'cies. 


2.=^ 


1"° \> 


1 


Hi 


Sw,-.|i.l. luniip 


m 


r.1 
M 

iia 

lor,« 
I2ak 


2 

1 
4 

1.20 


2 












lc68 than 1 
1 


IX>^^ 


^nyai l^c-. t 


UiVU 



By tliis table it isapparent that equal quanti- 
ties (if Swcdisli turnip and orange-globe mangel 
wurzel contain very different proportions of 
nutritive matter, the latter more than doubling 
the former in quantity; and should the mangel 
wurzel Ije of equally easy culture with tlie 
Swedish turnip, it seems almost unaccountable 
that it sliould not generally supersede it in the 
fields. Mangel wurzel may be grown on stiffer 
soils than tliose adapted for the turnip, and it 
is better food for milch cows, as it does not, like 
turnips, give to the millc a taint. It can not 
bear the cold, liowever, so well as the Swcdisli 
turnip. 

The mangel wurzel is a great lover of ricli 
• land, and the more manure tlie larger llie crop. 
It al.so should have a finely pulverized bed — 
Ibis is essential to a heavy yield. To plow and 
liarrow twit-e before sowing will pay tlie extra 
expense; and the tilth can scarcely be too deep. 
The mangel wurzel .«hould be harvested when 
frosty nights arrive, as the freezing of the tops 
injures their value for feeding purposes; bc- 
.•■ides, the men can tlien remain in the field in 
pulling the roots. The tops at that time are 
invaluable to feed to milch cows when the pas- 
tures are failins;, and the cows need to be kept 
with a full flow of railU and not allowed on 
the mowing field.s, thereby saving all the ma- 
nure and getting more milk. If planted early 
the mangel wurzel escapes the insects which 
are so fatal to all the turnip tribe. 

Yield. — This root yields tremendously. In 
1S66, Mr. Payson, manager of the farm be- 
longing to the city of Boston, raised an acre 
of mangels, "wliich produced seventy-three tcmt, 
carefully weighed (two thoiisan<l four hundred 
bushels), besides five tons of tops (estimated"). 
This acre had been planted with potatoes in 
IStio; carrots in 1864, and onions in 18G5. 
Tlie manure each previous year had been 
twenty cords of sea kelp and stable manure. 
In the fall of 1865 it was heavily coated with 
sea-weed, and the weed plowed in, replowed in 
spring of 18CC, and the seed sown in drills 



thirty inches apart. Dr. George V>. Lorino, 
of Salem, Ma.ssachusetts, , raised on one acre 
and one-eighth, at a cost of $1.S5, including 
every expense, one thousand eight hundred 
bushels of mangels — red and yellow globe — 
the crop thus costing seven cents and a half a 
bushel, .\ccording to analysis and experience, 
four hundred pounds of mangels are equal to 
one hundred pounds of good hay. Mr. I'av- 
son's crop was thus equal to more than thirteen 
tons of hay — a quantity which it would take 
several acres to produce. 

Wil.l.iAM BiRNlE, of Springfield, Massa- 
chusetts, rai.sed in 1859, on two acres and a half 
of land, three thousand one hundred and sixty- 
six bushels, or ninety-five ton.s, of mangel 
wurzels. The cost of growing and harvesting, 
these was si.x and a half cents per bushel when 
stored in the cellar, according to a strict and 
accurate account ke|)t of labor, fertilizers, etc. 
There were twelve hundred and si.tty-six bush- 
els, or thirty-eight tons, to the acre, equal cer- 
tainly to nine and a half tons of hay. What 
other crop is there that from an acre will pro- 
duce such an amount of nutritious and valua- 
ble food with so reasonable an outlay '? 

These are extra crops, which all farmers 
may not hope to rival ; but any man, with 
careful culture, on good soil, may rely on a 
thousand bushels to the acre. Every man who 
keeps a cow should mark off in his garden a 
sjiace sij rods long and half a rod wide, end 
raise Ujion it forty bushels mangels. 

Sxigar Beets. — Some prefer these to mangels. 
It will be seen, in the table already given, that 
the sugar beet contains nine per cent, more nu- 
tritive and Att-jjroducing matter than any other 
beet or turnip, and it is regarded as more pala- 
table to cattle. The sugar beet is imicli more 
highly prized in Europe than in tliis cduntry, 
and is a great favorite with dairymen. There 
is no doubt that for feeding purposes it is the 
best of the beet variety; though its average 
yield is only about three-fourths as great as 
the mangels. It needs the same kind of treat- 
ment, is sowed in the same manner, and har- 
vested about the same time. 

Brooni-Coj'll.— This is a nativeof Amer- 
ica, of the Sorghum genus, and is scarcely .a 
product of any other country.* It grows per- 
fectly straight to the height of eight to twelve 
feet, flowering at the top in a cluster of long, 



•Great Biitain still uses for brooms tlie biiii(ll"S nf 
\ii!S from the yellow-flowered shrub that grows on tUo 



BROOM-CORN — BUCKWHEAT. 



cy 



graceful pnnicles, crowned witli alimi(i;int seed. 
It requires about the same soil and general 
treatment as Indian corn — plenty of manure 
and attentive culture. If too many plants ap- 
pear, they mu.st be thinned so as (o insure tlie 
free growth of eight healthy stalks. There are 
several varieties. The North river kind make.s 
ordinarily the best crop; it is ten days earlier 
than the large kind, and yields about seven 
hiuuUed and twenty pounds of the brush per 
acre — the brush, meaning the dried panicles, 
cleaned of the .seedjiwith eight or twelve inches 
of the stalk. The New Jersey, or large kind, 
3'ields a thousand or eleven hun<lred pounds of 
brush per acre. The stalks and seed are large. 
In good seasons, this is the most profitable 
crop. The average crop at the West is four 
hundred pounds to the acre. The price of 
broom-corn varies materially, ranging from 
five to fifteen ce;ils a pound. 

Cleaning the Brush. — This is done by drawing 
the dried brush through a hetchel. The fol- 
lowing simple form is much used. The ope- 
rator stands at the end A. 




The lower plank may rest on the barn floor, 
or have short legs. The upper oblique has a 
hole, through which the scraper jjasses, and 
down which the seed may fall. Each side 
of the instrument a wedge may be inserted, 
to regulate its elasticity, or by some other 
contrivance this object may be secured. In 
scraping, the panicles must first be laid 
evenly together, and the stalks taken in the 
hand. 

Tliis machine is not expensive; but a still 
cheaper one can be obtained at any country 
store, by investing twenty -five to fifty cents. It 
is simply a common curry-comb. Hold the 
brush on a board with one hand and scratch 
oir the seed with the other. It will be found 
to work pretty well. 

Culture. — The brooni-coru may be hoed three 
or four times profilahly. As soon as tiie seed 
is formed, a man should pass between all the 
rows, and break the stalk a foot below the 
brash, so as to leave the brush suspended seed 
downward. When nearly ripe, cut the slalk 
eight or ten inches from I lie brush, and carry 



under cover to dry by .spreading on slats. 
Never dry in the %nn. The tall remnant of 
sialk should always be plowed under. 

J. M. Browdee, of Cedarville, O., writes to 
the Cincinnati Gasette, March, 1869, urging the 
theory that the brush for brooms should be cut 
ichen it is green, wilted in the sun, and cured in 
the shade. He says: "Broom-corn, ripe, is 
red, harsh and rough; green brush Ls pliaMe 
and elastic — about one-half as hard on a car- 
pet as the rtd is, and will last more than twice as 
long. The green brush is worth more than 
double as much as red brush, and weighs more 
to the bulk. I have tested all stages, from the 
time of bloom to dead ripe. I find the brush 
most elastic and tough when cut just as the 
water begins to thicken in the grain. The 
market price here of brooms made of red 
brush, is $3 25 per dozen; green brooms, $4 to 
?5 per dozen." 

Yield. — L. G. Thomas, of Lone Rock, Wis- 
consin, sent to the Farmer, in 1865, the result 
of a seven years' experience, as follows : " Have 
raised from five to thirly acres per year on 
light sand, and get live hundred to six hundred 
pounds per acre, and manufacture all into 
brooms. One and a half pounds clean brush 
is required per broom. Hence an acre makes 
thirty dozen brooms. Prior to the rise in gold, 
sold them on an average at $2 per dozen. The 
same quality now brings $i to iJ4 50. The 
seed, per acre, averages twenty-five to thirty- 
five bushels, and weighs, when clean, forty-five 
to fifty pound.s, and is now worth, to feed, one 
cent per pound. Heavy, strong land, not liable 
to early frost, will produce one-third to one- 
half more. In my opinion, eight hundred 
pounds is the extreme in this State. The value 
of broom brush, as quoted by the Chicago 2'rib- 
une in that city, is $250 to §325 per ton— the 
highest price ever known there. It usually 
brings 5100 to S150 per ton." Any I'armercan 
easily learn to make up his own brush into 
good marketable cord cu' wire brooms. 

BucktVlieat. — This is a native of North- 
ern Asia, and is not a cereal, though, for con- 
venience, classed among them. We have al- 
ready treated of ils excellent properties as a 
green manure. For its value as grain, ilicre 
were 21,359,000 acres raised in (he L'niud 
States in 1857, at a total valuation of about 
$25,000,000. It thrives best on light soils or 
sandy loam.s, but they should be tolerably fer- 
tile to secure a remunerative harvest. Fresh 
manure injures the plant. 



70 



FIELD CROPS : 



Tliorongh pulverization should precede cul- 
ture, in order to a seasonable ripening. Buck- 
wheat should be sown when chestnut trees are 
in lull blossom — about the 1st to the 6th of July 
in llie latitude of Central New York, so tliat tlie 
hottest weatlier will have passed hy the lime 
the buckwheat is in full bloom. Cool weather, 
or at least cool nights, are quite as essential to 
a good fructification of buckwheat, as hot days 
and niglits are to Indian corn. The point to 
be aimed at in every locality, is to defer sow- 
ing as long as possible and allow it sufficient 
tiuie to mature before an early frost will de- 
stroy the crop. 

When, perhaps, one-luilf of the seeds are 
turned brown, the grain should be cut, in the 
dew, and as the straw is very succulent and 
juicy, the uniipcned grain will draw nourish- 
ment from the stock, and will fill out and ripen 
very well after it is cut. The common way of 
treating buckwlieat effectually prevents making 
good flour, it being allowed to remain in the 
swath for several weeks, when it should never 
be suffered to lie longer than a day or two, and 
it is decidedly belter for the grain to rake it and 
set it on end, as fast as it is cradled. Much 
less grain will be wasted by shelling out; the 
straw will cure and dry out sooner, and make 
better fodder ; the crop will be ready for thresh- 
ing or housing in less time, and the grain will 
yield a much better quality of flour. 

To subdue a bush pasture, that it is desired 
to break up,or land that has become foul with 
thistles, rushes, etc., this is an excellent crop. 
It grows very rapidly, spreading its branches, 
takes the lead of all other plants, overshadow- 
ing them, and by keeping them in the shade 
often subdues them, as well as by keeping the 
roots and sods moist, whicli causes a rapid de- 
comjjosiiion. As a renovating crop buckwheat 
has no equal. 

The grain is not only widely used as a flour 
for one of the most savory of breakfast dishes, 
but serves an excellent purpose as food for 
horses, hogs, and poultry. The flowers are 
very attractive to bees. "Sheep will feed and 
thfive as well on the straw as on good hay,"*' 
and it is very easily threshed. The popular 
whimsey that buckwheat is exhausting, and in- 
jures land, is not confirmed by experience in 
1 hose cases where the cultivator returns to the 
soil as much of the straw as possible. 

According to the analysis of the grain we 
find it composed of— water, 1-i.O; flesh-formers, 



9.0 ; fat-formers, 52.1 ; accessories, 23.3 ; min- 
eral matters, 1.6, showing it to be a valuable 
grain for fattening purposes. Compared witli 
other food for man, it is easily digestible, but 
the popular method of serving it up in hot 
cakes is responsible for much of the national 
dyspepsia. 

Cabbage. — Bubr enumerates some sev- 
enty varieties of the cabbage grown in America. 

Its Value for Food. — It has more tlian ten 
per cent, of fat and flesh-forming elemenls, and 
is very succulent. The relative value of cab- 
bages, as compared with other vegetable food, 
is shown by Professor Johnston in his Agricul- 
tural Chemistry, where he says : " In the case 
of the ox the daily waste or loss of muscle or 
tissue requires that he should consume twenty 
to twenty-four ounces of gluten or albumen, 
which will be supplied by any of the following 
weights of vegetable food : 



Jliadow hay.... 


Pounds. 


Cabbage 

Wb.-at 


Pouuds. 


l'l..vui- hay... - ir. 














Cairottt 

Beims iind Pt^as. 




<lil Ciik.' 

Tun.ips 


4 

... 120 


6 



From this table it appears that cabbages are 
worth as much, pound per pound, as carrots, 
and nearly twice as much as turnips. This is 
more than the popular estimate, but is, no 
doubt, correct. Cabbages are much grown as 
a food for stock. One of the commonest ob- 
jections urged is that they are deteriorating 
and often fatal to the health of the animal. 
This result is always attributable to careless- 
ness in overfeeding. Animals incline to eat 
voraciously of green .succulent vegetables, 
which are intended to be fed sparingly, mainly 
as an appetizer, and to keep the system in tone. 

Profitableness as a Crop. — The great cabbage 
growers about New York city sometimes cal- 
culate upon ten thousand heads per acre, al- 
lowing four superficial feet- to each plant, 
which gives a surplus of three thousand for 
missing plants. We suppose the crop may 
average five cents a head, giving S500 an acre, 
which, considering it is a second or third crop 
of the season, affords a pretty good return. In 
Essex county, Massachusetts, whole fields of 
mammoth drumhead have averaged thirty 
pounds per he.id, or more than a hundred tons 
to the acre! Cabbages often follow peas, with 
which radi.shes or lettuce has been grown; and 
the ground from which an early crop of pota- 
toes has been taken is often planted with late 



I 



CABBAGE — INSECTS. 



71 



cabbages. In Xew Jersey, upward of twenty 
tliiin.«and, by one grower, were raised on four 
acres, and sold for about $1,500. More than 
forty thousand were obtained by another suc- 
cessful grower from about eleven acres, whicli 
returned a gross sum of nearly $3,300; and a 
third, produced, on thirty acres, one hundred 
and seventy-five thousand, which were sold for 
$9,000. But the yield and year were both ex 
ccptional. The cabbage is capricious in its 
Sruwth. Sometimes, because of defective seed, 
injudicious culturC, or an unfavorable season, 
whole fields refuse to head. 

Varieties. — There ai'e a great number of va- 
rieties of cabbages, many of which are inferior 
The ^Vinningstadt is placed among the first for 
excellence. It is a clioice variety for the 
table, and taking all its good qualities into ac- 
count, is scarcely excelled. The Wakefield 
the Ox-heart, the Drumheads, the Red-Dutch, 
the Early York, the Bergen, the Stone-mason, 
and the Sugar-loaf are popular varieties, all of 
which make good returns. Some of the varie- 
ties of the Savoy are quite desirable for cook- 
ing. Tlie leaves are much wrinkled, and (he 
variety is very highly esteemed for its flavor 
and richness. A Massachusetts grower an- 
nounces a new variety called the Cannon Ball. 
It is said to be very hard-headed and heavy 
for its size, being round like a cannon b.all, and 
excelling in hardness every known variety. 

Soil. — The soil can not ea.sily be made too 
ricli for cabbages. They can be grown on al- 
most any soil that is adapted to corn if an 
abundance of well -rotted manure from the 
compost is applied to the land. That mainly 
from the hog-pens produces the best results. 
Cabbages are not likely to do so well on ground 
that has been successfully cropped by them for 
three or four years, but succeeds best on fresh 
lands. Planted in a hog-yard, or where ma- 
nure long has lain, they yield enormous crops. 
The preparation of the ground where the best 
results are sought for, should not be inferior to 
that fur the tobacco crop. It should include 
two plowings, with sufficient harrowing, to 
make the ground light and fine. If it is at all 
siift'and unyielding, fall plowing, like that re- 
commended in the cultivation of onions, will be 
found very beneficial. One point of consider- 
able importance is to have the last plowing 
immediately before the plants are set. Irriga- 
tion also helps cabbages greatly. 

Hailing and Sowing Seed. — Buer's directions 
for obtaining seed are to select perfect heads 
and set them three feet apart each way. As 



they grow, remove the side shoots and encour- 
age the main sprout, which will push up 
through the center of the head. Seed thus 
cultivated for a few successive years will pro- 
duce plants, ninety per cent, of which will 
yield well-formed and good-sized cabbages. In 
sowing seed forplants it is always well (o sow 
plentifully in order to secure enough plants to 
meet every emergency. Having selected a 
suitable seed-bed, which should be fine and 
rich, prepare it well by plowing or digging ami 
raking; .sow the seed, about the middle or last 
of May, in drills about a foot apart, and roll or 
spot the ground smoothly, so that there shall 
be no lumps for insects to secrete themselves 
under. The great care at this period will be 
to have a bed rich enough to give the plants a 
good start, to have moisture enough to in- 
duce an even and quick germination of the 
seed, and to ward off, if possible, the depreda- 
tions of the turnip fly. 

Tnmsplanting. — Transplant into rows two 
feet apart, and eighteen inches apart in the 
row, give the plants a copious watering the 
evening previous to taking up, and water again 
after setting out. The whole secret of their 
after culture lies in deep hoeing. Hoe while 
the dew is on, if practicable. 

Insects. — The first insect to whose rava- 
ges the cabbage is subject, is the fly or black 
bug, already mentioned. The following are 
named among the preventives: 1. "Steep the 
seed in a pint of warm water two hours, in 
which is infused an ounce of saltpeter ; dry it, 
add currier's oil enough to moisten the whole, 
after which mix with plaster enough to sepa- 
rate it, and fit it for sowing." 2. "After pre- 
paring the ground in the usual way for the 
seed-bed, cover it up thickly with almost any 
kind of combustible rubbish ; burn this to ashes, 
iind rake the ground and sow the seed, and no 
insects will attack it while the effects of the fire 
remain." 3. " Sprinkle black pepper and flour 
on the drills, while the dew is on, as soon as 
the plants can be seen." 

Keeping in Winter. — Owing to their great bulk 
and liability to decay, it is a somewhat difficult 
matter to preserve cabbages in large quantities 
in our common cellars. One way is to hang 
them up by the roots; another is to thin off the 
outside leaves and slumps and pack in barrels; 
still another is to set them cut in the cellar, as 
thick as they can be made to stand. Where 
the object is to keep them in very large quan- 
tities over winter, pits are dug of the size neces- 



FIELD CROPS : 



sary to contain the required number, say a foot 
or eighteen inclies deep ; into these tlie cabba- 
ges are packed as tightly as possible, in an np- 
riglit position, and over the whole enough litter 
is thrown to protect them from severe frost. 
A slight degree of frost does not injure them if 
they ai-e kept at an even temperature. In addi- 
tion to these method.s, they are .sometimes pitted 
by digging a trench in a dry jdace, wide enough 
to liidd the heads, and about a, foot de.ep. Into 
these trenches llie cabbages are put, head down- 
ward, and covered witli boards and earth or 
litter. 

Carrot. — Tliis is a valuable root, and_ is 
considerably grown in the field. Five or six 
hundred bushels to the acre is an average crop ; 
a tlinusand bushels are often raised and twelve 
hundred sometimes. Twenty-five tons of car- 
rots can be raised on one acre of good land, 
which are equal to more than eight tons of 
good hay. The value of carrots as a field-crop 
depends upon the locality, and upon the success 
of the farmer in getting his seed to germinate. 
They are generally regarded as the most unre- 
liable crop a farmer can raise, but the failure is 
sometimes the result of improper culture. Their 
value for milch-cows is unsurpassed, producing 
a rich yellow cream; their weight per bushel 
is less at the time of harvesting than that of 
mangels ; their shrinkage during the winter is 
greater, and they do not keep as long into warm 
weather as the mangels. They are valuable, 
however to keep tlie slock in spirits and health, 
and give them an appetite — in fact this is the 
chief benefit of all root crops. 

Varieties. — Those sown in the fall are chiefly 
the Long Eed, the Long Orange, and the White 
Belgian. The latter attains huge' dimensions, 
but is inferior in quality to the Orange. 

Thehest soil is a fertile sandy loam. Pulver- 
ize it thoroughly. Let it be plowed deep twice, 
or thrice, if it is not in soil. Then, about the 
twentieth of May, or the first of .June, scarify 
the surface, for the purpose of exterminating 
the weeds. If the surface is at all lumpy, let 
the lumjis be crushed with a roller. If the 
ground be in a poor state of fertility, a dre.ssing 
of the pure superphosphate of lime, spread in 
a shallow drill on each side of the rows of car- 
rots and raked in, will result profitably. 

Preparation and Soroinij of Seed. — As the Seeds 
are a long time germinating, the^ should be 
sprouted before they are planted, and this 
should be done early in May, in the latitude 
of Kew York. Soak the seed in warm water 



(enough for two or three pounds to the acre), 
for twenty hours. Then mingle it with fine 
.sand in a vessel that will not hold water. Keep 
the sand and seeds moist and warm. As soon 
as the seeds exhibit signs of germination, let 
them be sown with a drill in soil just stirred 
with some implement. In four or five days, if 
the soil he moist and warm, ttie carrots will 
appear above ground ; and scarcely a weed will 
be seen among the young plants. Then the 
carrots will vegetate rapidly, and outgrow nox- 
ious weeds ; and the labor of weeding the rows 
will be comparatively light. Unless the ground 
is rich and free from weeds, do not make the 
drills nearer than two feet, so that a horse-hoe 
may do almost the entire weeding. 

Culture. — When the young plants are two or 
three inches high, let the thinning be performed 
with a sharp, broad hoe, worked across the 
drill.s, leaving three or four plants in a cluster. 
During wet and lowrey weather, when laborers 
can not work advantageously at other emjiloy- 
ment, let the smaller carrots be pulled up, leav- 
ing one in a i)Iace — about six or eight inches 
apart. Cultivators sbimld be used which are 
adapted to the purpose, and if made so as to 
stretch over two or three or more rows at once, 
the labor would not only be cheapened, but the 
crop would tie increased by the more frequent 
stirring of the soil, which W(juld be sure to re- 
sult from this increased facility for doing it. 

HarvesHing. — One method is to lop them with 
a sharpened hoe, and then to run a subsoil 
plow directly by the side of the row of roots, 
which lilts them out of the ground about two 
inches; then with potato diggers, go along and 
rake them out, so as to lift them from the 
ground and throw them inward, leaving loom 
for the team to go through. This should be 
done in the forenoon of a dry, sunshiny day; 
in the afternoon, pick them up, shake them, 
and cast them into the cellar. It is important 
that they go in as dry as possible. 

Castor Bean.— This bean, from which 
castor-oil is expressed, is a native of the West 
Indies, where it is found in great abundance. 
Its cultivation as a field-crop is extensively car- 
ried on in our Middle and Western States, and 
is rapidly increasing. A single firm in St. 
Louis has worked up 18,500 bushels of beans in 
four months, producing 17,750 gallons of oil — 
sold at an average price of !f50 a barrel. The 
bean thrives best in a rich sandy loam, and is 
planted and cultivated in hills like corn. It 
grows up irregularly to about the same height 



CORN — ITS VALUE AS FOOD — VARIETIES. 



anil bears twenty-five bushels to tlie acre, the 
seeds being inclosed in capsules. The oil is 
separated in two different ways : First, by boil- 
ing the bruised seeds inclosed in a bag, and 
skimming oS' the oil as it rises, and finally, 
pressing the bag. Second, by heating the seeds 
in iron tniys slightly, so as not to char, pressing 
uiuh-r a screw, collecting the oil, and boiling 
ill water, taking care to separate all the white 
pail<, and reserving the pure limpid oil only. 

Corn. — Corn jp the generic name by which 
wheat, barley, oats, etc., are designated in 
Europe; but in America it is exclusively used 
to refer to Indian corn, or maize. This is a 
native of our .soil, and was first found by Co- 
LUMBCS, extensively cultivated by the savages 
of Hispaniola, now Hayti. He carried the 
tall ear-bearing stalks back with him among 
the trophies of his conquest. It was cultivated 
by the whites in Virginia in 1607, and by the 
Massachusetts Pilgrims soon after they took 
possession of the soil. It is still found grow- 
ing in a wild state beyond the borders of settle- 
ment, almost the whole length of the continent, 
from New Mexico to Buenos Ayres. In Par- 
aguay, each grain wears a separate husk of 
its own. 

Its Value as Food. — Corn may justly be re- 
garded as the national crop of the United 
States. Its money value is double that of hay, 
three-fold that of wheat, and five times that 
of cotton. In 18.50, tlie amount of the corn 
crop was 591,630,56-1 bushels, and in 18G0 it 
was 827,694,528 bushels — an increa.se of forty 
per cent., and twice as great as the aggregate 
bushels of wheat, rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, 
peas, and beans. Nearly all the beef, mutton, 
and pork in the Xortli and West is fattened 
on Indian corn; and its abundance accounts 
for the relatively low price of provisions in 
this country, as contrasted with most other 
lands. While other substances contain more 
flesh -producing material, there is nothing 
wliich makes so much good, firm fat in so 
short a time. 

Under the head of Barley wfe have already 
given a table that includes an analysis of corn, 
exhibiting in it an abundance of fat-forming 
]Hinciples, with a liberal supply of the nutri- 
tious. "The comparative value of maize with 
other foods, has been the object of much re- 
eearch by experimenters ; the results have been 
unanimously in favor of this grain before all 
others used for fattening animals."* In it 



ulturul Ui-p., IBiij 



there is a natural coalescence of elementary 
principles which constitute the basis of organic 
life, that exi.st in no other vegetable produc- 
tion. In ultimate composition, in nutritious 
properties, in digestibility, and in its adapta- 
tion to the various necessities of animal life in 
the different climates of the earth, corn r.-eal 
is capable of supplying more of the absolute 
wants of the adult aivimal system than any 
other single substance in nature. [For condi- 
tions of feeding of corn see the subsequent ar- 
ticle on Stock.] 

As an article of every day consumption by 
man and beast, Indian corn is without a rival. 
Slowly, but certainly, it is forcing its way into 
common use in England, Scotland, and Ire- 
land; and to this end its most economical pro- 
duction in this country is a matter of the iiigh- 
est importance. 

Varieties. — There are, as already intiniited, 
many varieties of Indian corn. The best kind, 
in any given case, depends much on the soil, 
climate, and uses for which it is designed. 
The yellow flint will probably remain the fa- 
vorite in the Northern and Middle S:a;cs, whiie 
the white dent seems best to answer the le- 
quirements of the South and Southwest. The 
dent corn contains less oil than the flint ; the 
flint less than the little pop-corn. The oil in 
the yellow corn is a nio.st valuable part of its 
composition, as it renders the grain harder 
and less liable to mold or spoil in very wet 
weather, or when stored in a corn-crib. The 
meal or flour made from yellow corn is also 
less liable to ferment and turn sour, and is 
more nutritious for fattening cattle, hogs, and 
poultry than the white, and nearly oill&ss va- 
rieties of Indian corn, though it is not so 
easily digestible by man. 

The improved King Phillip is an excellent 
variety; ripens in a hundred days from plant- 
ing, and will produce one-half more than ihe 
ordinary King Phillip. Solon Robix.son says 
it will not hybridize when planted near other 
corn. There are several hybrids of the Duiton 
corn which will ripen in seventy-five to ninety 
days. Sweet corn will pay as a field crop for 
feed, after the farmer has used and sold aa 
much of it, in the green ear, as table and mar- 
ket require. Cattle and hogs are very fond of 
it, and it contains twice as much sugar a,= any 
other corn. The stalks and leaves are also 
sweeter than those of ordinary varieties. 

Selecting Seed to Plant. — It is now well under- 
stood to be one of the essential points of re- 
spectable farming, to select from the matured 



FIELD crops: 



crop, tlie largest, fairest, and earliest ripened 
ears, to keep as seed-corn for the ensuing year. 
In tills practice experience abundantly justi- 
fies the suggestion of philosophy. In every 
Slate tiie most enterprising farmers have In- 
creased the yield and quality of their corn 
from five to fifty per cent., by the persevering 
exercise of a judicious selection, continued for 
a series of years. 

The improved variety of Baden corn was 
produced In just this way. The propagator 
thus tells his story in the SS^ew England Fann- 
er: "I luive the pleasure to say that I have 
brought this corn to its high state of perfec- 
tion by c^irefuUy selecting the best seed in 
the field lor a long course of years, having 
especial reference to those stalks which pro- 
duced the most cars. When the corn was 
husked, I made a re-selection, taking those ears 
only which appeared sound and fully ripe, 
having a regard to the deepest and best color, 
as well as to tlie size of the cob. 

"In the Spring, before shelling the corn, I 
examined it again, and selected that which was 
the best In all re-spects. In shelling the corn, 
I omitted to take the irregular kernels at both 
the large and small ends. I have carefully 
followed this mode of selecting seed-curn for 
twenty-three years, and still continue to do so. 
When I first commenced it was with a common 
kind of corn, for there was no other in this 
part of the country. If any other person un- 
dertook the same experiment, I did not hear 
of it; I do not believe others exercised the 
patience to bring the experiment to the present 
state of perfection. At first I was troubled to 
find stalks with even two good ears on them ; 
perhaps one good ear and one small one, or 
one good ear and a 'nubbin.' It was several 
years before I could discover much benefit re- 
sulting from my eflbrts; however, at length the 
quality and quantity began to improve, and 
the improvement was then very rapid. 

"At present I do not pretend to lay up any 
seed, unless it comes from stalks which bear 
four, five, or six ears. I have seen stalks bear- 
ing eight ears. One of my neighbors Informed 
me that he had a .single stalk with ten perlect 
ears on it, and that he intended to send the 
same to the mu.-ieum at Baltimore. In addi- 
tion to the number of eais, and of course, the 
great increase in quantity unshelled, it may be 
mentioned that It yields mueli more than the 
common corn when shelled. Some gentlemen 
in whom I have full confidence, informed me 
that they shelled a barrel (ten bushels of ears) 



of my kind of corn which measured a littl« 
more than six bushels. The common kind of 
corn will measure about five bushels only. 1 
believe I raise double, or nearly so, to what I 
could with any otlier corn I have ever seen. 
I generally plant the corn about the 1st of 
May, and place the hills five feet apiirt each 
way, and have two stalks in a hill." 

Ex-Governor F. Holbrook, of Vermont, 
testifies to a similar result, after twelve years 
experience. 

The most careful farmers in the country are 
now uniform in their habit in this matter. 
They go through the field when the harvest is 
ripening — it is of prime Importance to secure 
the seed-corn before the frost has touched It — 
and select those ears which ripen earliest and 
best, from stalks bearing two or more ears, well 
filled out over the end, seed .set close together 
with no vacant places or openings between the 
rows, large kernels with small cobs. Leave 
two or three husks on each ear and braiil them 
into strings of about two dozen each; hang 
them up In the attic of your buildings, where 
they will keep dry and not be disturbed and 
have a free circulation of air around. When 
wanletl for use, break or chop off both the tip 
and butt end of the ears, using the middle 
portion only for seed. 

Some experiments, however, do not seem to 
confirm the wisdom of the method indicated 
in the 'last sentence. In 1858 an experiment 
was instituted and carried through on the farm 
connected with the Reform School in West- 
borough, Massachusetts, in order to ascertain 
the facts in the case. An acre of land was 
planted with corn, in alternate rows, with seed 
taken from the butts, middle, and tips of the 
ears. The sound corn, soft corn, and stover of 
each were weighed, and In the report is a table 
of figures, showing the yield of each kind of 
seeds. 

Charles L. Flint, Secretary of the Board 
of Agriculture, gives the result: "On compar- 
ing the crops grown on this field, and esti- 
mating the sound corn and the stover at 57 
the ton, it will be found that the value of the 
crops produced by the rows planted with seed 
taken from the butts, was $12 53. The value 
of the produce of the rows seeded Jrom the 
tips of the ears was $12 36 — pretty near a 
draw game. The butts produced the must, the 
tips the next, and the middle the least money 
value; while tlie tips produced the nios!, the 
butts the next, and the middles the least sound 
corn ; and the luiddles produced the most, the 



CORN — PREPARATION OF TUE SEED — SOIL. 



75 



butts the next, and the tips the least soft corn. 
It is difficult to determine by this experiment 
from what part of the ear the seed should be 
takin. Probably a mixture of the whole ear, 
being most natural, would be the best." 

Another experimenter reports in the jVew 
York Independent that he tried an ear of corn 
to note the result. The butt, middle, and tip 
were planted in difi'erent rows, in the same 
garden, and subjected to the same treatment. 
" The large end produced fair sized ears, with 
irregular rows, BQUch as you will find them at 
that end of the ear. The middle kernels pro- 
duced large ears, mostly straight and fair. 
The tips brought fortlj nubbins only. There 
was not a fair car on the two rows of corn, 
planted from the tip 1" If the reader shall re- 
gard the mooted question to some extent un- 
decided, he can join the experimenters and 
" try it." 

In times of severe early frost, the corn is 
apt to be fatally frost-bitten, so that the suc- 
ceeding crop will be a total or partial failure. 
There is no grain whose vegetative powers are 
so liable to injury as corn. A very slight 
freeze before the grain arrives at maturity in 
the field, a slight heating in the crib, 'or ex- 
posure to alternations of wet and frost, most 
eflcctually destroy its germ. 

This is another reason why farmers should 
not rely upon their corn-crib for seed. " It is 
not sale," observes the Iowa Homestead, "to 
judge seed-corn alone by its external appear- 
ance. Tlie only safe criterion to go by in se- 
lecting seed-corn, is the appearance of the chit. 
Every ear intended for seed should be broken 
near the center. When thus broken, if the 
skin of the chit is blistered or wrinkled, reject 
it. If the skin is smooth and clear, not dis- 
colored, not one kernel in a hundred will fail 
to grow-." 

Preparation of the Seed.- —J ndge Jesse Buel 
gives tlie following advice: "Tiie enemies to be 
combated are the wire worm, brown grub, birds, 
and sijuirreis. Of these, the first and last two 
prey upon tlie kernels, and against these, tar 
offers a complete protection. I soak uiy seed 
twelve hours in Iiot water, in which is dissolved 
a few ounces of crude saltpeter. When the 
corn has been thus soaked, I take for each half 
bushel of seed half a pint of tar, put it into an 
I iron vessel with water, and heat it till the tar 

is dissolved, when it is turned upon the seed 
in sleep. The mass is well stirred, the corn 
taken out, and as much plaster added as will 
adhere to the grain. This impregnates and 



partially coats the seed with the tar. The ex- 
perience of years will warrant me in confi- 
dently recommending this as a protection for 
the seed." 

The seed so prepared should be planted im- 
mediately after it has undergone this protective 
preparation, since too much drying might in- 
jure it. James C. Taylor, of New Jersey, 
tlius writes: "I thoroughly tested the benefit 
of soaking seed-corn in saltpeter this year on a 
small piece of ground, planted late. I had not 
enough soaked to plant all the piece. .Where 
it was not soaked the blackbirds pulled out 
about one-third; where it was soaked, they 
seldom touched a hill. But what was most 
peculiar, there happened to be one row planted 
with dry corn between two rows that were 
soaked; of the dry, they took several hills 
clean, and altogether, about one-third of the 
row; while they did not Jake more than one 
hill of the two saltpeter rows. 

The Practical Fanner says that a table-spoon- 
ful of coarse salt drojiped on each hill of corn, 
soon after planting, is far better to keep oS' 
cut worms than soaking the corn in gas tar. 
The salt is carried down by the rains, and acts 
as a fertilizer, besides destroying the worm. 

An Indianian says that hanging seed-corn 
in a smoke-house, and leaving it there, while 
the meat is being smoked, will keep moles and 
field-mice from eating it alter it is planted. 

Some agricultural chemists who have ex- 
perimented, insist that farmers would derive 
great benefit from fertilizing their seed-corn, 
by soaking in some solution that will forward 
germination. Dr. Chambeklain, of Chicago, 
set four boxes in his office for experiment, and 
in these he planted, at the same hour, kernels 
of corn difTerently prepared; he examined 
them afterward with the following result: In 
the first, the seeds that had not been soaked 
liad not germinated; in the second, the seeds 
soaked in warm water had just begun to ger- 
minate; in the third, the seeds .soaked in a 
solution of chloride of lime, showed blades 
just breaking through the soil; in the fourth, 
seeds soaked in a solution of chloride of lime 
and copperas, had sent green blades three 
inches above the ground. If a month, or even 
a week can thus be saved, it will prove a most 
valuable discovery. The solution tends to pro- 
tect the seeds from birds and worms, and 
enough of it can be bought for a dollar to soak 
the seed-corn of a hundred acres. 

Soil. — The best soils for a growth of corn are 
such as contain a deep, rich, warm, mellow, 



76 



FIELD crops; 



anrl.porous ground, fully permeable to the air, 
heat, and moisture. In such soils the growing 
corn can extend its roots freely both in depth 
and sideways, as corn ninst do to yield large 
and firi6 crops; and as our river bottoms and 
eandy and loamy grounds possess these proper- 
tics in the highest degree, they are everywhere 
regarded as our best corn soils. The lowlands 
or bottoms usually produce the largest stalks 
and ears, and the uplands or higher grounds 
liave the heaviest grains. Corn planted upon 
stiff clays and hard gravelly grounds is very 
likely to prove poor or a total failure, because 
such soils are so tough and compact as to ex- 
clude the air, heat, and moisture, and lience 
are destitute of the necessary porousness and 
warmth. Corn is, indeed, a very Jiarily plant, 
and will grow almost anywhere, but it will 
yield the most profitable crops on soils that are 
deep, rich, mellow, and warm. The ground 
can scarcely be too rich for corn, for it is a very 
gross feeder. A clover lay, or thick grassy 
mold, furnishes an excellent base. 

Prejiaralion of Soil.—K the ground intended 
for a crop of corn is a clover or grass hiy, it is 
generally plowed but once, early in the Spring, 
or just before planting time, if the soil is natu- 
rally a loose and mellow one; but if the .soil is 
hard and tough, it is customary to plow the 
ground twice, once in the Summer or fall, or 
Winter, if possible, and just deep enough to 
cover the sod properly, say from three to five 
inches deep, as that depth will hasten the de- 
composition of the clover or grass more rapidly 
than deeper plowing, and tlieu cross-plow the 
whole again in the ensuing Spring as deeply as 
desired. Late fall or Winter plowing of grass 
and clover grounds for coi'n has many advan- 
tages to recommend it; it exposes the cut worm, 
heart worm, and wire worm, in their embryo 
state, to the action of the frosts, and thus destroys 
them; the grass or clover then plowed down 
becomes rotten so much earlier'than it would 
under Spring plowing, that it enriches the soil 
and makes it mellow, and so more easily tilla- 
ble in the ensuing Spring, while at the same 
time it greatly increases its moisture and pro- 
ductive power, and so secures a good crop of 
corn in limes of severe Summer drought. 

" Where there is a .sod," says Judge Btrisi,, 
" the rows should Ije superficialh' marked, and 
the seed planted upon the surface. Where the 
field is flat, or the subsoil retentive«f moisture, 
the land should be laid in ridge.s, that the excess 
of water which falls may pass off in the fur- 
rows." Cum ground can scarcely Lie plowed 



too deep. The plant sometimes shoots into the 
earth to the depth of three feet; the root sends 
its feeding branches abroad as the stalk does its 
leaves. Deep plowing is on the increase; farm- 
ers are discovering that where there has been 
deep plowing, crops will stand the drought, 
and that tliey can cultivate more land by work- 
ing vertically, without investing in any more 
acres. 

Planting. — The time of planting depends on 
location and seasons. The ground should be 
sutficiently warmed by vernal heat to cause a 
speedy germination. Natural vegetation af- 
fords the best guide. Judge BuEL used to say, 
corn should be plantell " when the apple is 
bursting its blos.som buds." This, in the South- 
ern States, is from the first of February to the 
first of May; and in the Middle and Western 
States, from the middle of April to the first 
of June. Poor, cold .soil should be planted 
earliest, and have careful cultivation. Deep 
warm soils ought not to be planted in our 
Western States till some time in May. The 
number of grains should be about five to the 
hill, viz: 

•• One for tlic W.ickbii-.l, one for tlie crow 
Que for tlie cut worm, and two to grow. 

Three grains are enough to grow if the hills 
are three or four feet apart, and two if nearer. 
The old Indian fashion of hilling corn is rap- 
idly passing away, to be retained only on wet 
land, and even there, draining should be sub- 
stituted for it. Constructing large conical hills 
ou laiui which is light and dry, nuist inevitably 
tend to increase the effects of drought, inasmuch 
as it exposes more surface to the atmosphere, 
and consequently increases aerification at times 
when all the moisture contained in the soil is 
required for the support and su.stenance of the 
plants. When rain falls, the conical hill con- 
ducts the water from the roots to the center of 
space betvfeen the rows and hills, very little of 
the fluid being retained about the plants, or 
within range of the small roots, by which the 
pabulum is taken up by the growing plant.s, and 
without which they would immediately lan- 
guish and decay. On light soils, hilling is al- 
ways disadvantageous to the crop. Every fresh 
stratum of earth placed over the roots causes a 
protrusion of a new set of laterals, to the detri- 
ment of those previously formed. This ex- 
hausts the energy of the plant, without increas- 
ing, in any degree, its powers of appropriating 
food from the surrounding soil. 

WtLLiAM H. White, of South Wliulsur, 
Connecticut, an excellent authority in such 



CORN — rLANTIXG — CULTIVATION. 



77 



matters, favors rectangular or quinrmix plant- 1 Several experiments have been made in order 
ins, as it will admit of cross cnltivation, and to ascertain tiie proper depth at which to plant 
sets hi.tli tlie rows and hills three and a half corn, and by one of them it was discovered 



feet apait. Strong, rich, soils, like the deep 
mold of the 'WVst, will bear nnich thicker 
planting than weak soils, and dense cult\irehas 
an additional advantage of shading the gronnd 
and retarding the growth of weeds. But too 
close on any soil will result in a crop of fodder 
instead of corn.. 

Many of our best farmers have been con- 
vinced of the superiority of planting corn in 
drills three feet apart, the seeds being covered 
twelve to twenty inches apart, one or two 
grains in a place. John Johnston s.ays that 
tliis results, in a majority of cases, in an in- 
crease of twenty-five per cent. J. W. Clarke, 
of Green Lake county, Wisconsin, expresses 
his opinion in the Prairie Farmer, that separate 
distribution of the seed in planting is as really 
essential to growing large crops of corn as in 
growing large cabbages, or fine, thrifty trees, and 
for tlie same reason, namely — that of preventing 
a doubleorquadrnpledemand forthesamespace 
to grow in, and the same elements of growth by 
two to 'four plants bundled together, and each 
plant requiring the same identical space and 
feed. Tlie elements of growth being distributed 
all through the surface soil, the plants should 
stand where their feed is, instead of growing 
their pa-ssage to it; or, in other words, the dis- 
tribution of the plants should be such that they 
can absorb nutrition from the whole surface 
mold, making the entire soil of the ground con- 
tribute to the growth of the crop, as far as com- 
(Kitible with thorough and /re^uenf cultivation. 
The depth at which corn should be planted 
necessarily varies from one to six inches, ac- 
cording to the nature of the soil, for it ought on 
every soil to be planted just deep enough, what- 
ever that deptl^ may lie, to keei> the seed moist 
nnd insure its germination and prevent the 
growing plant from shriveling or drying up. 
" A deep cov^-ing of the seed will prevent it 
from rotting if planted early and the ground 
should continue wet and cold, while in a very 
drv season the seed will sprout and grow the 
better for it, .as it will have more moisture than 
if planted shallow. The cut worm, also, 
such cases will not go deep enough into the 
soil to reach and destroy the heart of the seed, 
and hence all the injury it can do abore tlie 
seed will not be so serious as if it reached the 
heart or bud itself."* 



that when it was planted three inches deep, it 
came up and grew well until it was three or 
four inches high, and, then stopped for a fort- 
night, while the corn in the same field which 

IS planted at a less depth, grew rapidly. On 
examination it was found that a joint had been 
formed about one inch and a half above the 
kernel, and that the roots had sprouted nut 
from that joint, leaving all below to perish. 
While the process of changing roots was going 
on, the plants ceased to grow above ground, 
but in about a fortnight recovered their vigor, and 
they were about that length of time later in 
maturing the grain than the seeds which were 
planted shallower. 

A series of careful experiments by one man 
showed that corn planted at the following depth 
came up as described: 



No. l-I inch < 



)ii-r,'.i ■ 



'Mi 



ER, of Pennsylv 



Kos. 8, 9, and 11 were dug up after twenty- 
two days, when it was found that No. 8 had an 
incb more to grow to reach the surface. Nos. 
9 and 11 were three inches beneath the surface. 
No. 10 came up in seventeen and a half days, 
but withered after six day.s' growth. The more 
shallow the seed was covered, the more rapidly 
the sprout m-.ide its appearance, and the stronger 
was the stalk. Farmers should bear this in 
mind lest they should be induced to plant their 
corn too deep in the soil. A great number of 
experiments should be made for the p-jrpose of 
testing the relative merits of deep and shallow 
planting. ^ 

Planting machines have been recently in- 
vented for putting in this grain, which greatly 
diminish the labor, while they perform the 
operation more perfectly. A light horse, or 
mule, and boy can furrow and drop the seed, 
cover and roll, from eight to twelve acres per 
day ; and with entire uniformity as to di.stance, 
depth of covering, and quantity of seed in each 
hill. 

CuUivalion. — Tlie culture of the growing corn 
plants varies also according to the soil and the 
season, as well as the attentive skill and imple- 
ments used by the grower. Some use nothing 
but the hoe, especially in small patches, and hoe 



78 



FIELD CROPS : 



it from two to four times, as weeds or drought 
require. Others use nothing but the p?oi», and 
plow the ground around tlieir corn plants from 
two to five times, and do it crosswise, or both 
ways, if the crop admits of it, as it should. 
Otlieis, again, use nothing but the cultivator, 
and cultivate it from two to five times, and also 
both ways. Some, after plowing or cultivating 
'lie crop, use the lioe in dressing it up nicely. 

Tlie method in the line of true economy, is 
to stir the soil with tlie plow, and cultivator, or 
hcjrse hoe, so thoroughly and so freijuently, 
that tlie band hoe will not be required. There 
is believed to be a difference in expense of two 
hundred per cent, in favor of machine culture. 
Never heap up the soil around the plants, ex- 
cept in very heavy or very wet soils Flat 
culture is the true practice. Stir the ground 
often in dry weather; it is almost as.serviceable 
as irrigation. Never stir it when it is wet. 
The yirs( stirring of the soil after the corn i.s 
fairly above ground, should be deep, and every 
additional stirring shallower and shallower, as 
the plants increase in size and extend their 
roots. Don't interfere with the roots, but keep 
the earth mellow about them, and weeds from 
drawing their nourishment. 

Some farmers plant pumpkins, or field- 
squashes in every third, fourth, or fifili row of 
corn, and as far apart in the row. This vegetable 
feeds on elements somewhat different from those 
required by corn, so that the corn is not supr 
posed to be injured by it, but rather benefited 
in dry seasons. 

Manure for Corn. — We h:ive treated this 
matter indirectly under the topic " Manure.^," 
but will here revert to it briefly. In the West, 
farmers generally regard their lands strong 
enough without artiiicial fertilization; but they 
will soon see the necessity of imitating their 
brethren of the East. The best way, perhaps, 
of manuring corn ground is to cover it with a 
good coating of barn-yard manure, and plow it 
down, and top-dress it with another coat of a 
dilferent kind, and harrow it well before plant- 
ing. It is a rapid feeder and grower, and 
strong manuring and thorough tillage are in- 
dispensable to an extra yield of superior corn. 
Manuring in the hill, either when the grain is 
planted or when the blade is a few inches high, 
takes less manure and does nearly, if not quite, 
as Well for the crop as a broadcast, lop-dressing 
manure sca.itered all over the ground. Expe- 
rience has shown that a small quantity of ma- 
nure put into each hill with the seed is of great 
benefit, as it m;ikes the corn germinate and grow 



lip rapidly and strong, and get an early start; 
and after it is about a foot high it will, if 
planted on a grass clover lea, push its stalks 
ahead with great vigor, if the weeds and grass 
are kept down. 

The following sulistances are generally used 
as top-dressings and hill manuring for corn 
crops, to wit;''- 

1. Stable and Barnyard Dung. — Stable and 
barn-yard manure, applied at the rate of a 
whole or half shovelful to each hill of corn. 

2. Hog Dung — The same quantity of pure or 
unmixed hog dung, applied in the iJame man- 
ner. Hog dung is one of the very best manures 
for corn. Cornfields hogged down, or allowed 
when ripe, to be overrun with hogs, that eat 
the corn or nubbins, not only fatten the hogs, 
but are rendered rich for a wheat crop. This 
is a common practice among the farmers of our 
Western States, but it is a slovenly and wasteful 
way of manuring land. 

3. iime.^Finely air-slaked lime, sown broad- 
cast over the ground before the corn is planted, 
at the rate of from twenty to one hundred 
bushels per acre. 

4. Gypsum. — Ground gypsum, or plaster,, 
strewn broadcast, at the rate of from a half to 
two bushels to the acre, or a spoonful or small 
handful of plaster applied to each hill of corn 
as soon as the plants appear above ground. 
The mere stirring of the soil alone renders the 
ground porous or sponge-like; but plastering 
is a powerful auxiliary in securing the neces- 
sary degree of moisture, because it attracts 
moisture from the atmosphere and imparts it 
to the soil. Plaster will .sometimes nearly double 
the product of corn on sandy lands, gravelly 
knolls, and slaty hillsides, but seems to do but 
little good to corn-growing on clay or heavy 
and hard soils. 

5. Sah. — Salt sown broadcast, at the' rate of 
from one and a half to four or five bushels to 
the acre, and harrowed in before the corn is 
planted. 

6. Wood Afihe^. — AVood ashes applied to sandy 
soils are a valuable manure, and on some soils 
leached ashes are as good as unleached. Land 
too poor to grow eight bushels of corn per acre 
has been made to produce forty-five bushels 
per acre by the use of wood ashes alone, for 
they stimulate its growth like plaster. Wood 
ashes, however, are more valuable on a sandy 
soil than any other, as they enable the sand to 
retain its moisture — a matter of great import- 
ance — hence such ashes as are used to very 

•Jissay of J. M. Wolfi.sgkb. 



EXPERIMENTS IX CORN PLANTING. 



great advantage on the sandy lands of Long 
Island, near tlie city of Ifew York, and also in 
the State of New Jersey. 

7. Stone Coal Ashes. — Stone coal ashes possess 
the same general nature that wood ashes do, 
though ill an inferior degree, and hence are a 
good nianiire for corn crops. 

8. Bone Dust. — Bone dust should be well 
mixed with fine earth, and sown broadcast and 
harrowed in at the rale of from ten to twenty 
bushels to the acre, before tlie corn is planted. 

9. Guano. — Griano mi.'ced with from three to 
five times its own weight or bulk of fine earth 
and sown broadcast, at the rate of from two 
hundred to four buiidred pounds of gnano per 
acre, and well plowed or harrowed into tlie soil 
before the corn is planted, or put into the hills 
with tlie seed-corn, at the rate of from two to 
three table-spoonfuls of this guano and earth 
mixture to each hill of corn. The pure guano 
alone might prove too hot for the corn-seed, and 
so should be used very cautiouslj. 

10. Cotton Seed. — Cotton seed sown broadcast, 
al tlie rate of from fifty to one hundred bushels 
per acre, before the corn is planted, or put into 
tlie hills with the seed-corn, at the rate of a 
handful to each hill of corn. But the cotton 
seed luust be well rotted or decomposed, or it 
will overheat and greatly injure, if not destroy 
the seed-corn. 

11. Compost Manure. — Compost manures, com- 
posed of fine, rich earth, and wood ashes, stone 
coal ashes, lime, plaster, salt, human excrement, 
hen, and dove dung, and the like, must be well 
intermixed and sown broadcast, or applied at 
the rate of a small handful of the compost to 
each hill of corn. Wood ashes and plaster, in 
equal parts, well mixed, and applied at the rate 
of from two to six bushels to the acre, broad- 
cast, or a gill or small handful of the mixture 
put into the ground with the seed-corn, or to 
each hill of corn after the plants are up, is a 
valuable manure ; also, wood ashes, plaster, and 
lime, mixed in equal parts, and sprinkled over 
the corn hills as .soon as the plants are above 
the ground. Some prefer a mixture consisting 
of three parts of uuleached ashes, two parts of 
slaked lime, and one part of the ground plas- 
ter well nii.xed, and applied at the rate of a 
large handful of the mixture to each hill of 
corn. Woud ashes, plaster, lime, and salt, 
mixed together in equal parts, and put under 
the seed-corn at the time of planting, at the 
rate of a handful of the mixture to each hill, 
will kill or drive away the cut and grub worm, 
attract carbonic acid gas from the air, retain 



moisture, and stimulate and nourish the corn 
plants, and increase the yield one-third. When 
wood ashes alone are used, it is customary to 
apply a small handful of it, either leached or 
iinleached, to each hill of corn ; and that would, 
perhaps, be the proper quantity of plaster, or 
of lime, when they are used alone, while the 
one-half of that quantity of salt would be suffi- 
cient. Some soils will require a good deal 
more of these, as well as of all the other m.a- 
nures above mentioned, and hence it is impos- 
sible to lay down any fixed rules 'upon the 
subject. Every co»n planter must determine 
the proper qualities of each for himself, as he 
be.st can from his own experience and that of 
his neighbors. 

12. Bed Clover and Grasses. — The cheapest, 
most easily attainable, and best of all manures 
for a corn crop, is a dense mass of red clover, 
either in its green or in its ripened and dried 
state, plowed down to the depth of three or 
four inches only, just deep enough to prevent 
wastage, and yet near enough to the surface of 
the ground to be acted on by the sun's heat and 
the air, and also in its decay to afford certain, 
active, and constant nourishment to the young 
and expanding roots ofthe corn growing over its 
remains. Corn and wheat grown over clover 
leys, are very generally freer from dl.seiise and 
insects, and better in yield and quality, than 
crops grown on or witli animal manures. 

The New York .Agricultural Society offered 
a prize to test the value of various manures as 
applied to corn. The prize was taken by Jos. 
Harris, editor of the Genesee Farmer. The 
soil on which the experiments were made, is a 
light .sandy loam. It has been under cultiva- 
tion for upward of twenty years, and, so far as 
could be a.scertained, had never been manured. 
It had been somewhat impoverished by the 
growth of cereal crops, and it was thouglit that 
for this reason, and on account of its light tex- 
ture and active character, which would cause 
the manures to act immediately, it was well 
adapted to the purpose of showing the effect of 
different manurial substances on the corn crop. 
The land was a clover sod, two years old, pas- 
tured the previous Summer. It was plowed 
early in the Spring, and harrowed till in excel- 
lent condition. The corn was planted May 23, 
in hills three and one-half feet apart each way. 
Each experiment was made on the one-tenth of 
an acre, and consisted of four rows, with one 
row between each plot, without any manure. 
The manures were applied in the hill immedi- 
ate! v before the .seed was planted. AVitli the 



80 



FIELD CROPS- 



supoi'phospliate of lime, and with plaster (gyp- 
sum, or sulphate of lime), the seed was placed 
directly on the top of the manure. The ashes 
were dropped in a hill and covered with soil, 
upon whicli the seed was planted, that it should 
not come in contact wilh the aslies. Guano and 
sulphate of ammonia were treated in the same 
way. On the plots where aslies and guano, or 
ashes and sulphate of ammonia were both used, 
the ashes were first put in the hill and covered 
with soil, and the guano or sulphate of ammo- 
nia jjlaced above, and also covered with soil, 
before the seed was planted. The ashes and su- 
perpliosphate of lime were treated in the same 



way. It is well known that unleached a.shes, 
mixed either with guano, sulphate of ammonia, 
or superphosphate of lime, mutually decompose 
each other, .setting free the ammonia of the 
guano and sulj)hate of ammonia, and convert- 
ing the soluble phosphate of the superphos- 
phate of lime into the insoluble form in which 
it existed before treatment with sulphuric acid. 
All the plots were planted on the same day, 
and the manures weighed and applied undfr 
Me. IIahkis's immediate supervision. Evei-v- 
thing was done that seemed necessary to secure 
accuracy. The following table gives the result 
of the six cxperimenis : 







a 






„ 


„ 




















s 




= 1 


i - 


i^ 


si 


sl 


52- 






1 3 


■s "■ 


r'i 


s.i 


c"? 


7-n 


C3* 


DKScniPTiONS or Manure and Quantities Applied per Acre. 


?^ 




i.s 


K 


» " 


rS, 


W 






■:s 




f 5 


? 


: t 


S 






■ c 


Sc- 






I 3 






i s 

; c 


•: r 


.g| 


: "* 


s 






■ 3 




; 3 




: 2, 


1 


N., mum re 


70 


7 

8 


117 
78 








a 




10 


1 


11 


;! 


■lull i ] ■ ■ ■ . '.\ . , i ■ •. ,L li i 'ir . 1 ,,i| !; i^ .,|' ;,l:ist.'r (llliM'd) 


r,,-; 


10 






3 


11 


4 


i; L - ,, ! |.:, r f , M ■, .. , , 


90 


15 


105 


30 




;« 


















6 


>■■' 1 " ' ■ •'• ' ■'■" '"' •'" I"-"- -n|-.-|.liM,pluit(;of 


S.l 


5 

12 


90 
72 








7 


l.Vi 1 •• • ■ -i' '■•'■' •' iiiiLMi,! I ;ili.. inn |..niNiirVurki,','hV'a''womi 


= 












:'■ :..iiMi,'l'. , ,..„.. 


87 


10 


97 


27 


3 


so 


■ 


' .|||,|' ,,,,',..,.', i .. .1, ' IIIIOlll.l. 


inn 


S 


ins 




1 










8 






1 




11 








11! 


:,";"•',;''::"/ ' : :.'■'■ ■-■, ■, ,; ' "",; '''':''"' r" ""'.::::::::::::':. 


95 

7S 


10 

10 


■ lO.-i 


35 

IS 


3 
3 


.IS 
21 


13 






13 










11 


1 ;• II ■ 1 : 1 ■.. 1 •■• ■•ill 1 ||. niiMN ,il.',-|rr. .,h,i,' ,, i. 


111 


11 


12.-. 


51 


7 


SS 



Harvesting. — There are five methods, each 
of which is considerably in vogue, for har- 
vesting corn : 1. The corn is cut at the sur- 
face of the ground when the grain has become 
glazed or hard upon the outside, put imme- 
diately into stooks, and, when sufficiently dried, 
the corn and stalks are separated, and both 
secured. 2. Tlie tops are taken off when the 
corn has become glazed, and the grain per- 
mitted to remain till October or November 
upon the butts. 3. Both corn and stalks are 
left standing till the grain has fully ripened, 
and the later become dry, when both are se- 
cured. 4. The corn is husked on the stalk and 
removed, while the entire stalk is left (o be 
plowed under on the field. 5. Neither corn 
nor stalk is savefl, but cattle are turned in for 
an hour in the morning and another at night, 
to harvest as they require. * 

This last mode is confined to the large stock 
farms of the West, but even the apparent ne- 
cessity, which the immense crops impose, does 



not settle the question of economy in its favor. 
The fourth mode is slovenly, but some large 
farmers can not avail themselves of a better 
way. The second mode is much practiced, but 
careful experiments show that it is injurious to 
the proper ripening of the grain, and yields 
less corn, though fresher fodder. 

The first plan is generally deemed the best. 
It not onlj' saves more of the succulent stalks 
for fodder, but both science and. experiment 
teach that the maturing ear gathers something 
like one-fifth of its sustenance from the stalk 
after cutting up by the roots. Science instrucis 
us that the nourishing sap, springing upward 
from the earth, passes through the stem and 
into the leaf where it is modified by an element 
which it drinks from the air, and is fitted to 
serve as the proper food of the grain. But this 
digestive process goes on abooe the ear, and, if 
the stalk be removed, the seed lo.-^es the nour- 
ishment by whicli it might become perfect. 

This tlieory of ripening has been abundantly 



CORN — nARVESTING, ETC. 



81 



tested and verified by many farmers in many 
States. Judge Bdei,, about tlie 5lb of Septem- 
ber, selected four rows, in difTerent parts of his 
corn-field, and topped every otlier hill in each 
row. He gives the result, as follows: 

To recapitulate, row No. 2, on which tlie ex- 
periment was commenced, taken by itself, is as 
lollows, viz. : 



liills. on which the stalks had vol he 
Ht. Eiive -11' lbs. 8 oz. .try eliclh-d coi 
1 to, per 1 



11', hills, fr 
Biivc 33 llis.7 
to, per acre.... 



.tio hush. S lbs. 



Loss by cutting the stalks, per acre 12 " 46 " 

The four rows, taken together, stand as fol- 
lows: 



Nos. 1 ami ■(, 



ivhich no stalks were cut, 

.■ of, p.-r acre ilO bush. 8 lbs 

)m which hiilf the stalks 

an average of, per acre M " 2:^ii " 



Loss by cutting one half the stalks, per 



Any farmer who doubts that this would be 
the average re.sult of a similar experiment, had 
better try it for himself. 

The stalk.s, blades, and tops of corn, if well 
secured, are an excellent fodder for neat cattle. 
If cut, or cut and .steamed, so that they can be 
readily masticated, they are superior to hay. 
Besides, their fertilizing properties as a manure 
are greatly augmented by being fed out in the 
cattle-yard and imbibing the urine and liquids 
which always there abound, and which are lost 
to the farm, in ordinary yards, without an 
abundance of dry litter to take them up. 

There is another argument, by no means 
despisable, which commends plan No. 1 — it 
give.s an opportunity for a continuation and re- 
vival of the memorial corn-husking frolics in 
sliadowv farms on moonlight Autumn nights, 
when lanterns swing from beam and ladder to 
illuminate the assembled neighborhood ; when 
song and friendly jest go round, and when 
"red ears" are followed by red cheeks, and ap- 
ples and pumpkin pies and cider diminish as 
the golden pyramid increases. Americans 
have fewer holidays and festive gatherings 
than any other people; there is too Utile fun 
and music in our grim struggle of money-get- 
ling; let us welcome any pretext for tempering 
our .sober days with innocent relaxation. 

Large Crops of Corn. — There is a tradition 
that somebody, sometime, somewhere, raised 
two hundred and forty bushels of corn to the 
acre— but we are not acquainted with that suc- 
cessful man. It seems to be duly certified, 
G 



[ however, that Dr. J. W. Parker, of Columbia, 
S. C, raised two hundred bushels and twelve 
quarts of shelled corn on an acre, in 1857. 
lie soaked the seed for twelve hours in a strong 
solution of niter, and planted in drills, ten 
inches in the row. The ground was then rolled 
and left perfectly level. The field had been 
twice plowed and twice manured with comjiost 
manure, besides an application of three ciit- 
loads of air-slacked lime and two sacks of salt 
to the acre, and guano and plaster in the I'ur- 
rows. It was also irrigated. It would have 
been very ungrateful soil, if it had produced 
less than two hundred bushels to the acre! A 
hundred and fifty bushels to the acre is occa- 
sionally raised, and with good culture a hun- 
dred may be often reached. Every field in 
America ought to average eighty bushels — the 
actual average was only twenty-eight bushels 
in 1867. It is produced cheaper per bushel, 
and more bushels per acre now than at any for- 
mer period in our history, by those farmers 
who keep pace with the increase of agricultu- 
ral knowledge in the United States. 

Corn-Cribs. — Every corn-crib should have a 
water-shedding of some sort; it is a usele.ss 
ami foolish waste to leave any grain exposed. 
Even if corn is at a low price it makes a ma- 
terial difference whether it sells for No. 1, or 
No. 2 and rejected. Tl>e cribs should not be 
more than three or four feet wide at bottom 
and six at top, elevated from the ground, and 
open all round to a free circulation of air. 
This will be more definitely treated el.sewhere. 

Me(isuring in Bulk.- — A correspondent of the 
Prairie Farmer gives a rule for ascertaining 
the number of bushels of shelled corn in a 
crib of ears, by multiplying the cubic feet in 
the pile by .45 (forty-five hundreths). "Ex- 
ample : In a crib or bin of corn in the ear, 
measuring ten feet in length, eight feet high, 
and seven feet wide, there will b^ two hundred 
and fifty-two bushels of shelled corn. Thus— 
10X8X7X.45=252. This rule agrees with 
weighing corn — seventy pounds to the bushel 
in the ear. But the rule applies only to local- 
ities where three heap half-bushels of ears make 
a bu.shel of shelled corn." Corn shrinks in 
weight and bulk, between harvest and the suc- 
ceeding Spring, ten to twenty per cent., shelled 
corn less than that on the cob. 

Crows. — Tarring and otherwise coating the 
seed has already been referred to. (Gas tar can 
not safely be substituted.) Encircling the field 
with twine, tied high on poles, is thought to 
make crows shy of entering the charmed pre- 



82 



FIELD CEOPS : 




cincts, but it is not by any means infallible. 
Some are shiewd enough to detect the harmless 
character of the trap. Many farmers find 
more certain relief in hanging one or more 
dead crows where tlie carcasses can be inspected 
by reconnoitering brethren. Others tie young 
crows on twine stretched across the field; their 
oljvious calamity causes the parental birds to 
kt'ep at a distance. The old-fashioned way of 
frightening crows and 
blackbirds was the 
' erection of effigies, 
known as scare-crows, 
of which the accom- 
panying engraving is 
.a fair reminder. Don't 
kill birds of any sort, 
e.xeepl for game. They 
"■"•mS^^^!^" are the farmers best 
friends in tlu' long run, for the destruction of 
jicstilent vermin is their cliief life-work, while 
a bile at corn-lieUls and cherry-trees is only to 
])rocure, occasionally, a more plentiful lunch. 
A happy illustration of the folly of slaying the 
birds is given by Longfellow in his "Birds 
of Killingwortli." 

Cotton. — A soft downy substance, resem- 
bling fine woof, growing in the capsules or 
pods of the Gossypiuin, or cotton-plant. This 
plant is indigenous to the tropical belt all 
around the earth, but it grows best in rich allu- 
vial bottom lands, or in fine moist sandy loams, 
containing at least eighty per cent, of sand. 

Jlistoi-y — IIEK0D0TU3 wrote, four hundred 
years before ClluiST: "There is a plant in 
India which produces wool, finer and better 
than that of sheep, and the natives make their 
clothes of it." The cloth of his time was call- 
ed "fleeces from trees." Alexander soon 
brought it into Persia, Arabia, and Egypt. In 
the first century, A. D., the cloth was embel- 
lished in a rude fashion, with a fantastic print 
of flowers. CoLtiMBUS found cotton in Hayti, 
and CoKTEZ lound cotton cloth of fine and firm 
te.Kture in use by the Aztecs. The Indians of 
the United Slates seem to have known nothing 
of its value. It was introduced into Georgia 
from Barbadoes, about the middle of the sev- 
cn'.ccnlh century, but it was not much grown 
f. r a bundled years. 

As early as 1400, the manufacture of cotton 
inio cloth found its way int»> Europe, but it 
struggled with persecution for two hundred 
years belore it reached France and England. 
The first was woven with wool on a hand-loom. 



slowly and tediously. In 1730, Mr. Wyatt 
first spun yarn cotton by machinery. In 1741, 
raw cotton imports into England amounted 
to 1,900,000 pounds. In 1742, at Birmingham, 
England, the first cotton spinning-mill was 
built; its motive power was mules or horses. 
In 1760, §1,000,000 was the entire value of 
manufactured cotton goods in England. In 
1761, .^RKWRIOHT (afterward knij^hled) ob- 
tained the first patent for his spinning-frame. 
In 1767, the spinning-jenny was invented by 
Jamks IIakgrave, which spun eii;ht threads 
instead of one. Raw cotton imporls were about 
3,000,000 pounds. 

In 1785, Rev. Mr. Cartwright invented 
the power-loom. The same year. Watt's 
steam engines were first introduced as the mo- 
tive power in driving machinery in cotton 
mauu factories. The following year, chlorine 
was first used for bleaching. In 1789, short 
staple cotton began to be ciiltivaled in the 
South, and Sea-Island cotton was first intro- 
duced into England. In 1790, at I'awtucket, 
Rhode Island, Mr. Slater erected a cottou- 
mill — the first in America. In 1792, Eli 
Whitney, of New Haven, Connecticut, then 
residing in Georgia, invented his first cotton- 
gin. Before that time, the seed was separated 
from the ball chiefly by haiid^a very expen- 
sive process. By Whitney's gin, fi:ty pounds 
of cotton could be cleaned in a day, which was 
fifty times as much as could be done by hand. 
With the best improved gins now in use, one 
thou.sand five hundred pounds can be cleaneil 
in a day, equivalent to the labor of a regi- 
ment of men! It. was this machine that gave 
the great stimulus to cotton culture in America. 

In 1S05, tlie first power-loom was introduced 
into the United States, at Waltliam, Massacliu- 
setts, an<l twenty years later the first cotton 
factory was erected at Lowell. 

The recent increase in the cotton product of the 
world has been astonishing. Little was export- 
edorproduced in theUnited Stales priortol795. 
It is said that in 1784, an American vessel hav- 
ing seventy-one bags of cotton on board, was 
seized at Liverpool, on the ple.i that so large an 
amount of cotton could not have been produced 
in the United States. And when an old planter 
obtained fifteen small biles from five acres, it 
was not thought strange that he exclaimeil, 
"Well, well, I have done with cotton; here is 
enough to make stockings for all the people of 
America." In 1791, the export w;us the mea- 
ger item of 189,316 pounds, or le.ss than 5,000 
bales; in 1800 it had reached 17,789,803 pounds; 



COTTON — CULTIVATION OP SEA-ISLAND. 



83 



in 1860, 1,707,080,338 pounds, or 3,812,345 
bales, and tliis was scarcely more than half of 
the entire product. The crop of the Uuited 
Slates has been equivalent to seven-eighths of 
the production (jf the world; and the manu- 
facuuies of the United States have attained a 
ciinsiiniption of nearly one-filth, or twenty per 
con'., of this crop. 

Climate. — The cotton plant is a chihl of the 
sun, flourishing under ardent skies, growing 
with superior luxuriance in dry seasons, and 
withering under the influence of a soaking sub- 
soil and long-continued storms. In latitude 
thiriy to thirty-two degrees in this country, 
upon the proper .soils, it luxuriates in its great- 
est vigor. It delights not in an arid, brazen 
sky, but in an unobscured sun by day and co- 
pious dews at night — abundant moisture with 
continuous sindight in its season. It may now 
be considere<l a settled question, that cotton 
must coininand very high prices to average 
a paying crop north of the thirty-sixth par- 
allel. 

In other words, the line drawn through 
Nashville, Tennessee, and Raleigh, North Car- 
olina, divides the country into two sections. 
In the northern portion cotton is profitable 
only when it commands war prices, and south 
of this line its growth will be lucrative until it 
falls below ten cents a pound; but this line is 
not the northern limit of the cotton belt proper 
In the Valley ot the Mississippi one must go 
below Memphis to find an entirely suitable 
climate, and on the tVtlantic sea-board he must 
gr) south of Cape Ilatteras. The we.-.tern limit 
of the cotton-fields of the United States is a 
line passing north and south through San An- 
tonio, in Texas. 

When the fiber sells at forty cents to one 
dollar per pound, there is an inducement to 
tneoiuuer greater climatic risks, and accept 
smaller and more uncertain retnrn.s. It is, 
therefore, planted at the present time, or was 
recently, to a considerable extent in more 
northern hititudes, in soils deemed most suit- 
able — in Kentucky, in Missouri, somewhat 
largely in Kansas, in southern Illinois and 
Indi:ina, on the eastern shore of Maryland, 
ami in southern Delaware. There is a possi- 
bility of ripening, under favorable circum- 
stances, up to forty degrees north latitu<le, 
with success sufficient to tempt exijeriment 
when the fiber approaches its highest commer- 
cial figure. Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana 
raises more than 500 pounds of unginned cotton 
to the acre; Mississippi, 050; Arkansas, 700, 



and Texas 750. The unginned cotton weighs 
four times as much as the cle.an staple. 

Caltivation of Sea-Island Cotton. — The follow- 
ing is from the American Agriculturist: 

"Preparing the Land for the Crop. — Early in 
February, any liands not engaged in preparing 
the previous crop for market are employed in ■ 
cleaning up the rested fields, and either in 
burning oft' the fennel weeds and grass of the 
previous year, or in listing them in at five leet 
apart, to serve as the base of the future ridges 
or bed. There is much difFi^rence of opinion 
upon the subject of burning or listing in; for 
myself, I am inclined to take the first opinion, 
believing that the light dressing of ashes the 
field receives from burning off is more benefi- 
cial to the .soil than the decay of the vegetable 
matter, and renders it less liable to produce 
what is a growing evil, the rust, a species of 
blight much resembling the rust or blight upon 
wheat, and which takes place about the .same 
period, just as the plant is putting out and pr;- 
paring to ripen its fruit. 

''Uidging. — The land being listed in short 
lines across the entire field, at five feet apart, 
the operation of ridging is commenced about 
the first of Marcli. The ridges occupy the 
entire surface; that is, the foot of one ridge 
commencing where the other ridge ends, and 
rising about eight inches above the natural 
level of the land, thus presenting a surface 
almost as smooth, and almost as deeply worked 
as a garden-bed. This ridging is carried on 
but a few d:iys ahead of the planting. The 
ridge, if the operation has been carefully done, 
is from two to two and a half feet broad at the 
top; it is then trenched on the upper surface 
with the boe, six inches wide, and from three 
to six inches deep, depending upon the jieriod 
of pl.iuting. 

"Planting — In the beginning, if the seed is 
covered more than two inche.s, the soil will not 
feel the influence of the sun, and the .seed will 
not vegetate later; that is, in April, up to the 
first of May, you must give from three to four 
inches of covering to preserve the moisture, or 
there, too, you fail from an opposite cause, the 
wind and burning influence of the sun drying 
the soil loo much for vegetation. In most 
countries, after sowing the seed the roller is 
applied; but in cotton planting, in our ridgo 
husbandry, the foot, in covering the seed and 
pressing down the earth, well supplies its place. 

" Quantity nj Seed per Acre. — A bushel of seed 
is generally sown to the acre; I believe half 
a bushel is better, for where the evil comes. 



&4 



FIELD crops: 



whether the worm, or wind, or drought, or wet, 
there is no security in the many; but, on the 
contrary, wliere they come up thin, they soon 
grow out of the way of injury from any enemy. 

"After Culture. — Tlie cultivation of Sea- 
Island cotton is carried on by the hand hoe, 
■and the quantity always limited to four acres 
to the laborer. The operation of weeding com- 
mences as soon as we finish planting, because, in 
our flat and sandy soils, the grass-seed springs 
with the first growth of the cotton, and by the 
lime we finish planting, say the first of May, 
wb.at we planted in March requires the line. 
The land is kept in the operation of hoeing and 
weeding, as far as may be, at its original level, 
the beds neither increased nor diminished, that 
rains, which generally fall with beating power, 
and in redundant qnantily in the month of Au- 
gust, may as little as possible injure the grow- 
ing plants, which are then in full bearing. 
The yonng cotton is thinned out slowly at from 
six to twelve inches apart on the ridge by the 
10th of June. As soon as the rains commence, 
which is about the last of July, it is wise to 
leave nature to herself, and no longer disturb 
tlie soil; four hoeings, if well done, and the 
grass well picked at each hoeing, is enough, 
nor does any after growth of grass do in- 
jury." 

Hon. Joseph B. Lyman, of Louisiana, 
gives in the United States Agricultural Report 
for 1SC6, the result of his experience in cotton 
culture (up-land) as follows: . "Cotton differs 
from almost every other plant cultivated in this 
country in the length of the season required 
for reaping the full profits that may be derived 
from it. This results from the fact that cotton 
is, in its nature, a perennial, and consequently 
displays no alacrity in maturing its fruit be- 
fore frost, hence the necessity, on the part of 
the farmer, of pressing the advancement of the 
plant as rapidly as possible during the Summer 
months. The great desideratum with the cot- 
ton planter is to obtain the longest po.ssible 
period for his harve.st season ; consequently, 
during the earl}- part of the Summer, his policy 
should be to press the crop and obtain open 
bolls early in August, so that the pickers may 
start in with their b;igs and baskets by the fif- 
teenth or twentieth of that month. The first 
cultivation the crop receives should commence 
about fifteen days after the planting. A light 
plow should be run close to the line of plants, 
cutting away the weeds and grass and stirring 
the earth to a moderate depth. The hoes fol- 
low, smoothing the inequalities produced by 



the plow, and clearing the intervals between 
the clumps of young plants. In the ordinary 
mode of planting, when the seed is scattered 
thickly through the drills, this first cultivation 
is called ' chopping out.' Two weeks alfter, 
the hands should go over the crop again, thin- 
ning out the young plants to a stand. This 
is sometimes done at the first cultivation, espe- 
cially in strong soil. This second cultivation 
should be the most thorough of any, thriftiest 
plants only being spared, and the rest being 
pulled up with care so as not to displace the 
roots of those allowed to remain. A little 
fresh earth is thrown around ihe roots of the 
young plants, and the entire ridge, as well as 
the intervals between, should be made per- 
fectly clean. 

" On a good .soil, with favorable seasons, the 
growth will now be rapid, and the subsequent 
cultivation can be effected mainly with the 
plow. Here it should be remarked that deep 
plowing, except when the land is bedded up for 
a crop in spring, is never beneficial. It breaks 
the lateral roots of the plants, and this retards 
the development of the pod and curtails the 
picking season, hence, the best plow for culti- 
vating cotton is one which, instead of turning 
the soil, scrapes the surface of the earth. The 
implement in common use is'very well adapted 
to this purpose, and consists of a common 
scooter plow, with wings attached three or four 
inches above the tip, and set in such a way as 
to pass just beneath the surface, and throw a 
little ridge of fresh earth close to the stems of 
the plants. They often, when skillfully used, 
clean the surface so thoroughly that the hoes 
can pass over the crop very rapidly. Some- 
times early in the month of July, on a good 
soil, the plants will be so far advanced that 
the boughs will touch and perhaps lock across 
the middles. Many planters think that little 
is gained by running the plow after the crop 
attains this growth, but the more the ground is 
stirred, the more readily will the heat of the 
son penetrate the soil and fall upon the roots 
of the young plants, and this is what is re- 
quired to hasten their development. Ko rule 
can be laid down as to the number of times the 
farmer should go over his crop, as the cultiva- 
tion must vary with the season and the condition 
of the soil. All the movements in the cotton 
field should be brisk, so that the force may 
pass along over the crop rapidly. Cotton is a 
very jealous plant and will not struggle with 
weeds or grass for a division of the fertilizing 
properties of the soil. It will not grow unless 



COTTON PICKING — GINNING, ETC. 



85 



kept very clean and the full energy of the soil 
is kept concentrated upon it alone." 

Picking. — In the mo.st advanced fields on the 
southern margin of tlie cotton zone, picking 
may commence early in Augu.st. In Ten- 
nessee and the northern part of Alabama 
and Missis.sippi the month of September may 
lie somewhat advanced before many open bolls 
:u-e to be seen. From this time on, for three 
or four months, cotton picking may be said to 
be the sole occupation of every industrious 
person on the place. The foreman or pro- 
prietor .should see that every hand is sup- 
plied with the necessary facilities for push- 
ing his labor to the very best advantage. The 
baskets into which the bags are emptied should 
be so placed that the picker should start from 
them, go out on one row and return on the 
next, the rows being short where the cotton is 
thick and well open, so that he will not have 
any unnecessary weight to carry on the last 
half of his bout. To secure these advantages 
it is recommended to select roads at proper 
intervals, unless the field itself is long and 
narrow. 

It is worth while al.«o for the planter to de- 
vise improvements in the bag which is to be 
carried for four months by the cotton picker. 
Tlie form which has been almost universal 
throughout the South is simply a yard of 
coarse muslin closed at one end, with a strap 
of the same material fastened to the sides, to 
be passed over the shoulder. This arrange- 
ment is quite too rude and awkward. A much 
better receptacle for the cotton as it is picked 
would be a shallow reticule, made of stifl can- 
vas or of leather, belted around the waist and 
held up by straps crossing over the shoulder. 
Let it be made in such a way that the top will 
con.stantly stand open and extend all around 
the front of the body. By making it long it 
need not be so deep as to interfere with the 
movement of the legs. Formed thus, it would 
leave all the limbs free in their motions, and 
the distance that has to be pa.ssed in carrying a 
handful of cotton from the pod to its recepta- 
ble would be very much abridged. 

It is necessary to dry all cotton that has been 
picked after a rain, or when heavy dew is on 
1 he field. This should be done on a scaffold 
erected for the purpose near the gin-house or 
colton-.sheds. It is not best, however, to sun 
cotton too long, as the essential oil which is 
drawn into the fiber from the seed, giving it 
greater weight and imparting to it a fine, pale 
straw color, is thus evaporated; nor is it ad- 



visable, on that account, to gin cotton as soon 
as it is picked. It is better for it to stand a 
number of weeks in the seeds in the cotton- 
sheds, allowing time for the oil to infuse itself 
through the fiber. Success in harvesting a 
cotton crop depends very much on the alacrity 
of the force employed in the field. Hands 
thus engaged should be fed well and frequently. 
If they are laboring on a miasmatic soil it is 
policy to give them a cup of coffee the first 
thing in the morning. The coffee should be 
boiled twenty minutes or half an hour, to ex- 
tract all its anti-mi.asmatic properties, or those 
in which it resembles quinine. Besides the 
cup of hot coffee, the hands should have a piece 
of bread or a .sandwich if they labor one or more 
hours before breakfast, as is the custom. By 
cheerfulness, a full diet, and avoiding extremes 
of the daily temperature, it is not difficult for 
laborers of whatever race to preserve very good 
health in the cotton field 

As the season advances the days are shorter, 
and rains are somewhat more frequent and 
much more injurious to the staple; hence, the 
planter should feel the importance of being as 
active as possible in the early days of the sea- 
son. By the twentieth of September, he will 
know, almost to a certainty, the amount of the 
crop he is to gather. He is then beyond the 
reach of almost any agency that can materially 
lesson the number of bales. Hence, if his 
pickers are not equal to the work in hand, ac- 
tive measures should be taken to reinforce 
them. A good hand can cultivate fifteen acres 
in cotton more easily than he can harvest the 
crop of ten acres. 

Ginning, Bating, and Marketing. — The cot- 
ton-gin now in use, of which Whitney's was 
the model, consists of a series of fine-tooth cir- 
cular saws, fastened upon a wooden cylinder 
about three-quarters, of an inch apart, and re- 
volving in slits cut in a steel plate, less than a 
quarter of an inch wide. A mass of cotton 
in the seed is laid upon this plate. As the 
saws revolve, the teeth, passing down between 
the openings, pull off' the lint from the seed, 
and carry it through with them, the sliXs being 
too narrow to allow the seeds to follow. On 
tlie lower side of the cylinder, is a revolving 
brush which takes oft' the lint as it come^^ 
through on the saw teeth, and a blast from a 
revolving fan carries it back through a ftni? 
to the lint-room. 

This is the famous machine which revolu- 
tionized the agriculture of the South seventy 
years ago. Without this invention, cotton 



86 



FIELD crops: 



wnulil not now amount to :inv more llian bees- 
wax as an article of American ex[iiirl. Every 
planter should be mecliauic enough to regulate 
the number, pitch, and shape of the teeth of 
the saw-gin, because the efliciency of the ma- 
chine and tlie quality of the cotton licjiends 
unich on lliese ilenis, as a little experience will 
cleuionslrale. 

Mr. Pratt, of Alabama, who has had thirty 
y am' experience in the niauufactiire and u^e 
of .gins, says that a nnichiue that cleans but 
one or two bales in a day, is decidedly bet- 
ter than one which gins seven or eight bales a 
(lay, and that rapid ginning has been an almost 
universal fault among cotton growers hitherto. 
The annual amount that can be ginned by a 
machine varies also according lo the number 
of saws it carries. Few, if any, are made with 
more than eighty saws. 

Tlie gin may be set upon the ground and 
driven by horse-power, after the nuiuner of a 
llireshing machine, or a number of gins may 
be placed side by side, and all of them driven 
by a sleam engine. Between the rudest and 
most temporary arrangement, by wliirh a crop 
i.s ginned in a large walled tent, and a thiu- 
ouglily built steam ginbonse, with every api)li- 
ance for doing llie work in the best manner, 
there is every grade of convenience in the size, 
arrangement, and value of Soutiiern gin-houses. 
I5y far the greater portion of the cotton crop 
of the United States is ginned by hor.se-power. 
The gin, or gin-sland, as it is usually called, 
costs from <'ne Imnilred and twenty-tive to two 
hundred and fitly dollars, according 10 size, 
number of saws, lineness of teelb, anil care in 
llic ccinslmction of its parts. The necessary 
machinery for driving it can be made by a 
wheelwright for about five hundred dcdlars. 
A veiy frequent size for the gin-bouse, exclu- 
sive of the cotton-shed(5, is thirty by sixty feet, 
but the cost of putting up such a building va- 
ries .so greatly, according to the cost of 
lumber and tlie skill of the farmer, that no 
estimate can be given. It may be said in 
general, however, that when a farmer com- 
mences the cultivation of cotton upon a place 
where there is no gin, by employing two or 
three of the laborers to assist a carpenter du- 
I ing the months of July and August, and by 
the expenditure of about a thousand dollars, 
be may push his gin-liouse to a sufKcient degree 
of advancement to enable him to gin out liis 
first crop during the Fall and Winter. 

It is earnestly recommended that improve- 
ments be made in the mode of pressing and 



preparing for market. The present methods 
are utterly extravagant. Half of the crop of 
1860 was pressed by wooden screws working in 
a huge, cluni.'sy, unsheltered wooden framework, 
and the other half was baled by an iron screw 
propelled by a mule. Neither of these reduces 
the bale to anything like the proper dimensions 
for exporting. 

So the bales are sent to the export cities, 
where they go through anolker process of com- 
pression, if intended for a European market. 
The plantation bale of sixty to eighty cubic 
feet is diminished in bulk till it measures only 
thirty-two cubic feet, tlien it is deemed fit to 
ship to foreign ports. This slovenly habit of 
sending cotton from the plantation half pressed 
is doubly expensive : 1st, it compels a .sale at a 
reduced price ; 2d, it almost doubles the cast 
of transportation. The East India cotton bale, 
weighing fotir hundred pounds, is reduced to a 
cube of two and a half feet — half the size of the 
New Orleans bale. Every large planter should 
send his bale from bis bands straight to the 
door of the factory without breaking bulk. 
The pressing shcild be done by steam, and the 
boxes should be of the uniform size of a cube 
of three feet each — twenty-seven feet, weighing 
four hundred puunds. 

CSliccory. — We place chiccory among 
field-crops, not so much because it is raised in 
the field by the farmers of .\merica, as because 
it might be, and ought to be. It is an indige- 
nous perennial. For some years it has been 
extensively grown in England, and both in that 
country and in thi.s,the root, roasted and ground, 
has become an imporlant article of commerce, 
being nsed as a subsitute or an adulterant for 
coffee. Almost all ground cofl'ee is largely 
nu)ditied by burnt chiccory, and the dishonest 
grocer sells the compound at three or four 
times its cost. But the resultant beverage is 
at least harmless. 

The Magdeburg, large-rooted, is the variety 
most used lor coflee. It is sown and cultivated 
like carrots or parsnip.s, and the roots will go 
twelve to twenty inches deep if the ground is 
fertile and mellow. The plants should not be 
nearer than I'rom five lo six inches in the row, 
and the rows should be fifteen inches apart. 
It is well to sow the seed thicker than this in 
the row, and then, if the plants are too thick, 
tiiin them out when they are large enough to 
require it. 

When the roots liave attained the size of a 
uian's finger they may be pulled for use. It is 



cniccoKY — ri.AX. 



prepared in llie following wiiy : Cut the tops | producing mucli the best crops of lint and seed. 
uff close to tfie root, wash the root clean, split The seed should be briglit, plump, and sown 
it lengthwise into strips, say one-tliird ol an very evenly, at the rate of one bushel and a 
inch thick; cut these strips up three-lburtlis of half to two bushels to an acre, where the fiber 
an inch long, and put two quarts of these into ! or straw is the main object, and one bushel to 
a coiinncin-sized tin pan, and set it lacing the tlie acre where the seed is the principal object, 
sun, and they will soon be dry enough to bug Heavy seeding will produce as nuich seed as 
U|> and pui away. As you want to use it put j light seeding, and it is absolutely necessary to 
as much nn a tin plate as you can conveniently ^seed heavy to raise a crop of flax, produoin.zj 
brown at once, set it in your stove oven, and good marketable lint. After sowing, bush in 
see to it that you do not burn it, for, being of a the seed lightly, .'io that it will only be covered 
spungy nature, ft burns very easily. As to sufliciently to germinate, and roll the groiuid, 
the quanlily necessary for a family at one meal, to compact the earth around the seed to aid 
no directions can be given. It is better the its germination, and to form an even surface, 
second time it is steeped than the first. Add so as to enable the reaper to cut the flax as 
sugar and cream as with other coH'ee. An close to the roots of the stalks as possible. 



ounce of seed is sufficient for two ordinary 
families for a year. 

The large succulent leaves are frequently 



" Flax grows on an average more in tlie night 
than in the day, and more in troubled weatlier 
tban in sunshine — a proof that it requires for 



used as a salad, and for this purpose, are its success, a moist atmosphere." 
blanclied. A delightful Winter salad can be ob- j The Seed. — Too much pains can not be given 
tained by cutting off tlie old leaves withinhalf to get that seed which is fully matured and 
an inch ol' the crown and setting the roots in ' perfectly clean — free from all fuul seeds — both 
moist sand or light mold in the cellar. Fresh, to secure a good merchantable crop, and to pre- 
slender leaves soon grow out of this root, and, serve the land upon which it is sown Irom 
being deprived of light, they are much more troublesome wee<is. It was this fact, more than 
delicate and ter.der than those which grow in any other, that led to the system of "loaning 
the open ground. The plant is very hardy, of seed and contracting for the crop," which has 
easy culture, and is probably adapted to every been practiced to a large extent in Ohio, In- 
section of this country. diana, and elsewhere. 

Time and Mt^ae nf Cutting. — Cut the flux when 

Flax. — The use of fia.x for textile purposes ■ the seed bplls begin to turn brown, in order to pre- 

(linen clotli), is almost as old as human history, vent the loss of seed in harvesting, and also to 

and the plant has a very wide range of tempera- , make a good lint. If the flax is left standing 

ture, reaching Irom Egypt to the polar circle, alter the seed bolls are ripened and have turned 



The loliowing directions for its culture embody 
the practical experience of many flax-growers : 

Soil. — Flax desires a rich, friable, and clean 
upland soil, but will do well on any ground 
that is suitable for wheal or corn. 

Preparation oj Soil. — All llax-growers unite 
in stating one thing as essential to success in 
growing flax — thorough preparation of the 
ground by plowing and harrowing. Most 
farmers agree in saying that it sliould follow 
C(]rii, with deep Fall plowing, and then harrow- 
ing before sowing, until the surface is fully pul- 
verized, and made as smooth as possible. 

iSoiiim'7. — Tlie seeding should be done as early 
in the Spring as the weather and state of the 
ground will admit of fine tillage — sometimes, 
in a moderate latitude, in March, but gener- 



brown, the seed will waste badly in handling 
and, what is worse, the straw will become over- 
ripened, and the lint from it will be coarse and 
weak. 

Gathering. — After cutting the flax, if labor 
can be got, bind it up in small bundles, about 
five or six inches in diameter, with the seed 
ends evened, and set them up on their butt 
ends, in small shocks to dry and cure the seed. 
But when labor is too scarce, or the flax very 
short, it may be cut and cured loose and tan- 
gled, like hay ; and the seed be removed by a 
threshing-machine for tangled straw. It is not 
necessary to keep the straw straight after the 
seed ends are reiuoved. 

Preserving. — When the flax straw is perfccily 
dry, and the seed ripened, stack the straw care- 
fully and compactly, covering it with other 



ally the sowing time ranges from the lOtl: 

April to the 10th of May, according as the I straw or slough grass, so 

season is early or late — early seeding ordinarily I thoroughly. 



FIELD CROPS : 



Threshing — "With a flail," say the Germans 
around Chicago, who liave raised some of the 
finest crops on record ; but the larger number of 
people are for "treading it out with the horses," 
or a machine. Those who liave tried it, report 
no difficulty in using the machine, with some 
slight alterations to suit better the nature of the 
crop. Undoubtedly treading out will be the 
handiest and most economical to farmers, un- 
less tliey cultivate a large amount, when a ma- 
chine could be used to advantage. There is 
one tiling, however, to be considered, which is 
now of much importance; that the machine 
will give you tangled tiax, which, for manufac- 
turing purposes is always of less value than 
straight. In this matter, the good sense and 
peculiar circumstances of each farmer must 
control his judgment. 

Hotting the Flax. — After threshing out the 
.seed, the flax straw should be dew-rotied within 
the months of September, October, and Novem- 
ber, about six weeks being rerpiired to dew-rot. 
Two coats of flax may be dew-rotted on the 
same ground, one after the other in tlie same 
season. In dew-rotting, the flax straw should 
be spread out evenly on grass land, without 
tangling, at the rate of one to one and a half 
tons to an acre. Wbile dew-rotting, and when 
the upper stalks appear nearly well rotted, turn 
the flax over, picking open all the bunches. It 
should be taken up as soon as it is found to be 
dew-rotted just right, and is perfectly dry. To 
ascertain when it is rotted right, take a few of 
the stalks of fla.x and rub them smartly between 
the hands. If the lint separates freely from the 
broken stalks, and is strong, it is well dew- 
rotted. Great care should be taken not to over 
rot the flax, which destroys the fiber. It should 
then be either put compactly in slacks, raised 
from the ground, and well covered, or hauled 
to the flax mill, and there be stacked in the 
same manner, or stored in the flax mill or barns. 
The greatest care is required to have the flax 
straw perfectly dry when stacked or stored, and 
afterward, until it is worked into lint at the 
fla.x mill, as clean, good tow can not be made 
from it, if at all damp. The value of tow made 
from damp straw, is from two to five cents per 
pound less than that made from the same qual- 
ity of dry straw. 

Cleaning the Seed- — This is an item in raising 
flax that must have more attention from our 
Western farmers than it has hitherto received. 
Until the past few years, the makers of fanning 
mills had little or no experience with it, and so 



furnished no screens suitable; now, raajy of 
them furnish flax screens, with which a large 
amount of the foul seeds is removed. The dif- 
ference in price between lots belonging to dif- 
ferent parties, is mainly determiueil by the 
manner in which it has been cleaned by the 
farmers. 

Yield. — The average yield of seed may be 
stated at eight to twelve bushels per acre; its 
market value ranges from $1 60 to $a a bushel. 
In 1S63, clean .seed for planting sold from $4 50 
to ?&. The yield of .straw is one and a half to 
two and a half tons per acre, an average of one 
ton of rotted straw giving two hundred and fifty 
pounds of lint and one hundred and fifty pounds 
of tow. The tow sells at §1 to §8 per hundred ; 
the lint at ten to twenty-five cents a pound. 
Taking the run of seasons, flax is as reliable as 
any other crop. 

Linseed Oil and Cake- — Linseed oil is the oil 
obtained from flax seed, and " cake " is the resi- 
duum left after tlie oil is expres.sed. The oil is 
an article of commerce, and is much used by 
painters. Linseed is used in the economy of 
the farm, for feeding cattle, and other purposes. 
A bushel of linseed averages in weight about 
fifty-one pounds ; this weight, when crushed, 
produces about a quarter of its weight of lin- 
seed oil, and the remainder is cake. The cul- 
tivation of fla.x for the seed alone has become 
an important item among the farmers of the 
West, some having twenty or thirty acres under 
culture. The establishment of oil mills in our 
Western cities makes a home market, at a price 
that pays well for the cultivation, even for the 
seed alone. Linseed cake is a well known and 
valuable article for the food of live stock, al- 
most equally good for cattle, horses, sheep, and 
hogs. One thousand parts of it, according to 
Davy, contain one hundred and fifly-one parts 
of nutritive matter. We have treated of its 
quality as food, under the head of "Feeding." 
A correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette 
urges a protective duty on the importation of 
jute, in order to bring into use the flax tow 
made from tangled flax straw, which is now 
thrown away all over the West. Flax ' is 
raised by many farmers in the West, but al- 
most exclusively for seed. " In the States of 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, there has been 
enough flax grown in some year.s — had it been 
manufactured — to have supplied the whole 
United States with the coarser fabric. But 
only a small portion was saved and dressed into 
tow, and that is now a drug upon the market. 






GRASS AND HAY. 



89 



Some of it can be bought in Cincinnati to-da_v 
for lo cents per pound. During tlie last thirty 
or forly years there have been upward of 
$5,000,000 invested in machines and buildings 
to dress and prepare for market this flax tow. 
But to-day there is hardly a flax tow mill in 
operaticjn in the West, for the reason that tliere 
is no market for the stock. Yet we pay $12,- 
000,000 in gold for a poorer article." 

There have been many experiments to de- 
velop the use of flax as a substitute for cotton, 
and Congress appropriated $20,000 for investi- 
galions; but little progress has huen made to- 
ward that end. 

Grass and Hay.— "Grass," says Pro- 
fessor Martyn, " vulgarly formed one single 
idea, and a husbandman, when he is looking 
over his inclosure, does not dream that there 
are upward of three hundred species of grass, 
of which thirty or forty may be present under 
his eye." The hay crop of tlie United States 
is second only to the corn crop, having been, in 
1860, 20,000,000 tons, valued at $300,000,000. 
Of this, eleven-twelfths was cut in the Northern 
States. Most of tlie South does not grow grasses 
for hay, because much of its stock winters with- 
out it, and the remainder needs but little. 

"The lime has not yet come," writes N. C. 
Meeker, agricultural editor of the New York 
Tribune, "when farmers appreciate grass as 
they should. If I wished to buy a farm for 
my posterity, which would continually increase 
in value, I certainly should choose it in the re- 
gion of grass. For I do know that during the 
course of one's life, a grass farm will bring 
more money and comfort, and with less work, 
than any other farm, whether on the Sciota, 
the Wabash, or the Mississippi bottoms; nor 
can a farm of equal value be selected and made 
anywhere within the belt formed by the tropics, 
the whole world around." 

In choosing the mixture of grass-seeds most 
valuable for the farmer's soil says Cuthbert 
Johnson, many consideraii(ms must be taken 
into the calculation ; not only the nature of the 
soil, and the supply of water to which its habits 
are the best adapted, but also the objects which 
the farmer has in view. Thus, the meadow fox- 
tail, although an early, nutritive, and produc- 
tive grass, requires more than two years to ar- 
rive at perfection ; it is therefore better adapted 
for permanent pasture than the alternate hus- 
bandry. And then, again, the meadow cat's 
tail, although remarkable for producing the 



most nutritious culms of all the grasses, and 
that, too, in a considerable bulk, yields rowen 
of very little value. Valuable, therefore, as it 
is for hay, it is of little consideration for feed- 
ing purposes, if sown Ijy itself; it must be com- 
bined with other grasses. So, the cock's-loot, 
which soon arrives at perfection, and yields 
early and late a profusion of leaves, which are 
highly nutritive, has culms or stalks of litlle 
value — it is a grass most profitable for feeding 
purposes. " Under these different relations, 
therefore," says Mr. G. Sinclair, " a grass 
should be considered before it is absolutely re- 
jected, or indiscriminately recommended." 

Relative Nutriment. — The knowledge of the 
relative nutritive matters contained in dift'erent 
grasses will, also, be a highly important object 
of research as connected with their feeding 
properties. The following are some of the 
general results of the observations of Sin- 
clair: 

1. Grasses which have culms with swollen 
joints, leaves thick and succulent, and flowers 
with downy husks, contain greater proportions 
of sugar and mucihige, than those of a less suc- 
culent nature. 

2. When this structure is of a light glaucous 
color, the sugar is generally in excess. 

3. Gras,ses which have culms with small 
joints; flowers pointed, collected into a spike, 
or spike-like panicle; leaves thin, flat, rough, 
and of a light green color, contain a greater 
proportion of extractive matter than others. 

4. Grasses which have culms furnished with 
numerous joints; leaves smooth and succulent, 
flowers in a spike, or close panicle ; florets blunt 
and large, contain mo.st gluten and mucilage. 

5. When this structure is of aglancons color, 
and the florets woolly, sugar is in the next pro- 
portion to mucihige. 

6. Grasses which have thin flowers in a pan- 
icle; florets pointed or awned, points of thpculm 
smooth and succulent, contain most mucilage 
and extractive. 

7. Grasses with flowers in a panicle; florets 
thinly scattered, pointed, or furnished with long 
awns; culms lofty, with leaves flat and i-oiigh, 
contain a greater proportion of saline matter 
and bitter extractive. 

8. Grasses with sirong creeping roots; culms 
few; leaves flat and rough; flower iu a spike, 
contain a greater proportion of bitter extract 
with mucilage. 

In the first part of April 1820 grains of the 
leaves of the following grasses, etc., aflbrd, ac- 



90 



FIELD CROPS : 



cording to Sinclair, the following proportions 
of nutritive matter, in the varieties of promi- 
nent English grasses named : 



,..„,..,, 






'■■■,:■ 




Ors. 


\\ ,V'i, '...'i' _ 










'!!.','.'.'.'.'.' ii2 
40 


,.;;:,■,:, :.,..„ 








,.-„.;.;:• ,,,,, 


80 

"VI... 811 


\\"i'«nii .mIm,,'^ 


^ ' 


'"" 


: :.'■ 


I.U ,111 

Bnniiis 


Tn'Vuii; «) 


L,.Tia-n-Micil »li 


r tiu 


f.'S 


..102 
















Creeping-bi'iit u 


nu. 


.. 12 





It may not be uninteresting to tlie cultivator 
to learn of what these nutritive matters consist: 
the following is tlie result of Mr. Sinci..\ir's 
examinations: 



JOO grains nf the Nutri- 
tive Matter of Ihe 


Ml 

S 


r-ilage 
areh. 


Saech. 
Miitlei- 


Glu- 
ten. 


liitt.T 

E.'Ctiait. 

aii.l 

Saline 
Matters. 


Nm'hrn- f.x-tail c.n- 


St 

.w 
so 
17 
79 

55 


"? 
10 
11 
10 

8 
2-. 
5 


5 


28 
20 




in 

30 


Wliiteilover(iii flower) 
Re.l clover '" •' 


14 

» 











Varieties. — The botanical family of gras.ses 
(Graminoe) includes almost half of the vegetable 
kingdom — notonly comprising the tender mead- 
ow growtb, but also, rice, the cereals, Indian 
corn, sugar cane, and even the bamboo cane that 
frequently mounts almost a hundred feet into 
the air. We shall here treat only of those grasses 
which are cultij'ated and reaped for cattle food. 
Familiar names will be used, and technical and 
botanical phraseology omitted. 

Timothij. — This is .sometimes called herd's 
grass, and is the meadow cat's-tail of England. 
It is, however, better known as timothy, from 
Timothy Hanson, who introduced it to pub- 
lic notice. It is the favorite grass raised in the 
United States, both witli farmers and their stock. 
It is a perennial, likes best a moist fertile chiy 
loam, and is found in the highest perfection in 
the Northern States. It is hardy, grows rapidly, 
and yields, in its favorable moods, from one 
and a half to four tons per acre. It makes the 
most succulent food for dairy purposes and 
young stock when cut just as it goes into flower, 
but Sinclair estimates that it has not, at that 
period, attained more than half the nourishing 
value which it pofse.'^ses when cut later. 



Two-thirds of the hay which enters into the 
commerce of this country is made from this 
grass. It has greater weight and more nutri- 
ment in the same bulk than any other kind. 
Its great yield, its adaptation to laud too moist 
or wet for grain crops, the time of its maturing 
being after the grain harvests, and the contin- 
ued growth of nutritive elements in the blade, 
and in tlie stalks during and after the flowering 
and ripening of the seed, make it the best of 
our gra.sses for hay. Cut at the time when it 
retains the ripened seed, it unites more than 
other grasses the nutrition of the seed with an 
undiminished value of the stalk and tlie leaves. 
Its defects are, that it does not start early in 
the Spring, that the aftermath grows slowly, 
although it is very nutritious, and that when 
fed alone as hay it is binding from its heating 
qualities. For the farm stock, it is best to feed 
it with other less heating foddering substances, 
as corn fodder or clover liay. 

It may be sown with wheat in the Fall or 
Spring. Allen says, " from its late ripening, 
it is not advantageously grown with clover, un- 
less upon heavy clays which hold back the 
clover. I have tried it with the northern or 
mammoth clover, on clay, and found the latter, 
though mo.stly in full blossom, still pushing 
out new branches and buds, when the former 
was fit to cut." In seeding, give from filteen 
to twenty-five quarts to the acre, the latter on 
stiff dry soils. Timothy is rather more liable 
to winter-kill than many otiier varieties of 
grass, and it requires frequent renewal. 

Jane Grass — (Kentucky Blue Grass) — Is a 
native of our soil; among the earliest of the 
grasses; makes a thick sward; stands the cold; 
is not very sensitive to drought; and sticks to 
a field from year to year with great tenacity. 
It reaches its best condition on a fertile upland, 
and leaves a heavy aftermath. This is nearly 
or quite identical with the Kentucky blue-grass, 
and in that State it grows with an astonishing 
luxuriance, covering the ground with a density 
of delicious herbage that is not equalled in any 
other State of the Union. 

Orchard Grass — [Cock's-foot Grass). — Is indi- 
genous, and for shaded, lertile soils, is very 
profitable, growing four or five feet high, and 
yielding, sometimes, five tons to the acre. It 
thrives in every State of the Union. Its nutri- 
tive value, is generally considered less than other 
prominent grasses; being about two-thirds that 
of timothy, by the ton. It is somewhat grown 
for hay, but its chief value is in the rapid growth 
and sweetness of its rowen for pasture. It 



GRASSES AND HAY. 



91 



ripens ami is cut at about tlie same time a<i 
clover. AlexaNdkb Hyde, a prominent 
I'armei', Siiys ol' lliis grass : " It gives two 
line crops each season, in June and August, 
the second being very nutritious and even bel- 
ter lor growing stock tlian the lirst. Tlie cat- 
tle eat it clean and prel'er it to any other hay." 

Iii:d Top. — Flowers abundantly ; is hardy 
and proliiic; gi-ows well on almost any moist 
soil; and is rtdislied by cattle when carefully 
cured. KoBiNSON tliinlis it'is more acceptable 
to working o^ftn than to any other stock. It 
is nui halt as valuable as liuiotliy per acre. 

Meaduw Fox-tail. — \'ery early, tolerably nu- 
tritious, and a luxuriant grower. .\s a lood it 
is a lavorite wiih stock ol' all kinds. As a 
grass, it establishes itsell' slowly, but when once 
rooted over a field, nniy be considered perma- 
nent. It prel'ers a moist loam; is about halt 
as valuable as timothy, and is better lor pasture 
than for hay. This is quite different from that 
pestilent fo.x-tail of the West which is known 
as "a necessary evil," and which callle dislike 
as fooil. 

Fescue. — The blossom of the meadow fescue 
is a sort of cross between that of red top and 
that of rye grass. There aie half a dozen va- 
rieties of the fescue; all of ihem early, and of 
about half the value of timothy. 

Hungarian Grasb — [MiUet). — This is a tall 
grass, topped with a bushy fox-tail, somewhat 
like timothy. It is very vigorous, grows with 
the greatest luxujiance, and is almost insensi- 
ble to the severest drouglits. It requires rich 
soil, and the land that carries it will need con- 
stant fertilizing. It seems admirably adapted 
to the rich prairies of the West, and upon the 
wore porous soils, it seems likely to supersede 
timothy almost entirely. It especially delights 
in a warm sun, and a sandy or loamy soil, but 
is adaptable, and will thrive under serious dis- 
advantages. 

The Farmer and Gardner says : " The more 
experience we have with this production, the 
heller are we pleased with it, and the fact of 
the deficiency of the pastures, the present sea- 
son, urges us to suggest the propriety of farm- 
ers introducing ils cullure into their respective 
systems of husbandry. How fortunate would 
it be for those who are now compelled to feed 
, out iheir Winter stock of hay, had they flushed 
up a few acres of (heir harvest fields, after the 
grain was cut ofi', and put it down in millet, to 
cut and feed to their stock. Two acres of it in 
good groinid, would yield grass enough to soil 
twenty head of cattle six weeks, and carry them 



in good cimdilion Into the middle of Autumn. 
If cut and given to tlie milch cows, from its 
succulence and nutritious qualities, it would 
greatly add to the yield and quality of the 
milk and butter, and thereby increase the reve- 
nue of the dairy." 

As a universal substitute, millet deserves to 
be first named, though in some parts of the 
United States it is likely that other plants can 
be substituted to better advantage, to supply 
the loss of the hay-producing gra.sscs. Millet, 
however, if sown upon dry groun<l, in .Tune, or 
even the first of July, with just rain enough to 
vegetate it, will mature in about eight weeks, 
and yield two or three tons of good fodder to 
the acre. As soon as the farmer finds his hay 
crop will be cut short by the drought, he should 
plow up the most available piece of land he 
has, and prepare the surface well with the har- 
row, and while the ground is as fresh as possi- 
ble, sow half a bushel to a bushel of seed to 
the acre, and harrow in. 

The proper time to cut the millet for hay is 
when the blades begin to turn yellow, or when 
the seed is jusi fiassing out of the milky state. 
If allowed to fully riiieu the seed, the hay is 
not so rich and nutritious, while the harsh 
seeds frequently injuie and have been known 
to kill horses and sheep, forming liard balls in 
the intestines. It will grow three to five tons 
to the acre, and should be cured in the cock, 
like clover. Cattle are very fond of it, either 
as soiling, or when cnt in a machine. 

There are numerous other familiar grasses, 
which it is not necessary to describe — such as 
the rough-stalked and smooth-stalked meadow, 
rye grass, pony grass, English bent, oat grass, 
sweet-scented vernal, foul meadow, wire grass, 
and prairie grass — besides some kinds of which 
the less there is known the better. 

Clover. — Clover is not properly a grass, as it 
is a member of the I'amily of leguminous plants, 
classing with the bean, pea, veteh, etc. But it 
seems naturally to belong with this branch of 
foraging, and we shall admit it here. Natural- 
ists have detected more than one hundred and 
sixty species of clover; the attention of farm- 
ers needs to be called to but very few — the com- 
mon red clover, the Southern clover, the white ' 
clover, and the scarlet clover. Of these the 
common red is most cultivated. 

Clover requires a fertile soil ; but it returns 
to the earth more than it extracts, and as a 
fertilizer it is placed far above every other spe- 
cies of vegetation. Of this we have treated 
under the head of manures. 



02 FIELD CROPS: 

Wheat tlirives wonderfully after clover, and turut Quarterly, "lucern is a plant of the utmost 
is generally healthier than when fertilized with value; tor if the seed be good, the ground rich 
any other manure. " Strike this plant out of and in heart, and rendered deep in the first 
existence," says George Geddes, " and a rev- instance by a thorough trenching, the young 
olution would follow that would make it neces- plants start into lively growth, attain strength 
sary to learn everything anew in regard to cul- in the shortest possible time, and yield a bulk 
tivating our lands." Its nutritive elements are of luxuriant herbage that can not be surpassed, 
somewhat less than those of timothy, but it is If the plant require four years to attain its 
regarded as fully equal to it, in consideration maximum of power, it is still a giant even 
of its relative product and expense, and the from its infancy, advancing from strength to 
fact that it both pulverizes and enriches the strength." Lucern may be estimated as the 
soil. choicest of all fodder, because it lasts many 

Lucern is another of the substitutes for hay, years; will bear cutting down four, live, or six 
and its merits seem to be but little known. It times a year; enriches the land on which it 
aflbrds a larger produce of fodder than any other grows ; will fatten cattle, and often proves a 
species of artificial grass. The stems are two ^ remedy fur the diseased. 

feet high, and nearly erect, the leaflets oblong, j Hon. JoKN S. Skinners, one of the wisest 
the flowers in cltisters, and the fruit a spiral |of the pioneers of American agriculture, said 
legume. It is adapted to almost any climate of lucern : " As a soi/iiij i//a«s, it has no equal, 
below 42°, and prefers a dry warm soil. Its being the earliest in Spring, and latest in the 
roots strike deep, like the clover. It is com- Fall — it promotes the secretion of milk, and 
monly cut several times in a season, and the imparts a rich and delicate flavor to butler, 
yield is enormous. Chancellor LIVINGSTON, 1 As a dairy grass, it stands peerless and alone, 
one of its first American cultivators, harvested o'ertopping all otlier gras.ses full a head and 
six and a half tons.of dried lucern to the acre, shoulders. Those who may desire to have a lot 
the aggregate of five cuttings. of grass to cut to be fed green to their stock — 

In Kngland, thirty to forty tons of the green and all should do so — should not omit to pre- 
forage are sometimes cut from an acre, per year, pare an acre or two, and sow thereon lucern, at 
though ten to fifteen are a common j'ield. SxE- the rate of twenty pounds per acre. The best 
rnENS, in the Book of the Farm, writes: "Lu- way is in drills a foot apart, lhoUi;h if the 
cern is particularly calculated for horses, ground be properly prepared, it will do well- 
though pigs will greedily consume the refuse sovvit broadcast. To succeed in the latter 
that comes from the stables and thrive well method, the ground should be plowed at least 
upon it; but it is too strong in the stalk for twice. Alter plowing the first time, it sliould 
cows, and by no means .so good for them as be harrowed and rolled ; siifl'ered to remain 
tares. If cultivated upon proper soil, an acre until the weeds spring up and have attained a 
will keep three strong cart horses from 1st Mai/ to ' few inches in height, when the ground should 
October, and after the first year may be mowed be manured liberally, plowed deeply, and thor- 
twice or thrice." loughly pulverized, by repeated harrowings. 

It should be cut when in bloom or just be- Then soak the seed in warm water for twelve 
fore; the first time about the middle of May, ' hours, drain off the water, dry the seed in 
and every thirty days thereafter. Where lu- 1 ashes, and sow it — after which it must be lightly 
cern thrives, it is fit for cutting a fortnight ^ harrowed in and the ground rolled." Plaster 
earlier th.an red clover. Not only is it ready [ is a special manure for lucern, the stalk con- 
for the scythe earlier than any other forage, taining considerable gypsum, 
plant, but it grows stronger and lieavier each Alfalfa is also somewhat cultivated among 
successive year. William Pepper, an Eng- the substitute grasses, especially for soiling cat- 
lish farmer, who grew it largely, states that, ] tie. It is a rank grower, and gives several 
after years of mowing and manuring it, he has ! crops a year. 

got as much as twelve tons per acre (dry for- Lupine is moderately used for soiling, but is 
age), and that it is hardy and will endure cold, raised more frequently for a green manure. It 
if cultivated in dry soil. He has seen it green grows fast, is a thorough pulverulent, and is 
and succulent when all the other grasses were : very hardy. 

burnt up — running to a height of five feet and The Vetch is a running plant of the legumin- 
five inches in a hot summer. ous species, resembling the pea. Sown in 

"Upon the whole," says the English Agricul- April, it will be found ready to cut the last of 



WHEN TO SOW GRASS SEED. 



93 



June, and will probably be found valuable in a 
regular soiling course. It enricbes the soil, 
and sheep and horses fatten upon it faster than 
on clover. John Wilson, author of the arti- 
cle on Agriculture in the Encyclopedia Britan- 
iiica, says, "There are other forage crops well 
worthy the attention of the farmer, but the 
vetch is less fa.>itidious in regard to soil and cli- 
mate than any of them, and can be grown suc- 
cessfully on very poor soils." It is probable 
that any farmer, having moist arable land, 
can raise a gSod crop of vetches, merely by 



down with a crop of oats ; but grass-seed may 
be sown in September, in many cases to much 
better advantage than in the Spring, and the 
next season a good crop of hay will be the 
result of such sowing, in all cases when no 
other crop is grown, and frequently when such 
seeding is done when sowing wheat." 

Says an intelligent writer in the New Eng- 
land Farmer, "We may conclude that the re- 
sult of sowing grain and grass together is to 
injure both crops, and very often to lose the 
grass entirely. Such loss and vexation may 



sowing them broadcast, three bushels of vetches I be obvuvted by sowing the grain alone in the 



with one of oats. The oats are added to .sustain 
the stems of the vetch, which otherwise would 
lie upon the ground, and a great part of the 
crop might rot. The weight of a full crop of 
vetches, if the two cuttings be weighed green, 
will be found nearly equal to the weight of a 
crop of cornstalks. 

A New Clover. — H. W. Kavenal, of Aiken, 
S. C, in 1867, presented to the Academy of 
Natural Science.s, specimens of a new plant, 
which botanists know only as the Lcspendoza 
Striata of China, and of which a correspondent 
of the 'Tribune thus speaks: "I send a speci- 
men of a new species of clover, supposed to be 
from China, wliich first became plentiful in 
1SG2. It seems indestructible, the closest graz- 
ing does not destroy it, and last year during 
nine weeks of drought, it only withered and 
turned yellow, and revived on the first shower. 
The cattle are very fond of it. It has covered 
the entire country with a dense growth and 
seems to choke out all other kinds of grass. 
The specimen I send grew on the red, bare 
hill-side. It was necessary to wrench it from 
the soil. On good ground I have seen it two 
feet high." 

Bunch Grass. — Attempts are making to intro- 
duce east of the Missi.ssippi, the bunch-grass, 
which the emigrants to the land of gold find so 
nutritions for their cattle in crossing the Rocky 
Mountains. It grows on hill-sides, preferring 
pebbly and sandy soils, producing a seed like 



early part of the Spring, with such manure as 
has been allotted to the field ; and as soon as 
possible after the grain has been harvested, to 
plow the stubble in with a deep furrow, that 
the stubble ma}' have a chance to molder 
away, which the showers that take place about 
that time, and the heat of the weather, will 
generally bring about in the course of ten or 
twelve days. Before the end of July the field 
should be cross-plowed, the grass-seed sown on 
the furrow, harrowed and rolled in. It is of 
much iniportaiice in this pai-t of the process to 
avoid any delay, and therefore it is quite need- 
ful to put in the grass-seeds, even if the 
weather should happen to be dry at the time. 
They will lie safe in the ground, and be ready to 
improve the benefit of the first showers, when 
the grass will soon appear, and generally make 
a good progress before Winter sets in. If the 
Winter should prove favorable, nothing further 
is wanting to insure a good and lasting field 
of grass, than to draw the roller over it in the 
Spring, as soon as the frost is out of the 
ground, which will settle the roots of the young 
plants, which would sufl'er from exposure to 
the sun and the wind." 

The Cultivator says: "It requires more la- 
bor, but is enough better to repay it, to pre- 
pare the land late in Fall, and sow grass very 
early in Spring, with nothing else. If well 
seeded on a rich soil, the young plants will 
quickly spring up, and soon be out of the reach 



the oat, and a stalk which contains abundance of drought. It will make a good crop the 
of saccharine matter. The dry Summers on first year." 

the mountains ripen it in May or June, and the j In Young's Farmer's Calendar, under the 
hay on the stalk remains good all Winter, till date of August, it is said: "This is the best 
llie following year. It is said to give the flesh ' season of the year for laying down land to 
of meat cattle a fine flavor. grass; and no other is admissible for it on 

strong, wet, or heavy soils. Spring sowings 

When to Sow Grass-Seed.— The edi- with grain may succeed, and do often, but that 

tor of the Bural American says; " Probably they are hazardous, I know from forly years' 

ninety-nine farmers in a hundred sow all their experience." 

seed in the Spring, the usual way being to seed ' The best mode, says W. C. Campbeli,, in 



94 



FIELD chops: 



the Prairie Farmer, of getting a wheat field set I grasses, contains about a tlionsMnd plants; and 
in grass, is to sow it in March, the sooner tlie some highly enriclud and irrigated meadows 



better, one peck of timotliy, with a cnnsidera 
hie sprinkling of clover, to the acre, will be 
very apt to get a set if the season should be 
favorable. 1 have had soi;)e experience in 
sowing grass on the prairies, and find early 
Spring the best time to sr)W, and that when the 
groun.l is frozen, and, better still, when there i 
snow oil the ground— then the sower can see 
where lie has sown, and will not leave strips 
with no grass on. ■\Vlicn the ground thaws, 
the seed will sink deep enough in the ground to 
grow with the first warnilh of Spring. I always 
have the be.st set when I. sow on the land where 
there is no other crop to come off the same 
season, as I have always fciund that it does not 
pay to try to grow two crops on the same land 
at the same time, for if the oats or wheat, or 
whatever it may be, should be very thick, the 
young grass is smothered out, or in a very 
stunted condition, and when the ground is 
cle.ired of the oats or wheat the hot sun of 
August will frequently kill it; but I would 
sow with wheat sooner tluui any other crop, as 
it is not apt to be so thick. 

On low lands, which are too wet for any crop 
but grass, as our seasons generally occur, ii 
is better to prepare the ground, and sow the 
grass-seed without any grain. Worn nut lands 
do well when thus prepared, without any ma- 
nure, fur two or three years, when the process 
should be repeated, and so on for successive 
periods. "We have seen laud taken up and 
thus prepared," says a correspondent, " where 
not more than one-fourth of a ton of hay had 
been mown on the acre, and by simply bein, 
well plowed and sown down with herds-grass 
produce two tons first quality hay for the 
market. The second year the crop would be 
lighter, and the third still less, when the 
ground would be again plowed and sown, but 
with still better success than the first trial." 

How much Seed to the Acre? — .\n English 
authority gives the following statement of 
grass-seed required per acre: Millet, one- 
half busliel; white clover, four quarts; red 
clover, eight quarts; timothy, si.x quarts; or- 
chard gra.ss, two bushels; red-top, one to two 
pecks; Kentucky blue-griiss, two bushels; mix- 
ed lawn yrasii, one to two bushels; rye-grass, 
twelve quarts." We are certain that this is too 
thin seeding. The Annual S4gister of Sural 
Affairs, which is high authority, says that "it 
has been found by careful counting that a foot 
square of rich old pa.sture, composed of mixed 



have contained m-arly twice that number. 
This is seven tcj twelve plants to a square inch." 
Now there are in a bushel of clear seed : 



S.-Hds. 

Timothy 40,ni«i.(Mio 

"rcliiirii t!ra^8 7,n(jti.niH) 

ICcp-Iop "oliHjo'.dOii 



Meadow 
White ck 



.2s,c«xi.(inn 

..IS.IIKI.IKHI 



There are about six million square inches 
to the acre. Now, how much will you allow 
(or failures to germinate? — and how many 
roots will profitably grow up on each square 
inch ? From the basis of the above table a 
calculali(.n can be made, which will only 
need to be slightly varied to suit the soil and 
the conditions of the crops. Many of the best 
farmers are satisfied that a thicker seeding than 
usual would be beneficial. 

'The depth of coverinij should not be any less nor 
nnich more than one-fourth of an inch ; when 
covered an inch or two not half the secdsT\-ill 
ever re-appear. In smooth, mellow ground, 
rolling will be found to cover sufficiently. 

When to Cut Grassf — T\\c answer to this 
question depends on circumstances — especially 
on the answer to another questicm. What do 
you expect to do with your hay ? If it is to be 
led to working oxen or working hor.ses, it 
should generally stand until two-thirds in 
blossom; if to milch cows, calves, and sheep, 
it should, undoubtedly, be cut considerably- 
earlier — before nnicli of it passes into ilower. 
There are some advantages attending both late 
and early cutting. Grass that is cut green cer- 
tainly exhaust.s the land much less, and is 
more .savory and toothsome to stock of all 
kinds. Properly kept, it carries much of its 
original sweetness and aroma through the 
Winter; and it is wellTknown that food that is 
taken with a relish always, docs" more good 
than that which is worried down. 

On the other hand, it is believed by stage 
companies and hirge livery owners that ripe 
grass makes the strongest and heartiest hay. 
The rea.son for this last opinion is, that the 
road horse that eats more grain than liiiy re- 
quires ripe hay or straw to extend the stomach 
prevent too rapid fermentation and pa-ss- 
oif of the food through the storasch and 
bowels, and to supply the waste of muscular 
tissue from severe exercise. Kipe liny or straw 
contains more silica than grass does, so it pro- 
bably is better to supply the muscle of a hor-se. 
The New York men rely upon the nutriment 



now MUCH TO CURE HAY, ETC. 



95 



in the grain tlaey feed for keeping up the con- 
dition of their liorses, and the ripe hay to serve 
as a divisor for distending tlie stomach. 

Moreover, grass will very soon run out if 
cnt before any of its seed ripens. Sinclair's 
analj'sis sliows tliat ripe Iiay contains thirty 
percent, more nutriment tlian immature hay; 
while Professor Way's analysis convinced him 
that grass mowed just in flower was at the 
maximum of value. J. Stanton Gould, of 
New York, holds that "when grass is allowed 
to ripen its fiPed, the -straw is converted into 
woody fiber, is indigestible, and its nutritive 
value very much le.ssened." 

Clover should be cut when it is turni[ig from 
the fullest bloom. The fact is, that no large 
farmer can cut all his hay at a particular time. 
Let him begin so that his mowing macliine will 
be ofl' the field by the 25th of July, and there 
will be diflerence enough between the earliest 
and latest, if kept .somewhat separate, to feed 
what is be.st for ditferent kinds of stock. Don- 
ald G. Mitchell lays down a safe rule: 
"The milkman's haying should commence a 
fortnight before the grazier's, and end a fort- 
night earlier." 

IJow much to Care Hay. — There is even more 
diversity of opinion on the question whether 
grass should be cured much or little than there 
is as to the time of cutting it. All agree that 
clover may be put up with less curing than 
finer grasses, for the reason that it will not pack 
as close in the mow, giving more circulation of 
air through it than any other hay. Farmers 
are gradually coming to the conclusion that 
grass of all kinds is ordinarily cured too much. 
Captain Willard, Warden of Connecticut 
State Prison, says he does not dry clover in the 
sun, but puts it in cock and turns it over two 
or tliree times the fir.st day — the next day he 
turns the cock bottom side up and takes it 
to the mow, putting about four quarts of salt 
into each load. The salt keeps the hay from 
molding and makes it more nutritious as well 
as palatable. The best farmers turn their 
clover out to the snn as little as possible, leav- 
ing it in the cock a day or two, and storing it 
without hustling it about. All the heads and 
leaves, and most of the seeds are thus saved, 
and these are worth more than the .stems. For 
new milch cows in the winter there is nothing 
better. It will make them give as great a flow 
of milk as any hay, unless it be good rowen. 
Clover need not be left in the cock long enough 
for the outside to blacken ; for clover, like the 
grasses, is generally overcured. 



T. S. Gold, Secretary of the Connecticut 
Agricultural Society, gives it as his opinion, 
strengthened by observation and experience, 
that it is better to cut grass with the dew upon 
it, [lut in a tedder immediately and cock about 
noon. Let the hay remain until the next day, 
shake it up well and put it under cover before 
night. Others mow as soon as the dew is 
mostly off", start the tedder at ten o'clock, 
begin to cart just after dinner, and get it all in 
before night, when the weather is favorable. 
In a warm day, this method should be preferred 
to all others. The result of this one-day cur- 
ing, f<dlowed safely even with clover, i.s, that 
we have in the Spring of the year seen clover 
in a well ventilated barn, cnt the previous 
Summer, the honey candied, the heads blushing 
as if just mown, and breathing as delicious an 
aroma as when taken from the field. Hay .so 
cut will work miracles in the d.iiry. 

The Boston Cultivator says : " General 
Thompson lias, for some five yeai-s past, cured 
small quantities of hay in casks, without any 
drying, cut when the dew was entirely off, and 
closely packed in clean casks, replacing the 
heads again, making them nearly if not quite 
air-tight, and allowing them to stand in the 
barn until the next Spring. He has lately 
opened one and has favored us with a sample, 
and when the box containing it was opened, 
there gushed out such a sweetness of aroma as 
man was perhaps never before delighted with, 
and it could not be believed, in the absence of 
the evidence, that so highly impregnated a 
feed, the aroma from which could have such 
strength, came from so small a box. It may 
be observed that the scent of the sample was 
somewhat sickening, like that of fresh May- 
flowers whin confined in a close room, but 
when laid before onr animals, which had just 
filled themselves with fresh green grass, it was 
eaten with avidity." Two things are to be 
avoided with equal care: not to wet the hay, 
and not to burn it up in the scorching suns of 
Summer. There is very little danger of putting 
hay in the barn too green. Its color and flavor 
should bo;h be preserved. 

Tools. — We speak cLsewhere of pruning im- 
plements, and will only say here that no farmer 
who cuts much hay will think of getting aloii^ 
without a set of muslin caps for the cocks, i 
hay tedder, and a horse-fork, any more than he 

I will try to cnt his meadows liy hand. A pat- 
ent tedder will do llie work of fifteen men, and 
do it better than they can; a hor.se-fork will 

I pitch off a load of hay in five minutes; and a 



FIELD crops: 



set of caps will be likely to save ten times their 
cost every year. 

Hay-Caps. — Take strong sheeting a yard and 
a quarter, or a yard and a half wide, and cut 
into pieces of equal length, so that each cap 
shall be square; paint one side with a mixture 
of linseed oil, beeswax, and japan, in the pro- 
portion of two gallons of the oil, eight pounds 
of wax, and two quarts of japan for one hun- 
dred caps; the oil to be simmered witli the 
wax until dissolved, and the japan to be added 
afterward. Apply with a wliitewasli brush or 
with the hand, and dry in the sun. The paint 
will prevent raveling, and the cap may be se- 
cured in its place by sewing up a small stone 
in each corner. Caps of this sort would cost 
about twenty cents each, and would last ten 
years if properly taken care of. Of course, 
they should only be kept on the hay during 
the night in fair weatlier, and during the storms 
in bad weather. 

New and Old Say. — It has been ascertained 
that well-cured ha}', weighed in tlie field July 
20, and tlien stored in the barn until February 
20, had lost twenty -seven and a half per cent, 
of its weight. It is, therefore, better to sell 
hay in the field at S15 per ton than from the 
barn at $20, in midwinter. 

Nutritive Value of Hay. — According to the 
experiments of several eminent European agri- 
culturists, 100 pounds of good meadow hay are 
equal to about 90 pounds of best cured clover 
hay, 300 to 500 pounds of rye straw (varying 
with time of cutting, etc.), 200 to 400 pounds 
of oat straw, 200 to 300 pounds of ruta-bagas, 
250 to 400 pounds of mangel wurzels, 200 to 
300 pounds of carrots, 150 to 200 pounds of 
potatoes, 30 to 60 pounds of beans or peas, 50 
to 60 pounds of Indian corn, 65 pounds of 
buckwheat, 35 to 75 pounds of barley, 40 to 80 
pounds of oats, 30 to 70 pounds of rye, 30 to 
60 pounds of wheat, and 40 to 100 pounds of 
oil cake. 

Manac/emeni of Grass Lands. — Some of the old- 
est and shrewdest farmers in tliis country liold 
that plowing up good natural grass lands is mal- 
jiractice; that such lands need never be turned 
over, but that their fertility should be kept up 
by top-dressing of animal manure, ashes, plas- 
ter, muck, earth, or whatsoever enriches pas- 
tures almost at any time. In mowing lands this 
surface dressing may be applied soon after the 
crop is removed, that it way act favorably upon 
the roots and afford protection during the 
Water. 

Natural meadows — that is, the level land 



bordering on streams and rivers — are undoubt- 
edly best for mowing, and can usually be made 
smooth without even a first plowing, and are 
sometimes found self-sustaining; also, lands 
receiving the wash of bills, roads, and barn- 
yards, often keep up their fertility without any 
direct application, though the hay crop is con- 
tinually taken off. It is well known that a cat- 
tle-feeder can not so easily fatten stock on new- 
Ij'-seeded ground, as on lauds put down many 
years ago, or tliat have never been broken up. 
A top-dressing of sawdust, in which the liquid 
manures have been absorbed, applied in Fall 
or Spring, gives great vigor and growth to 
grasses. It is better and cheaper to apply this 
or other manures to old pastures than to plow 
and re-seed. A volume of the Michigan Agri- 
cultural Reports gives the advice of Sanford 
Howard on this point, thus: 

"1st. That, on some soils, grasses will live 
so short a time that it is not an object to en- 
deavor to continue them for permanent pas- 
tures. Such land, if suited to grain or other 
cultivated crops, may be brought under a sys- 
tem of rotation, if not devoted to forest trees. 

" 2d. That some soils may be kept perma- 
nently in grass by occasional scarify ings, or 
harrowiugs, with top-dressings of suitable ma- 
nures, and surface re-seeding of spots where 
the sward becomes weakened. 

"3d. That some soils whicli are particularly 
natural to grass, if once set with the proper 
species, may be kept in pasture for an indefinite 
length of time, in many cases without manifest 
deterioration, through fertilizers, as bone-s, 
ashes, plaster; etc., which may be advantage- 
ously applied at intervals." 

Ovei'cropping is the chief vice of farmers 
in pasturing. "On late and off early" should 
be painted on every entrance to a pasture-field. 
Too many cattle on grass lands in the Spring 
prevent the young roots from taking a firm 
hold of the soil; too close feeding in Summer 
exposes the roots to the scorching heat of the 
sun; and in the late Fall, in low meadows, the 
cattle are apt to trample the sward so as to 
render the next growth of grass irregular. 

A mixed husbandry is often best, especially 
in those sections where the land will carry more 
dairy cows, when partially given to grain and 
roots, than when it is principally kept in grass. 

A. L. Fish, an experienced New York 
farmer, gives the following as his method of 
laying down to grass such lands as it is advisa- 
ble to plow: "Let them be deeply and thor- 
oughly pulverized, and as much manurial mat- 



JIANAGF.3IENT OF GRASS LANDS — CLOVER-SEED. 



97 



ter incurpnratcil in llie process as will amend 
for tlie crops taken oS; then seeii with a va- 
riety of tlie indigenous grasses with the usual 
variety of cultivated grasses, keep the herd from 
grazing or trampling it the lirst year, so that 
the new roots may be thoroughly interspersed 
tlirough the soil before it becomes packed again, 
anil I will risk my reputation as a farmer upon 
the assertion that its productiveness will be 
much improved, and the grass quite as succn- 
li-nl and nutritious as the old indigenous sward. 
The prejudice against re-seeding for pasturage 
has no doubt grown out of the fact that the tilth 
and manner of seeding has not been properly 
done. The lay and texture of land is so unlike 
in dirferent localities that it would be difficult 
to adopt a rule of general practice without 
broad exceptions. Some soils require to be 
pulverized and packed to make them less por- 
ous — others to be pulverized and not packed to 
have them more permeable. All soils must be 
permeable to receive full benefit from the circu- 
lating elements passing through them." 

Many farmers eflijct a speedy renovation of 
pastures which have become " hide-bound," 
and seem to be running out, by giving a mode- 
rate top-dressing of five to ten cords of barn- 
vard mamire to the acre — or an application of 
ashes, plaster, lime, or any liquid jnanure — 
evenly sowing four to si.K quarts of new seed, 
and then subjecting the sod very thoroughly to 
the harrow. The harrow must not be spared 
in such case; the meadow may look as if "all 
dragged to pieces," but the new seeds will take 
the better for it, and the old roots strike out 
with remarkable vigor. The roller may always 
profitably follow the harrow where the land is 
not wet. Occasional pasturing, too, for a full 
season, is highly advantageous to mowing 
grounds. 

Mr. Fish says: "M)- mode of using manure 
is to apply it to all crops at a season when the 
growing crop will a[ipropriate it most speedily 
to its use, to prevent was'.e by evaporation, and 
otherwise, while vegetable growth is dormant. 
The very convenient way of spreading manure 
broadcast in the Winter season I discard as 
ruinous to the farmer, as the frost decomposes 
and [iiepares for excessive waste before tlie soil 
"an receive it. Let any dairyman take one- 
tenili of his pasture land and cultivate it to grow 
maize for soiling, and feed it to his cows annu- 
ally, and I will engage that he will have made 
more cheese or butter from the same number 
of cows, and the same area of laml, and the land 
will have impToMd under the treatment, pro- 



vided lie makes judicious use of manures a:nd 
grass-seed." 

The excellence of pastures depends greatly 
both upon their position and the different spe- 
cies of animals for whose support they are in- 
tended. Thus, uplands which are elevated, 
open, and dry are the best adapted for the 
feeding of sheep. While a heavy slock is fed 
with more advantage upon ground which is 
lower in point of situation, as well as better in- 
closed. The soil of uplands, particularly if it 
be of a chalky nature, bears a sweet, though a 
short bite of grass, which is so favorable to the 
pasturage of the smaller breeds of sheep, that 
although it will support but a scanty stock, it 
yet produces the finest species of mutton. 

It is well known that certain grasses are pre- 
ferred by particular species of stock, and some 
person.i on this account put different kinds of 
animals at the same time on their pasture, but 
it is difficult to proportion the different num- 
bers, especially as they will all agree in crop- 
ping the sweetest herbage first. It appears most 
injudicious to congregate different classes of 
animals, as they are apt, from their respective 
habits, to interfere with the comforts and repose 
of each otiier. Horses and cows do not mingle 
sociably together, nor eat exactly after the same 
mode; but horses and sheep, both biting closely 
and quickly, are fit followers together after a 
leading stock. 

Clover-Seed. — Western farmers are begining 
to imitate their Eastern brethren, in considei'- 
ingthe importance of saving clover-seed. "The 
saving of this seed tor market," says the Valley 
Fanner, "has heretofore been chiefly confined 
to three or four States, and the constantly in- 
creasing demand is now beyond their ability to 
supply, and conseipiently, the price has become 
a heavy burden upon tha farmer; and however 
great this ta.x may be, few good fanners will 
consent to exclude clover from their rotation of 
crops, because they must either substitute ma- 
nure at a still greater cost, or consent to see 
their land lo.se in fertility." On a small scale, 
it will be fully as remunerative as wheat grow- 
ing. It is a new thing to many farmers to save 
the seed ; but it is a simple ju'ocess. The clover 
should be cut with a mowing machine when the 
heads are two-thirds brown, and cured and 
liandle<I with care. Only a threshing machine 
and a clover-huUer are required afterward. 

A farmer in Illinois gives the following re- 
sult of his e.xperiments in saving clover-seed. 
The last week in June and the first week in 
July, he says he cut and stacked seventy large 



98 



FIELD crops: 



loads of liay from twenty acres of ground. In 
September lie cut over the same piece of ground 
fur seed. This was threshed and Imlled, yield- 
ing eighty bushels of clean seed. He estimated 
the hay to be equal to fifty tons, worth $8 per 
ton, or $400; 80 bushels ofseed at $8 per bushel, 
the present market price, S640; making in all 
$1040. Besides the hay and seed, there are 
many tons of clover roots left in the ground, 
wiirlh, as manure, twice the cost of the seed 
mwn. Now, even if half of this can be obtained, 
it will then be as profitable as the best farm crop 
usually grown. 

In a late number of the Ohio Cultivator, -Mr. 
E. R. WiiiT.VKER, of Clinton county, states that 
he had a field in clover, containing ten and a 
quarter acres, from which he made two tons of 
clover hay to the acre, estimated to be worth 
$246. From the second crop he saved the seed 
which yielded 425 bushels, which he sold at 
home at $7 per bushel, amounting to $299 25 — 
which added to the value of the hay, makes the 
handsome sum of $545 2.5. 

Plnsler upon Clover. — With the exception of 
a small district near the sea-shore, clover is 
greatly benefited by the application of plaster. 
About one bushel to the acre is, perhaps, the 
most suitable quantity. Apply it upon a. moist 
day, early in the Spring. Ammonia is con- 
Btantly brought to the earth by dews, rains, or 
snow, and the plaster acts as a collector of this 
fertilizing matter, and preserves it for the use 
of the plant. 

Stacking in America is generally consid- 
ered as necessarily wasteful, and to be avoided 
a.s long as there is a foot of barn-room unap- 
propriated. In England, it is preferred, as 
being more economical than any other method 
of .storing either grain or hay, because freer 
from rats and mice, and better ventilated. 
There, stacks are skillfully and scientifically 
constructed; here, they are thrown together in 
a slovenly manner that invites damage from 
the elements. There is more science, says an 
intelligent writer on this .subject, involved in 
building a stack of hay, loose grain or bundles, 
in a correct manner, than there is in erecting a 
pyramid that will stand the test of wasting and 
raging elements, of time and of changing 
weather. The main point is to build a stack 
so as to turn all the rain ofi" instead of turning 
it toward the middle of the stack, where it 
would produce more or less damage. Begin- 
ners will almost always commence at the cir- 
cumference or outside of the stack instead of 



j commencing in the middle. Whether a stack 
I is to be made of bundles or loose material, it 
■ should always be begun in the middle, and the 
middle should be always kept fullest — from one 
to two feet higher than the outside, and well 
pressed down. The middle should always be 
trod down more closely than the outside, so 
that when the stack commences to settle, the 
outside will settle more than the middle, and 
thus tend to give a good inclination to the 
straw on the outside, and carry ofi' the water 
rapidly. 

A stack should be constructed in a circular 
form on the ground, and should always be 
built in the shape of a hen's egg, small end up, 
with the bulge extending two or three feet be- 
yond the circumference at the base. It will 
pay to thatch every stack, so that it will shed 
rain like a roof. Here is a simple and easy 
method : begin at the "eaves," and push verti- 
cally into the stack the ends of long grass or 
straw, and so continue until the other ends 
hang in a fringe around the stack. Then begin 
again, and form another course a foot above, 
and so on until the pole or apex is reached, 
where finish off carefully so that all rain will 
be shed down the roof. Such a thatch will 
sometimes keep a stack sweet year after year. 
The bottom of a stack should always be made 
of rails crossed, or .stout brush. 

Ventilate the Hay. — Ventilation will keep 
hay, even when it is put up half cured. SoLON 
Robinson recommends that all barn "bays" 
be ventilated, not only underneath, but from 
bottom to top, by a sort of chinmey, made of 
four tall poles, set so as to form a square, and 
connected with roun<ls like a bidder. He .saved 
a green stack by a flue of rails, and a prairie- 
hay rick by "an air tube of brush." The 
English have a simpler fiue, which they make 
as follows: They fill a large bag, say three 
and one-half feet high and twenty inches in 
diameter, with straw, and place it vertically in 
the center of the stack, putting the barley, oats, 
or. hay — whichever it may happen to be — 
around it. As the stack rises, they lift the 
sack ; and so on until near the top, then lay 
some rails across it, leaving them to project 
beyond the side of the st.ick, and finish oti' the 
dome in the usual manner above. This mode 
of ventilation would also be most effective in 
hay mows, and the flue could be left open. 

Hemp is a. dioecious annual of the nettle 
tribe, cultivated for the value of its fiber as a 
fabric for ropes, and bagging. The seeds are 



HEMP CULTURE AND HARVESTING. 



99 



als,j serviLtaule for fattening purpose?, when 
fi'(i moderately, containing thirty per cent, of 
oil. It.s leaves are strongly narcotic, and in 
the eastern climates are used like opium, and 
smoked like tobacco. Hemp seems to have 
come to us from India; but the Russian Em- 
pire is by far the largest modern producer. 

In America the staple and its fabrics are 
lar.;elj' supplied by importation, as its growl h 
as a staple has been mainly limited to Kentucky 
and Missouri, ^lie first named State having 
raised forty thousand tons of fiber in 1860; but 
it is now being introduced into the newer 
Northwestern States as a crop whicli is in great 
demand. Their climate is well adapted to its 
cultivation, as it requires hot, quick, forcing 
seasons. The hemp plant need.s for its growth 
a fair, highly manured soil, but it is not par- 
ticular as to the quality. Old deep meadow 
land*, all rich alluvial, and even peaty soils, 
are adapted to its growth. In turning under a 
green sward, the ground should be plowed and 
thoroughly harrowed, or cross plowed, to re- 
duce it to as fine a tilth as possible. A fine soil 
is as much needed as in flax culture. 

It takes fifty tons of hemp to rig a man-of- 
war, or the crop of at least one hundred acres. 
The price of hemp averages about five cents a 
pound, passing into the hands of the first pur- 
chaser. 

L. J. Bradford, President of the Kentucky 
Stale Agricultural Society, apprehends -^ thai 
the seasons are too short in Minne.sota, Wiscon- 
sin, and Iowa, for the successful growth of seed, 
a defect easily remedied by the purchase of 
seeds grown in more southern latitudes, but not 
a shadow of doubt exists in his mind that they 
can, at the very first effort, produce better hemp 
than any territory south. Time, he thinks, 
will demonstrate that Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, 
and Wisconsin compose the true hemp re- 
gion of the American continent. 

Culture of Seed. — The first step in hemp cul- 
ture is the production of good, soimd, plump, 
seed. Land intended for seed must be in good 
tilth and well prepared by early corn-planting; 
it should be laid off in straight rows, four feet 
apart each way, and planted in hills seven or 
eight seeds to tlie hill ; the same rules observed 
for cultivating corn will apply in the after cul- 
ture of hemp-seed; when the plants reach the 
height of six or eight inches, they should be 
thinned to from three to four plants. 

Hemp plants are divided into male and fe- 



•Sef Ensaj- ou Ilomr, iu III. Statu Ag. Report of ISC 



male, the former producing the pollen or im- 
pregnating powder, the latter bearing the seed. 
A very little observation will enable the grower 
lo distinguish between them. As soon as the 
di.stinction can be made, the male should be 
drawn up by the root, except here and there a 
solitary one left that the female plant may be 
properly impregnated; the female is to be re- 
tained until its seeds are perfected, when it is 
to be harvested by cutting at the ground and 
removal to cover ; when cured, detach the seed 
with a stout stick of convenient length, winnow 
and put up in barrels or sacks, perfectly dry, 
and out of the way of rats and mice. 

Putting in the Crop. — The ground having 
been faithfully prepared, the grower must has- 
ten the operation of .seeding with the utmost 
dispatch, as, generally, the earlier the seeding 
the heavier the lint of the plant. Mark off 
the land with a small plow, and very shallow 
lurrow, or it may be marked oti' by a drag made 
of a small log of wood — anything lo make a 
line to guide the sower accurately ; then pro- 
ceed by hand to broadcast your seed evenly at 
the rate of fitly pounds of seed per acre as the 
minimum, or even up to seventy pounds as the 
maximum quantity, varying with the strength 
of the land, the object being to produce as 
thick a growth of plants as the land will sus- 
tain. If set too thin on rich soil, the stalks 
grow too large, producing a coarse and interior 
lint; on the contrary, if seeded too thick, the 
growth proves so short as to mxierially aHecl 
the value of the crop. In Kentu^icy, the seed- 
ing is generally done from the 1st to the 15tb 
of April ; in a higher latitude it should be at- 
tended to as soon as the ground is dry enough. 
Cover wiih a light cross-harrowing. Although 
the seed is very tender, its vitality easily aft'ected, 
and its germination often seriously disturbed by 
UMl'avo.rable circumstances, yet if the plants 
come on well for the first month, and cover the 
ground, the harvest is pretty sure, as it stand.') 
the frost and the drought belter than most cul- 
tivated crops. From seed time to harvest, the 
laborer has only to watch its magic growth from 
day to day. 

Harvesting. — The earliest sown hemp is usu- 
ally ready to harvest about the middle of Au- 
gust. Maturity is indicated by a change of 
color in the leaf, it generally fading Irom a 
deep green to a paler hue bordering on yellow. 
The male plants ripen ten days earlier than the 
female, and the time of harvesting should be 
cast fairly between the two. The ohl manner 
of harvesting was pulling, like flax, but this 



100 



FIELD CROPS : 



lias generally been abandoned in favor of the 
liemp liooU, as tlie knife is called. McCon- 
Micii's reaper has an effective attachment 
for cutting hemp, well-adapted to level lands. 
The operator, in taking up the hemp, u.ses a 
a rude stick cut from the branches of the near- 
e.st true, about tlie lengtli and weight of a heavy 
hickory walking-cane, having at the end of the 
stick a small branch njaking a hook. With 
this primitive but very eflective tool he can 
r.ipidiy draw the stalks into bunches of the 
proper size for sheaves. In operating he throws 
his rude hook forward to its full length, and 
suddenly draws it towards him, each motion 
making a bunch. This he raises quickly from 
the ground, and with his hook, by a few well- 
directed strokes, divests the (ilant of its leaves. 
He then binds his sheuf with its own stalks, 
and passes on to repeat the ojieration. Other 
laborers follow, and place the hemp into neat, 
close shocks of convenient size, securing the 
top by a neat band made of the hemp stalks 
tliemselves, after the manner of shucking corn. 
It is afterward neatly stacked, to keep the crop 
secure and dry until the proper lime fur rotting 
arrives. 

Dew RoUlmj-IIemp. — In the latitude of Ken- 
tucky about the middle of October is the proper 
time. The crop must be retained in the rick 
or stack until the Summer heats and rain have 
passed, and frost appears instead of dew. The 
whole crop is then removed from the rick, and 
hauled back to the same ground on which it 
grew, there to be spread in thin swaths for rot- 
ling, where it remains without turning until 
properly rotted — generally from six to ten weeks. 
This is indicated by the fiber Ireely parting 
from the stalk, and the dissolution by the ac- 
tion of the elements of the peculiar substance 
that cau.ses it to adhere thereto. This stage is 
only to be learned to perfection by practical 
experience. 

If taken up too soon, the process of breaking 
is made very difficult, and the lint is not plia- 
ble. If it remains spread too long, the lint is 
made tender, and its value is injured. If the 
weather is cold, howe\'er, it is not damaged by 
renuiining a week or two longer than is abso- 
lutely necessary. After rotting, the plants are 
again carefullj' gathered, and put in shocks or 
st.icks, or what is still better, stored under a 
shed to wait for breaking. 

Water-Bottiny. — In Russiaj and in some sec- 
tions of our own country, hemp is rotted by 
steeoing four or five days in soft clear water, 
and such treatment furnishes a quality of fab- 



ric of fully double the value of the dew-rotted. 
Kentucky lacks the necessary slieams and ponds 
of clear water for this process. Iowa, Wiscon- 
sin, and Minnesota possess the greatest facili- 
ties fur it, in their abundant lakes. 

Edward S. Cox, of Sangamon county, Illi- 
nois, thus describes his method:* "For the 
purpose of water-rotting hemp, I have excava- 
tions made in the ground into which are built 
half a dozen framed vats ninety feet long, nine 
feet wide, and six feet deep, the tops being on 
a level with the ground. These vats are con- 
structed by thirty six-by-eight inch sills laid 
crosswise, at each end of which, six-by-eight 
inch upright posts are morticed and keyed, and 
stayed at the lop by an occasional cross limber. 
The bottoms ends, and side.s, are planked with 
two inch oak timber and ship-caulked. The 
bundles of hemp are laid crosswise the vats, 
which are filled to the top. Four strings of 
plank or rails are placed lengthwise" ihe vats, 
across the hemp, over which again, cross tim- 
bers are placed and confined at each end under 
cap pieces projecting from the top of the vat. 
Thus is the hemp firmly confined under the 
water. The vats are then filled with water 
from a cistern arranged for the purpose, and 
the hemp is completely submerged, the water 
rising six inches above it. The water for rot- 
ting the hemp is drawn from a creek near by, 
by means of three very powerful suction and 
force pumps, through cast-iron pipes, into a 
framed, planked and caulked cistern, fifty-six 
feet long, fifteen feet wide, and six feet deep, 
constructed above and at the end of the vats. 
This cistern, by the aid of the pump, can be 
kept filled with water, which can settle and be- 
come clear, and be let into the vats at pleasure. 

" The pumps and m.aehinery for dressing the 
hemp are propelled by a steam engine, the es- 
cape steam of which is admitted into cast-iron 
pipes laid at the base of the vats, and the heat 
thus communicated raises the temperature of 
the water in ihe vat to ninety degrees Fahren- 
heit. With this temperature the hemp is rot- 
ted in from five to seven days, the glutinous, or 
cementing matter, which fastens the lint to the 
stalk, being dissolved by the process of fermen- 
tation, and the filaments of the wood becoming 
concrete and brittle, are easily broken and sepa- 
rated from the lint. At this lime all fermenta- 
tion has ceased and the water is unpleasantly 
stagnant. The water is now let off through 
plug holes at the end near the bottom of the 



BREAKING HEMP, ETC. — HOPS. 



101 



vat, and passes ofT through a ditch into the 
creek. The hemp in a few hour.s is drained 
leadv for throwing out. The confining timbers 
being first removed, tlie bundles of hemp are 
e;isil\- thrown out, two men ejuplying a vat in a 
half day; each vat holding stalk to make.oneton 
of lint. By this method of water-rotting the busi- 
ness can be carried on every month in the year, 
in Winter .as well as in Summer, as the water 
e.in be kept of a uniform temperature by means 
of steam. The workmen are protected from 
wet by oil clothes. The business is not un- 
pleasant or unhealthy. 

"From the vats the liemp is liauled to the 
drying grounds, when it is set up in shocks of 
three or four hundred each — ^a band being tied 
around the blossom ends to keep them from 
falling down. Then the <dd bands are cut and 
the stalks well spread, the butts to the ground, 
inclining outward. As soon as thoroughly dry 
it is bound in large bundles and secured in 
store sheds ready for breaking." 

Breaking Hemp. — Then comes the last and 
crowning operation — breaking and dressing the 
fiber or lint for market. The peculiar break to 
be used, like the knife or hook for cutting, needs 
no description, being manufactured in the old 
hemp region.s, at a cost of about five dollars 
each, and from long experience has been found 
perfectly adapted to the uses required. The 
beginner would save time and money by order- 
ing a sample break, from which any carpenter 
can manufacture as desired. The crop is bro- 
ken in Kentucky directly from the shock in the 
open field, by the removal of the break from 
shock to shock as fast as broken. In higher 
l.ititudes, owing to the .severity of the climate, 
it would probably be necessary to remove the 
rotted hemp to the barn, where the labor of 
breaking could be more certainly performed. 
Tlie coldest and clearest weather is the best for 
this operation; in fact, excess of dampness in 
tlie atmosphere suspends this labor altogether. 

Mr. Cox, already quoteil, thus describes his 
process of breaking: "Small bunches, having 
been first separated from the bundles, and the 
butts uniformly shaken together, are thinly 
spread upon a revolving endless apron, whicli 
pa-ses the hemp between one .set of plain and 
two sets of scolloped rollers, of eight inches in 
riiaineter, which gear into each other. _By 
Ihe-se the wood is crushed, broken, and loo.sened 
from the lint. From this machine the hank of 
liemp, with the butt always kept perfectly 
square, is passed under a break consisting of I 
three stationary and two interplaying sinooth- 



edged iron knives, connected by two pitmans, 
rists and flanges, to a shaft driven by pulleys, 
by whose rapid motion the shives are effectu- 
al ly detached and stricken out from the lint. 
Finally the hank of hemp is held and spread 
over a rest, and receives the action of a square 
cylinder or scutcher, having four projecting 
knives or beaters, the rapid revolution of which 
thoroughly clears it of shives and tow. Tlin.s 
prepared, the hemp is placed in an extended 
state, with the root-ends evenly together, into 
wooden boxes holding twenty-five or thirty 
pounds. The bundles are then tied firmly, 
pressed into bales of about five hundred and 
fifty pounds, well covered with bagging, and 
secured by cordage, ready for market." 

rrnftableness as a Crop. — Hemp draws largely 
upon the nourishing elements of the soil, being 
almost as exhausting as tobacco. But it sells in 
our markets at $10 to ?12 per hundred, and is 
largely imported from Russia and the Indies, 
where it .sells at 80 cents to 81 00 a hundred. 
The Trite Kenluckian says that a gentleman in 
Scott county purchased thirty acres of land at 
•SlOO per acre. He sowed it in hemp, and the 
first year's yield wa-s $140 per acre. 

The Lexington Gazette adds that Mr. Hiltee, 
of Woodford, re: lized $163 per acre for his 
year's hemp crop. He sold the seed at $10 
per bushel and the hemp at SIO per hundred. 
.J. H. Cedmbaugh, of Scott, raised 3,309 pounds 
of hemp on two measured acres of land. W. 
Vance, of Woodford, got somewhat over 1,700 
pounds to the acre the first year he introduced 
the China seed. These perhaps represent an 
unusual yield, but the demand for hemp in 
this country is so large and constant, and the 
[Moduct so small, that the crop can not well 
fail to give a high average profit. 

A new textile of the hemiien family has been 
discovered in Humboldt Valley, Nevada, where 
it grows abundantly as a native. It is said to 
have a stronger and finer fiber than the hemp 
proper, and a much longer staple. In propor- 
tion to the wood too, the fiber is reputed to be 
much more abundant and more easily separa- 
ted than flax or hemp, capable of being stripped 
clean from the stock without preparation. If 
it really possess all these desirable characteri.~- 
tics, it will soon take its place among the val- 
uable textile crops of the country. 

Hops. — The hop is a well known climbing 
perennial, who.se blossoms are used lor making 
yeast, and for preserving and imparting a flavor 
to small beer. They made their way into Euy- 



102 



FIELD CROPS. 



land about 1525, and as the Refuimatiou was 
then in progress, tlie following doggerel re- 
sulted: 



This crop is more uncertain than any other 
production, and consequently the prices are 
very fluctuating. When there is a scarcity, 
speculators seize upon it and Iiold up the price 
1(1 the highest point at which the crop can be 
sold, and when there is a full crop, the prices 
.siulc lower than they should because the crop 
can nut be kept long without great loss in its 
value — the peculiar aroma passing off. The 
foreign demand is also irregular, affecting 
ju-ices in this country. The following is a 
table of the annual range of prices since 1860 : 



Y.-;iVs. 


(Vnfs. 


Yffil-s. 
l>f.O 


Cents. 




17 to i7 








1^53 


22 1u V, 

f' lo rw 




1-i(il 2(1 to r,2 














L-^ ^ 1" 1* 


.,J.^ '■■ ^ J,, ,^ 




ISIVJ 









Soil. — The hop plant delights in a rich loam, 
or calcareous sand, and when these are situated 
on a calcareous bed, the plants will continue to 
flourish for many years, but otherwise ten or 
twelve years is about the limit of tlieir conliu- 
nance in perfection. Under favorable circuui- 
stances, the roots of the hop plant extend, in 
some instances, to a depth of eight or ten feet. 
The plant is usually raised from root-cutliugs, 
in the Spring, as tlie .seed tends to produce new 
and unreliable varieties, like the .seeds of fruit. 

Site for a Hnp-Yard. — In the selection of a 
site for a hop-yard, it is best to avoid low and 
wet localities, and to select some spot where the 
circulation of the air is good, and where no 
water stands upon the ground at any .season of 
the year. The hop in such localities " tills " 
nuich better, and is less liable to blight and 
mildew, or to suffer from attacks of vermin. 
As the vines grow very dense, however, and 
present a good deal of surface to the wind, it is 
possible (o select a location too much exposed. 
For convenience in harvesting and curing, it is 
desirable to have the hop-yard as near the farm 
house as po.ssible. 

Plantinr/. — The ground should be prepared 
thoroughly, in about the same manner as for 
corn, and well pulverized. The hills should 
not be less than eight or nine feet apart 
in all direclious, making six hundred and 
eighty hills to the acre, though only six hun- 



dred and forty hills are commonly reckonen, a 
vacant space on either side left foi turning the 
team being required. As the yard /nee planted 
lasts for years, great pains should be taken to 
make the hills at a uniform distance, so as to be 
in a perfect line in each directicm. A long line 
should be used in locating the hills, and the 
spaces between them accurately measured. 

Early Spring planting is advisable, as it ad- 
mits of the plant growing beyond the harm 
of the cut-worm, and it will better withstand 
the early droughts, and perhaps yield a hand- 
some profit the first season. Karly Fall plant- 
ing, with some cultivation and light manuring, 
will yield half a crop the following sea.son. 
November is an excellent time for planting, 
but one or two shovel fulls of manure are re- 
quired to the hill to protect the roots in winter. 

The following is perhaps the best method of 
laying out a hop-yard, methodically : A wire 
or rope (a wire is preferable as it will not 
stretch) with a piece of red yarn attached to it 
every eight feet, and a sharpened stake attached 
to each end to manage it by, is .stretched across 
the end of the piece. A man at each end carries 
the wire forw.ard, and stops long enough at each 
stake to straighten it and give time for one or 
two boys with baskets of pins (eighteen inches 
long) to pass along and place a pin at each 
yarn. Whore the hills have been located the 
earth should be removed from about a foot 
square, and the place filled with carefully pul- 
verized soil. In this, place three roots, the 
" eyes" up. The soil should be tramped gently 
around them, and they should then be covered 
to the depth of about two inches. 

Male and Female Plmtts. — The sexes of the 
hop plant are not united in the same plant, but 
sonie are male and others female — the staminate 
and the pislillate. Since the sexual relations 
of the strawberry plants lias been so thoroughly 
discus.sed in the United States, the importance 
of having some male plants in the hop-grounds 
will be generally admitted. The male flower 
grows in a loose panicle, while the female 
flower is compact, like the cone of the pine 
tree. The foriner bears no fruit, but is still 
necessary to render the other vines fruitful, 
and is not to be omitted from any well-regulated 
hop-yard. There should be at le.ist one male 
plat\t to fifty female — every seventh hill of 
every seventh row — in order that the female 
plant may be vitalized by the winged pollen. 
A permanent stake should be driven in all the 
male hills, to distinguish them from the others. 
In ordering hop-roots for a new yard, which 



HOPS — roUNG — CULTIVATION — PICKING. 



103 



can be done from any old hop-grower any- 
wliere, and the roots sent in barrels by express, 
they will be cut up in pieces of the required 
length, and the male roots put up in a small 
package, to designate tlieni from the others. 

Poling. — Eacli hill should have two poles, 
from fourteen to eighteen feet in length, and 
two to three-and-a-half inches in diameter at 
the butt. They should be set firmly in the 
ground, about a foot from the roots, and their 
tops inclined away from each other. In trim- 
ming them, the knots should not be shaved off 
too closely, or the vines, when they become 
heavy, will slip down. In some localities, 
where young timber suitable for poles can not 
be obtained, sawed poles are used, sawed to a 
taper and nails driven in a few feet apart, to 
support the vines when they become heavy. 
A crowbar will be used in setting them. It is 
scarcely necessary to pole the yard the first 
season ; but it is better. 

Some farmers, in sparsely timbered neigh- 
borhoods, instead of using the long poles, use 
stakes eight feet high, connected with twine or 
wire across the top, like an arbor. The supe- 
riority of this method over the poles is very 
doubtful. 

Culliviition. — The cultivation of hops the 
first season, is confined almost exclusively to 
keeping them free from weeds. They will 
yield a light crop the first season, but scarcely 
enough to pay for looking after, unless prices 
should be high. During this year of immatu- 
rity, corn or potatoes, or what' is better, alter- 
nate rows of corn and potatoes and beans, 
which let in more air and sunshine, can be 
planted between the hills, and cultivated in the 
usual manner. Late in the Fall, when the 
frost has killed the vine, it should be cut ofl' 
close to ^lie ground, and tlie hill covered with 
two or three fork.s full of "long" manure, or 
nuilclu'd well with straw, to prevent the vines 
being killed by the intense cold of Winter. 
This mulching must be followed up each Win- 
ter, during the life of the yard. 

Next Spring, the vine will put forth vigorous- 
ly. In asliort timeitwiU have grown to be eight 
or ten inches high ; then commences the work 
of tying up. A large number of vines will be 
found in each hill; and, selecting the hardiest 
and strongest, two will be started up each pole. 
For ibis purpose, they are loosely wound once 
or twice around the pole, care being taken to 
wind them in the direction of the course of the 
sun. They are then loosely tied in their posi- 
tion. For this purpose, pieces of woolen y.vn, 



raveled from an old stocking, are preferred to 
anything else. The kinks and quirks in it 
give it sufficient elasticity to keep the vine 
in its required position, without confining it sc 
arbitrarily to one place that it is liable to be 
broken or injured from its inability to yield to 
any sudden pressure. 

On tying up the vines the first time, all the 
remaining vines in the hill — save one or two, 
which are reserved to supply the places of those 
which may become broken by accident — are 
gathered together, and after receiving a good 
sharp twist, are bent down and covered up with 
dirt, when they soon die. These surplus vines 
should never be cut off, as they bleed profusely, 
and springing from a common root, weaken the 
whole hill. The whole yard is gone over as 
often as once a week to see that the tops of none 
of the vines become thrown down or lose the 
pole; and when one is found out of position, it 
is tied in its proper place in the same manner. 
When the vines are well up the poles, the re- 
maining surplus vines in each hill, which have 
been reserved for use in case of accident, are 
bent down and covered up with dirt. 

The poles once set, the yard is plowed once, 
and at intervals gone over with the cultivator, 
two or three times, in about the same manner 
as corn — care being taken not to "hill up" the 
plants nmch. The hoe should also be used to 
work close aroinid the vines. They should be 
kept clean and free frmn weeds, as they draw 
strongly on the soil, requiring for their own 
proper development all the virtue there is in 
it; but all cultivation should cease as soon as 
the vines comEuence to bloom. If weedy, they 
can be gone over again after the hop is thor- 
oughly set. 

Hop Picking. — We quote from an Essay by 
W. S. (jRUBB, of Sauk county, Wisconsin, to 
which we are indebted for many of the sugges- 
tions of this article: "Hop picking should 
commence at the very earliest moment that the 
hops are ready for it, and be pushed forward 
with all possible dispatch until completed. 
From the moment they become ripe, the hops 
commence to shell from the vine, the leaves 
become weather-beaten, and the strength of the 
product to evaporate. In this country the hop 
is ready for picking during the first week in 
September. By picking a hop carefully to 
pieces, a few small seeds will be discovered 
close down to the stem. When these seeds be- 
gin to turn black or purple, and>become hard, 
the hop is ready for picking. By keeping a 
close watch, the hop grower will know some 



104 



FIELD CROPS : 



flavs in advance when his crop will be ready 
for harvestinc;, and secure all the help necessary 
to keep his kiln running to its full capacity, 
night and day. 

"The pickers are usually women and children 
who can do this kind of work much cheaper 
than men, and at the same time earn much 
more than they could possibly earn under ordi- 
nary circumstances. A good smart picker will 
pick four boxes in a day. They last year re- 
(cived in this county 65 cents per box, without 
board, and the year before 50 cents. In this 
county, all the women and k'"'''' who can pos- 
sibly be spared from hou.seliold duties, go into 
the hop-yards when the picking season is at 
hand, and no rich man's daughter believes she 
is above doing her share in her father's or 
neighbor's fields. Indeed, the way matters are 
arranged, the hop picking season is regarded 
among the young people as a holiday; and, 
where forty or fifty of them are gathered to- 
gether, there is generally no want of amusement, 
and they enliven their work by laugliing and 
talking all the day long, and by dancing and 
singing a good share of the night. The young 
people, for nearly a hundred miles around, 
flock into this county during the picking season; 
train load after train load coming from Mil- 
waukee and other towns in the euiitcrn portion 
of the State. 

"The number of hop bo.xes which should be 
provided depends upon the number of pickers 
to be employed, for there must be one for each 
picker. The hop box is generally estimated to 
contain seven bushels; but the one legalised by 
statute in this Stale is three feet long, two feet 
high, and eighteen inches wide, whicli will hold 
a trifle over seven bushels. Tliese boxes arc 
not made singly, however, but a box is made 
sufliciently large to divide into four compart- 
ments of this size. These foui bo.xes in one are 
called ' gangs.' The ' gang ' should be made of 
some light, half inch lumber, in order that it 
may be moved around from place to place with- 
out too much trouble. There are two handles 
on each end, to use in moving it. At each end 
a board projects some two feet above the box, 
with holes through which a pole can be placed 
when in use, to support the hop-poles while the 
pickers are at work. 

"When all is in readiness, the 'gangs' of 
boxes are distributed along one side of the yard, 
and a stout man to each two gangs is detailed 
(0 supply the pickers with poles. Four picker.-: 
stand to each 'gang.' With a good knil'e the 
hop vines are cut in twain as high from the 



ground as a man can reach, and the pole, lifted 
from its position, is carried to the ' gang.' The 
butt is placed on the ground, and the upper 
portion of the pole, around which the hops are 
clustered, is rested upon the support inserted 
in the uprights at each end of the 'gang.' Two 
poles are carried to each 'gang,' and quickly 
stripped of the silvery clusters. As the cream 
of the picking lies at the extreme tip of the 
vines, the butts are carried alternately uj)on one 
side of the 'gang' and then upon the other, in 
order to give all the pickers an equal chance. 
The vines are not cut until just before the pick- 
ers want them, because they soon wilt, which 
renders the work of removing the hops very 
diflicult. The pickers are careful to pick the 
hops free from the leaves of the vine, and also 
from stems, and to break off and throw away 
all branches which have become broken, and 
upon which the hops have withered. Thoy 
drop the hops loosely into the box as they pick 
them, and are entitled to measure them as they 
lie. The men who bring the poles to the pick- 
ers also remove them when the pickers are 
through, and, after stripping off the vines, pile 
the pules in winrows, at convenient distances 
for stacking. 

" When the bo.xes are filled they are emptied 
into sacks which hold one or two boxes, to suit 
the convenience of owners, and thrown upon a 
wagon, and, when the wagon is loaded, it is 
drawn to the drying house, and the hop sacks 
hoisted upon the platform in readiness for 
spreading upon the kiln. In case of a rain 
storm occurring during picking, it does not 
necessarily suspend operations, except while 
the rain is falling. The boxes can be left out 
over night, half full of hops, which will not 
be injured by rain. 

"Care should be exercised not to crowd the 
green hops into the sacks, and not to set them 
upon or near each other, while wailing to put 
them upon the kiln, as they will heat and sweat 
in a few hours." 

The Hop- House.— The following description 
of the requii-f'd kiln, or drying-hou.se, was fur- 
nished by Mr. Rouse in a volume of the United 
Slates Agricultural Report: "The hop-house, 
or kiln, should be of a size proportionate to the 
quantity of hops to be cureil, so that they may 
not acciiimihile on hand. To avoid this, it will 
generally be necessary to keep the kiln heated 
both day and night. It is commonly built of 
an oblong form, and of two slorie.s, the lower 
part being occupied by the kiln and the press- 
room, and the upper part by the drying-lioor 



HOP HOUSE — BALING — GRUBBING THE ROOTS. 



105 



over the kiln, and by a room of about an equal 
size loj- storing the dried hops, wliich will of 
coiiise be over the press-room. Kilns are 
sometimes built of brick or stone, of a circular 
form, with a round opening in the ape.x of the 
loof, surmounted by a moveable cowl, or swing- 
iug vontiliitor, to enable the vapor of the dry- 
i]i,^' hops to escape easily. If the building is 
1)1 «di)d, the sides of the kiln should be lined 
with brick, or thoroughly lathed and plastered. 
It is luunil to be most convenient and economi- 
cal to heat it with stoves, from two to four of 
which will be neces.eary, according to the size 
of the kiln. The drying-floor should be ten 
feet I'roiu the ground, that there may be no 
danger of scor-ching the hops in drying. This 
flcior is formed of slats, about one-and-a-half 
inches in width, and the same distance from each 
other. These are covered with a strong, coarse 
cloth, of open texture, so as to admit of a free 
transmission of the heated air from the kiln 
helow. The drying-room should . be of com- 
fortable height, for a person to work in it, and 
the sides should be lathed and plastered, that 
IIr-ic may be no irregularity of the heat in 
dill'oent piirtlons of the room during high 
winiU. .\ good ventilator should be provided 
in the roof, as described above. Openings 
sliould be left in the walls near the bottom of 
the kiln, to admit fresh air from without, the 
draught to be regulated by means of flues, or 
sliding doors. The cloth for the drying-floor 
should be well stretched over the slats and 
firmly nailed. On this floor the hops are 
spre;id to the depth of eight or ten inches. 
The pro|ier thickness will depend somewhat on 
the condition of the hops." 

About nine or eleven hours are required to 
dry ofl' a kiln of hops at about 130@140 de- 
grees of heat — tlie longest time, of course, be- 
ing required at the commencement of the pick- 
ing season, when the hops are the greenest. 
During the drying process, there is great dan- 
ger of the drying-house, or the liops, taking lire; 
and nogrower should think of attempting it 
withuut having an insurance policy on his house 
and hops, covering the whole drying season. 

Haling. — The hops should not be baled under 
r<'nr or five days, and not then unless abso- 
lutely necessary; but they should not be al- 
lowed to remain unbailed longer than two 
weeks. They should be put in bales weighing 
near two hundred pnuuds, and the bales should 
be about four and a half feet high, eighteen 
inches thick and some twenty-seven inches 
wide. Care should be exercised not to tramp 



them too much when put into the press, as they 
are liable to become broken, and do not sell so 
readily. A kind of cloth called hoji-sacking 
is made especially for this purpose, and should 
be ordered in advance to be sure of it. The 
.process of baling it is unnecessary to describe, 
as the parties from whom presses are procured 
will fnriush all this information. ^Vlu'u ibo 
hales are finished they .should be stood on 
end— care being taken to leave a few inclus 
between them for the air to circulate. 

Grubbing the Moots. — The hop throws out two 
kinds of roots — the bed-roots, which run deep 
and nourish the plant ; and another set of roots 
which run to a considerable distance close to 
the surface of the ground. This last class of 
roots are really suckers, or runners, and are 
provided, every few inches, with a pair of eyes 
(the bed-roots have no eyes) similar to a potato ; 
and, if these roots are not removed, each one 
of these eyes will sprout and throw up a new 
vine, and the whole surface of the groujul 
would be covered with such a mass of them 
that none wonhl be fruitful. Every Spring, 
therefore, after the first full crop, tlie entire 
yard must be gone over, and these roots, or 
suckers, grubbed up. With a three tined in- 
strument, made in the shape of a hoe, the dirt 
is first carefully removed from near the hill to 
prevent any of the bed-roots from being in- 
jured. A hook is then placed under the 
suckers, which are readily distinguish,able on 
account of their eyes, and they are pulled up 
carefully to prevent leaving- a portion in the 
groiHul, and thrown into heaps for removal 
from the yard. It is probable that tlie previ- 
ous season's cultivation has raised the crown 
of the hill, and, while the grubbing is being 
done, it is cut down to its proper level. The 
stock of the old vine will be found in the hill, 
covered with these eyes, and it must be cut off 
as low down as possible, and yet leave a cnuple 
of pair of eyes to throw up new vines. Tlie 
hill is then carefully covered and leveled oil'. 
The roots that are grubbed up are removed 
from the yard, and, if no market e.xisis for 
them for the purpose of starting new yards, 
they are thrown away. If they are wanted for 
this purpose, however, they are cut Into pieces 
a few inches long, each piece having two pair 
of eyes. The grubbing should be done as early 
in the Spring as possible, and resembles hard 
work about as near as anything in this world; 
but it must be attended to, or there will be 
sucli a wilderness of vines that the ground 
can not sustain them. 



106 



FIELD crops: 



Manuring Hops. — The manuring is done in 
the Fall, as it thus serves the double purpose 
of enriching the soil and protecting the plant 
from the Winter frosts. Hops on clayey loams 
having been well manured several seasons 
and requiring none, should be protected in 
■\Vinler with a fork fnll of straw to the hill. 
Young yards require but little if any protec- 
tion through Winter, while old yards and 
bearing yards on sandy soil require much. 
About a bushel of barn manure to the hill, 
on sandy soil, is none too much, and aa the 
.soil approaches the clay, the quantity can be re- 
duced till but two shovelfuls to the hill are re- 
quired. That the hops may not be smothered, 
the manuring should not be done until the first 
or fifteenth of November, or until the ap- 
proach of Winter. Among the manures re- 
cently employed for growing hops in England, 
are those which supply to a greater or less ex- 
tent ammonia and phosphoric acid. These 
form the composition of two important funda- 
mental classes of artificial manures, phosphatic 
and nitrogenized. Phosphatic manures, it is 
said, tend to promote the quality of the hops, 
but not the quantity. Among these manures 
may be enumerated fresh bones, bone dust, 
bones treated with sulphuric acid, and Patngo- 
nian guano. Animal matter of all descrip- 
tions, rape cake, farm-yard manure, nitrogen- 
ized matter, such as wool, blood, flesh, Peru- 
vian guano, soot, woolen rags, shoddy, putrid 
animal substances, horn shavings, glue refuse, 
etc., are all very conducive to the growth of 
plants. 

Profits of Hop liaising. — The average yield 
in Great Britain is put at seven hundred and 
fifty pounds per acre, and that of this country 
at eight hundred and eighty-eiglit pounds. 
The cost of production is estimated by an ex- 
tensive grower of New York, at ten cents per 
pound, including picking. The larger portion 
of all the hops raised in this country for some 
years, has been furnished by Oneida county. 
New Y'ork, and Sauk and adjoining counties in 
central Wisconsin. As has been shown in the 
table, the hop is the most fluctuating in price 
of all staples; ranging from four cents a pound 
up to sixty — alternately enriching and im- 
poverishing the thousands who engage in iis 
culture. It is not only subject to the ordiniiry 
irregularities of the market, but to the ravages 
of the hop louse and other insects, sometimes 
leaving whole miles without an acre which it 
will pay to harvest. 

Before 1860 Iiop-raising was transplanted to 



Sauk county, Wisconsin, by Jesse Codding- 
TON — the English cluster variety — after that 
date it was followed with increasing eagerness 
until almost all the farmers in the county were 
involved. The annual growth for several years 
paid some farmers more than $1000, or a ton 
of hops to the acre, and an average of nearly 
or quite $500 to the acre; then came the en- 
evitable crash; fortunes were sunk in 1808, 
and wide-spread bankruptcy prevailed, because 
Wisconsin, during that year, had produced 
more hops than were required by the entire 
nation. A general embarkation in the business 
resulted from the extravagantly high prices 
cau.sed by the extraordinary demand ; then 
low prices and a panic followed the excessive 
supply. The few farmers who have practiced 
hop-raising nuxlerately for twenty-five yeaj's, 
never investing all their capital irt flush times, 
and never burning their poles in the enevitabla 
day of collapse, have found wealth the result 
of their careful perseverance. 

Indigo. — The invention of the cotton-gin 
caused tlie rotton crop in the South to super- 
sede indigo and silk, previous to that time the 
chief Southern .staples. Indigo, however, is 
still cultivated somewhat largely in the Orange- 
burg district. South Carolina. The wild indigo, 
a perremiial, is that most used. The season 
for manufacturing commences in June; the 
weed is cut several times in the course of the 
Summer, but only in the early part of the day 
while the dew is on. The weed is put in aval, 
and water poured on it ; here it remains until 
the coloring matter is extracted ; the fluid is 
then drawn off' into another vat, and water, 
strongly impregnated with lime, is mi,xed with 
it, the whole being well and frequently stirred, 
or beaten up. When properly mixed, and an 
appearance of graining follows it is lift to set- 
tle. The water being run off', the sediment 
is takea out and put on a frame to drain, and 
before it becomes hard it is cut into small pieces 
and placed on boards to dry; when perfectly 
dried it is broken into small fragments and [lut 
into boxes or barrels, when it is ready for market. 

Jute. — Jnle is the fiber of a plant re- 
sembling hemp, used in the manufacture of 
gunny-doth bags, mats, and other coarse fab- 
rics. The American jute is said to grow in 
abundance in swamp lands in Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, New York, and other Eastern 
States. In their natural state, the plants grow 
from five to seven feet in height, and are from 



MADDER — MUSTARD. 



107 



one-lialf to five eigliths iif ;iii iiicli iniliameter. 
Tlie yield in fiber is large. Au'eantein paper 
say.s, an acre of marsli land near Bnrlinjjlon, 
New Jersey, was plowed, and tlie seeds of this 
plant sealtered along tlie lUrrows on the 28th 
of April, 1864; in September the ground was 
thiokly studded with plants. Previous experi- 
ment made known the fact, that where stalks 
have been cut off" one season, a dozen more 
spring ui( the next. No insect has yet been 
discovered dejjredating upon it. It is thought, 
from close observation, that from tliree to three 
and a half tons of fiber can be derived from 
a single acre of ground. Hope and paper man- 
ufacturers, it is said, have estimated it to be 
worth SlOO per ton. The plant is perfectly 
hardy, and needs no care or cultivation after 
the first year. Yet America does not raise its 
own jute. In 1865, we imported 91,549,800 
pounds of it, and paid therefor $12,000,000 in 
gold. 

madder. — This is a genus of interesting 
plants — native of Southern and Eastern Asia, 
but adaptable to any common mellow loam. 
The pulvei'ized root is extensively used for dye- 
ing red, and, if properly prepared, produces 
that color in great beauty. It is also used in 
producing black, olive, blue, yellow, and other 
colors. Most of the madder of commerce is im- 
ported from the Levant, but it is cultivated to 
some extent in Ohio and Tennessee. It is, per- 
haps, the most valuable of all dyeing materials. 
The following directions for raising it are 
copied from The Emporium of Aits : 

"This plant may be propagated either by 
offset.* or seeds. If the latter method is pre- 
ferred, the seed should be of the true Turkish 
kind. On a light, thin soil, the culture can 
not be carried on to any great profit. The soil 
in which the plant delights is a rich, sandy 
loam, three feet in depth, or more. The 
ground, being first made smooth, is divided 
into beds four feet wide, with alternate alleys 
half as wide again as the beds. The reason 
of this extraordinary breadth of the alleys will 
juesently appear. In each alley is to be a 
shallow channel for the convenience of irri- 
gating the whole field, etc. That part of the 
alley which is not occupied may be sown with 
legumes. The madder-seed is sown broadcast, 
in the proportion of from twenty-five to thirty 
pounds per acre, about the end of April. In a 
furlnight or three weeks, the young plants be- 
gin to appear; and from this time to the month 
of September, care must be taken to keep the 



ground well watered, and free from weeils. If 
the plants are examined in Autumn, they will 
be found surrounded with small yellow offsets, 
at the depth ol two inches; and early in Sep- 
tember, the earth from the alleys is to be dug 
out, and laid over the plants of madder, to the 
height of two or three inches. With tliis, the 
first year's operation ceases. 

" The second year's work begins in May, with 
giving the beds a thorough weeding ; and care 
must be taken to supply them with plenty of 
water during the Summer. In September, the 
first crop of seed will .be ripe; at which time 
the stems of the plants may be mown down, 
and the roots covered a few inches with earth, 
taken as before out of the alleys. The weeding 
should take place as early as possible in the 
Spring of the third year; and the crop instead 
of being left for seed, may be cut three times, 
during Summer, for green fodder, all kinds of 
cattle being remarkably fond of it. In Octo- 
ber, the roots are taken up, the oflTsets carefully 
separated, and immediately used to form a new 
plantation ; and the roots, after being dried, 
are sold, either without farther preparation, or 
ground to a coarse powder, and sprinkled with 
an alkaline ley. The roots loose foiu'-fifths of 
their weight in drying ; and the produce of an 
acre is about two thousand pounds weight of 
dry, saleable madder. Madder usually sells for 
about $32 per hundred ; so that the produce of 
an acre, would amount to S640." 

Slustard is a well-known, hardy annual, 
introduceil from Europe. Two varieties are 
somewhat cultivated; the white mustard — 
cluelly in the garden fiu' salading, and the 
common black mustard in the field for its seeds, 
which furnish the table condiment. 

The soil they succeed in best is a fine, rich, 
moldy loam, in which the supply of moisture 
is regular; it may much rather incline to light- 
ness than tenacity. If grown for salading, it 
need not be dug deep ; but if for seed, to full 
the depth of the blade of the spade. In early 
Spring, and late in Autumn, the situation should 
be sheltered ; and, during the height of Sum- 
mer, shaded from the meredian sun. For sal- 
ading, the while may be sown throughout the 
year. From the beginning of October to the 
same period of April, in a gentle hot-bed ap- 
propriated to the purpose. For salading, it ia 
sown in flat-bottomed drills, about half an 
inch deep, and six inches apart. The seed 
can not well be sown too thick. The mold 
which covers the drills should be entirely 



108 



FIELD CROPS : 



divested of«8tones. Water must be given occa- 
pionally in dry weather, as a due supply of 
moisture is the chief inducement to a quick 
vegetation. The sowings are to he performed 
once or twice in a fortniglit, according to the 
demand. 

It must be cut for use wliile young, and be- 
fore the rough leaves appear, otherwise the 
pungency of the flavor is disagreeably in- 
creased. If the top is cut off, tlie plants will 
in-general shoot again, though this second pro- 
duce is alw.ays" scant}', and not so mild or ten- 
der. For the production of seed, whether for 
the manufacture of mustard or future sowing, 
tlie insertion must be made broadcast, thin, and 
regularly raked in. When the seedlings have 
attained four leaves, they should be hoed, and 
again after the lapse of a month, during dry 
weather, being .set eight or nine inches apart. 
Tliroughout their growth tliey must be kept 
free from weeds ; and if dry weather occurs at 
tlie time of flowering, water may be applied 
with great advantage to tlieir roots. 

Oats. — The oat is a very valuable cereal 
grass, of which several varieties are cultivated 
for their seeds. Of these, the cjmmon oat is 
far the mo.st important. Its spikelets contain 
two or three seeds. The oat is a native of cold 
climates, and a wild sort grows indigenous 
around the whole belt of the temperate zone. 
It degenerates as it is carried southward, and 
at last refuses to yield profitable crops as it ap- 
proaches the equator. It flourishes remarkably 
well in Scotland and Ireland, and, during the 
last century, oat-meal lias furnished the princi- 
pal bread of the inhabitants. 

More oats than wheat — in bulk — are raised 
in the United States by over a million bushels, 
but the annual increase of their product is much 
less than that of wheat and corn. There should 
be something like 200,000,000 bushels raised in 
1870. The States, named in the order of this 
yield, are New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illi- 
nois, and Wisconsin — these produce considera- 
bly more than half of the whole. 

The oat has fewer enemies than most of the 
cereals, and may be raised with less labor than 
any of tlicm — in fact, so easily is it raised, tliat 
very great negligence prevails in almost all 
pruts of the country where it is grown, in prop- 
erly preparing anil enrieliing the land. It has 
strong assimilative powers, and makes .such a 
rapid growth, that two crops are I'requeirly 
gathered in a year, especially where one is cut 
for fodder when in the dough. This double- 



cropping is, however, denounced by the most 
experienced fal-mers as bad husbandry. 

Fifty bushels to the acre is a good average 
yield, but a hundred have been realized on 
some soils. Horses prefer oats to any other 
food, and nothing else is so nutritious, except- 
ing be.ans; corn contains double the quantity 
of oil, and is less acceptable. The ration of 
French cavalry horses in service, is eight to 
nine pounds of oats daily, and an equal quan- 
tity of good hay. A pound of fii-st-quality 
oats gives a horse as much nourishment as two 
pounds of clover hay. In France and Ger- 
many, the practice of baking oats into loaves 
for horse-food is gaining ground, and is said to 
be attended with economy. 

Prepanilion of Soil. — Oats thrive the best on a 
rather moist soil, of a somewhat clo.ser, heavier 
texture than is required for the best crops of 
corn. They should properly follow roots or 
some hoed crop. The ground should be plowed 
as soon after the frost is out as it will admit of 
working uiell; plow deep, and with a narrow 
farrow slice; no matter if sub.soil is bnmght 
up; the o.it will bear if. The frosts of Winter 
have the effect to loosen the soil and leave it in 
a favorable condition, so that teams, fresh and 
strong, will better perform their part in deep- 
ening the soil than at any other season of the 
year. The judicious farmer should ever keep 
in mind that it is better to add to his farm by 
deepening the soil than in adding to the acreage. 

Selecling Seed. — Wm. H. White, of Connec- 
ticut, to whom we are indebted for the most of 
ttiis article, writes to the Cullioator: "A great 
failing, too common among farmers and culti- 
vators generally, is the want of care in select- 
ing and saving see<l for future use. In select- 
ing oats, the heaviest, brightest, and plumpe.st 
only should be used. Take the best to be had, 
and assort them in one of the following ways: 
liy throwing them across a long floor, retaining 
only those which go the farthest — the lightest 
will fall short; by running them through a 
fanning mill, turned rapidly to blow over the 
I lightest — the heaviest and best will run down, 
and those only sliould be used. To procure 
seed at first, this is the best way; but when a 
crop is grown, the better way is to take from 
the best part of the field that wanted for seed. 
Take the bundles and whip them acro.ss the 
head of a barrel, select therefrom such as will 
readily shell out, and divide still farther as be- 
fore. In this way the standard weight may be 
kept up indefinitely, and an improvement often- 
times made on the original." 



OATS — SOWING — HARVESTING, ETC. 



109 



Soudng. — The seed slioulJ be put in the 
gnmiiJ ;is soon iil'ier plowiiifj cis practicable. 
This is done by h:ind-sowing broadcast, and 
then lianovviiii,' or phjwing in, and by sow- 
ing with the drill. Oat.s generally are sown 
broadcast, and harrowed in; some farmers 
sow plentifully, and turn under with a light 
plow; but drilling in seed is coming more and 
more into favor. By drilling, the quantity per 
acre can be more e.xactly regulated; the cover- 
ing is more uniform than by any other method ; 
and the seed is more evenly distributed. Be- 
ing covered uniformly, it comes up simultane- 
ously. Moreover, says Mr. White, "drilled 
oals are less likely to lodge than hand-sown, 
even when sown on similar soil side by side. 
It will usually pay to let the land lie long 
enough to dry sufficiently, and roll it to break 
down any clods, and tit for a good seed-bed; 
then drill in the seed — the depth to be governed 
by the soil — from one to two inches, and finish 
off with the roller. In sowing broadcast, the 
seed is put on immediately after plowing, and 
harrowed twice over — lengthways and cross- 
ways of the field, followed by the roll to finish 
off— an important item to help keep down the 
weeds and facilitate in harvesting the crop. 
Ground liable to have standing water should 
be underdrained, or at least water furrows 
should be opened alter sowing, to conduct the 
water off; for no kind of grain is expected to 
thrive where water is allowed to stand npon it, 
if we except rice. Different cultivators use from 
two to four bushels of seed per acre. As a gen- 
eral rule, the better and heavier the soil, the 
more seed it will bear; a safe average amount 
would be throe bushels. The earliest sown 
produces the best crop, both as to yield and 
weight; the latest the next, and between the 
poorest. 

Ilunestbuj — "Oats, unlike wheat and rye, are 
better and heavier lor not being cut too green, 
although the straw is less valuable for fodder; 
being cut green, they pack closer, do not cure 
as well, and are liable to injure in the mow or 
stack, unless well ventilated. The best way of 
cutting is with the grain cradle, which leaves 
them spread thin in the swath, and gives an 
opportunity to dry, so as to be gathered, bound, 
and put in the stuck or mow, without danger 
of injury, as is too aiit to be the case when cut 
with the reaping machine, and thrown off in 
"gavels." In the former case, if wet, they 
soon dry out, often without turning; but in 
the latter they require (o bespread. The straw 
of t'.ic oat will retain wet with much greater 



tenacity than that of any other grain. The 
grain is bound in suitable sized bundles, and 
set on the butts to sun and dry a few hours, and 
then either carted to the barn or shocked 
in the field, where they may remain in perfect 
safely for some weeks. Lay three or four 
sheaves in the center, so that the heads will 
not come in contact with the ground, which 
is easily done by weaving them together; 
build around these in a circle, keeping the 
heads of the bundles higher than the butts, and 
in the center ; keep the sides perpendicular to 
the desired height; then draw in evenly, and 
finish off with a cap sheaf, set and bound on 
firmly. 

Thrashing. — "The old modes of thrashing 
with the flail, and tramping out with horses, 
have given wjiy to the improved machine 
driven by horse or other power. An impor- 
tant part is cleaning the grain, as a nice, clean 
article will always command a ready sale, and 
at a better price, than an equally good ar- 
ticle mixed with dirt, chaff, etc. The grain 
runs through the fan-mill twice — first with a 
coarse-meshed riddle, and again with a finer — 
will usually expedite the cleaning and do it 
more satisfactorily." 

Rotation, etc. — The great value of oats, and 
the ease with which they are raised on almost 
every kind of soil and under the most slovenly 
treatment, have given them a place in almost 
every scheme for a rotation of crops. Of all 
the plants commonly cultivated in the field, 
oats seem to have the greatest power of drawing 
nourishment from the soil, and hence arejustly 
considered as greatly exhausting the land. 
But, with proper management, they m.iy be 
made as remunerative as any other common 
crop, for the oat helps itself to food, and re- 
quires less from the hand of man. 

There is no better grain with which to sow 
grass seed for stocking down than oats, and for 
that purpose they are nmch grown. They are 
benefited by most of the usual fertilizers, ex- 
cept such as contain much nitrogenous matter 
or lime, these retarding the ripening, or, produc- 
ing a rank growth of straw, causing it to lodge. 
The best way is to enrich the soil through pre- 
vious crops, getting it in good heart and tilth, 
not applying any stimulant directly to the 
growth of the plant. A cool, moist season, 
usually gives us the heaviest and most pro'ifi'. 
crops. 

Varieties.- — Several kinds of oat are cultiva- 
ted in different nations and localitie-. The 
common oat has three varieties : the black, the 



< 



110 



FIELD CHOPS : 



gray and (lie white. Those of the first class 
are commonly hard}-, have small seeds, become 
early ripe, and are hence well adapted for cold, 
hungry soils, snch as those which are usually 
fuunil on considerable elevations. The gray, or 
dun-colored oats, on some soils, yield very re- 
munerative crops. Tlie third and most valu- 
able of this class of oats is the white. "The 
most improved of these," says Professor Low, 
"are without awns. They are the least hardy 
kinds, but tliey are of the greatest weight to the 
bushel, and the most productive of meal. In 
this class the polato oat is that which has pos- 
sessed the greatest reputation for a time in the 
districts where it is cultivated." 

The Nonmy Oat. — .Vmerican farmers, espec- 
ially at the Kast, have been considerably excited 
for two or three years, by the reports of the ex- 
traordinary yield of Norway oats. Theexcite- 
ment has not abated, and thousands of farmers 
in all parts of the country have, the pastyear,in- 
vcstigated the extravagant claims of this cereal. 

The following is a statement of its origin: 
In the Spring of 18G4, D. W. Ramsdell, an 
enterprising Vermont farmer, found a single 
oat in a package of peas received from the 
United States .■\gricultural Department, and as 
it seemed unusually plump and vigorous, he 
planted it in his garden. "Its germination of 
numerous stalks, their surprising growth and 
size, their abilily to ripen as soon as the com- 
mon oats, and above all their truly wonderful 
yield of two thousand seven hundred and eighty- 
five grains, being from four to six limes that of 
the old kind and being far superior in quality 
and weight, induced him to carefully preserve 
them for further experiment." The next year's 
crop, from a part of the seed, was three bushels. 

The fame of the oats now began to spread, 
and when, in 1867, Mr. Kamsdell reaped the 
harvest of fourteen acres, an iniprecedented 
crop of a superior grain, the oat-lever had cul- 
minated ; the rush for .seed soon exhausted the 
.supply, and, in some cases, fifty dollars were 
ofTered for a single bushel. One bushel sown 
to the acre is sufl^cient. The Boston Traveler 
says: The celebrated Norway oats will produce 
two or three times as much as common grain. 
Specimens of the growth are truly wonderful, 
and it will not lodge. It yields splendid qual- 
ity, and 45 pounds to the bushel," one-half 
niiire than the yield of the common oat. The 
stalk grows five to six feet high, and measures 
one-fourth of qn inch in diameter, while the 
lieads are ten to twenty inches long — some have 
been f-und even twentv-six inches. 



The Vermont Arrjus, reports the yield of 6,750 
grains from a single kernel. We admit the fol- 
lowing witness: Eev. M. P. Bell, Norman's 
Kill, Albany county. New York : "The growth 
of straw was about five feet, heads very long 
and full, yield from one pint, three bushels. They 
ripen as early as my common oats. I can recom- 
mend them to the farming world with confi- 
dence." Another: "I sowed 13 quarts \\\>o» 
one-half acre of corn-ground, sown broadcast, 
and no manure. The result was highly satis- 
factory, giving me 42 bushels of measured oats. 
Reducing this to our standard weight would 
give me 51 bushels from thirteen quarts. The 
whole field averaged five feet in height, and 
gave me heads sixteen inches long." Another 
says: "Mine had a great growth. I counted 
the smallest hill, and my son counted the lar- 
gest one, and then we made an estimate from 
these, and found the yield to be 253,487 grains 
from 31 oats, an average of 8,177 grains to each 
oat sown. The stalks stood over six feet high. 
Surely they are the greatest oat I ever saw or 
heard of. A gre.at many people have visited 
my field to see them, and are enthusiastic in 
their praise." 

Geokge W. Thoen, of Rahway, New Jer- 
sey, says : "The result of my experiments this 
season (1868) with the Norway oats have been 
fully up to my expectations, and I am satisfied 
that they are well adapted to our soil, and that 
every farmer who possibly can, should get the 
seed. The substitution of the Norway oats for 
the common and deteriorated kinds now gener- 
ally raised, is a matter of vast importance to 
our farming interests; to increase the annual 
yield, even a small per cent., would be re- 
garded as a great success, but to double the 
crops at once, as I believe we may do by using 
this seed, is an advantage which should be im- 
mediately understood by the farming commu- 
nity. To raise a field of oats, the stalks of 
which stand six feet high, with well-filled 
heads, over twelve inches long, and yielding 
100 bushels to the acre, is an accomplishment 
of which any farmer would feel proud, and 
I believe we can do this with the Norway' 
oats." 

After making all due allowance for the par- 
tiality, fraud, and extravagance of speculators, 
there remains a mass of concurrent testimony 
which would seem to be sufficient to establish 
the Norway oat at the very head of the oaten 
family, and to authorize its general substitutinii 
for the common varieties on our soil. The 
black oat of Chester county, Pennsylvania, \i 



ONIONS — SOIL— SOWING CULTIVATION. 



Ill 



[iiobaLily akin to the Norway, and is declared 
by those who grow it to be not inferior. The 
Surprise oat is also highly coniiuended. 

Onions. — The onion is a very ancient 
plant; the Egyptians worshiped it as one of 
their gods, two thousand years before the 
Christian era, and the Israelites deepl}' la- 
mented its loss — (Numbers, xi, 5). In Spain 
and France it forms one of the common and 
universal supports of life. In addition to its 
peculiar flavor, which first recommends it, the 
onion is remarkably nutritious. According to 
Johnson's analysis, it contains from twenty- 
five to thiity per cent, of gluten, thus ranking 
with the nutritious bean and the best grains. 
If it were not for the peculiar power with 
which it " fetches its breath," it would take its 
phice by the side of the potato, as an indis- 
pensable tuber. 

It contains much nutritive mucilage, and is 
very useful for its soothing and healing proper- 
ties. When analyzed, it is found to contain 
water, sulphur, phosphoric, and acetic acids, 
some vegeto-animal matter, and a little manna. 
It is not merely as a relish that the wayfaring 
Spaniard eats his onion with his crust of bread, 
as he sits by the refreshing spring ; it is be- 
cause experience has proved that it helps to 
sustain his strength also, and adds, beyond 
what its bulk would suggest, to tlie nouri.--h- 
ment which his simple meal supplies. When 
its acrimony has been extracted by vinegar, it 
po.sses.ses a very agreeable, sweet, and delicate 
flavor. The onion grows in many different 
forms — sometimes multiplying by numerous 
bulbs beneath one blade, like the potato, and 
again forming bulbs, with the same essential 
appearance and properties, at the top of the 
blade. 

This vegetable is one of the most valuable of 
the anti-.scorbutics, and, during the civil war, 
1S61-5, was in great demand in both Northern 
and Southern camps, as an enemy of the scurvy. 
It strengthens the boily, brightens the sight, 
resists fatigue, and increases the digestive 
power. 

Soil. — The onion thrives l>est in a rich, damp, 
black, mellow, sandy loam; a fertile alluvion 
is best of all. Level land is preferred; if this 
is not practicable, a gentle southern slope, un- 
der the full influence of the sun. 

Preparation — The onion is a gross feeder; 
thesoil can nut well be made loo rich. Fifteen 
to twenty-five loads of well-rotted compost, or 
hog-pen manure per acre, is not loo much, and 
a dressing of aslies — a hundred bushels to the 



acre in the Spring — is a valuable auxilli;iry. 
Clear the ground intended for onions of all 
stones ; plow deeply in the Fall, and in the 
Spring re-plow if the land needs it and fol- 
low with a thorough harrowing. Unlike most 
crops, onions will do well on the same ground 
for a series of years. 

Souing, — Be sure and get good seed ; it should 
be the growth of the previous season, and 
should sink when placed in water. If you 
wish to give your field an early start, put the 
seed into blood-warm water before the first of 
April, and set it where it will not freeze, and 
let it remain for twelve or fifteen days. Be 
care ul to have the water always cover the 
seed. In two or three days, if the seed be 
good, it will be manifest by the strong onion 
smell which it will emit. At length drain the 
water oflT, and- stir among the seed some ])lastcr, 
keeping it, however, a little moist and warm. 
At the end of three days the seed will have 
thrown out sprouts half an inch long. Then 
plant it about half an inch deep, and in six 
days you can see the rows. A hand-drill will 
generally be found most convenient for sow- 
ing; it makes two drills twelve inches ai>ait, 
and drops the seed in them an inch or two 
apart at the same time. These are covered by 
roiling, or by pushing a bright hoe obliquely 
over the rows. Sow four to six pounds to the 
acre. 

Cultivation. — Keep the weeds out is the whole 
secret of the ctiltivation of onions. By all 
means start a hoe or some weed-cutter as soon 
as the onions are large enough to show the 
rows. Some recommend sowing radishes with 
the onions so as to follow the rows more 
readily. " The tools needed for hoeing and 
weeding onions are few and simple. The mo.st 
approved hoe in use, is usually made from a 
buck-saw plate, either new or worn, cut about 
eight inches in length, and from one to two 
inches in width, with a goose-neck riveted on 
the inside of it ; or to make the hoe stiffer, 
two goose-necks are used, riveted as before, but 
about one and a half inches from the ends of 
the plate, and uniting in one shank in the 
handle, which may be about five feet long. 
This hoe should be kept clean and bright, so 
that the dirt will slide over it without being 
much displaced. A push or scnfiie hoe is 
sometimes used in the advanced growth of the 
crop. The tools used for weeding, aside from 
what nature has provided, are a crooked kni.e 
(common case or shoe-knife with the lower end 
bent up), and a weeder, made of thin steel 



112 



FIELD crops: 



plate, about two inelies long and one wide, 
riveted with a goose-neck, like the hoes, and 
fixed ill a handle aliout eight inches long. 
Later in the season, a larger weeder is used, 
about lour inches in length, and set in a handle 
about two I'eet long. This is used, when the 
onion-tops have become large, for the purpose 
of taking out single weeds, and when hoeing 
the ground would injure the onions."* 

Eight or ten days after the first hoeing, the 
first hand-weeding should be performed. It is 
impo.ssible, however, to lay down rules here, 
unless it is the single one, never to let the 
weeds get the advantage. Small weeds are 
more easily killed than large ones and with 
le.ss injury to the crop. The labor of weeding 
may be performed by children after a little 
practice. This crop should usually be hoed 
about once in two weeks in the earlier part of 
the season ; the weeds must be kept down, and 
the more the ground is stirred the better for 
the harvest. Above all, don't neglect them in 
the haying .season ; the temptation is strong, 
but the onion is a jealous jade, quick to resent 
inattention — and inattention at this season is 
often ruin. 

Pulling and Storing. — When the crop is ma- 
ture, which may be known by the withering of 
the foliage, the shrinking of the necks, and the 
loosening the roots, the onions should be pulled 
by hand and be thrown in windrows, about three 
rows being thrown into one. At this time all 
weeds remaining should be pulled and piled 
before sliedding their seeds, preparatory to the 
final clearing of the bed. The pulling of the 
crops should not be delayed after the tops are 
well dry, for if rain should now fall the onions 
will be apt to re-root to their injury. " Should 
the backwardness of tbe sea.son make it neces- 
sary to pull the crop in rather a green stale, it 
will be well to allow it to remain untouched 
after pulling for about a week, before turning or 
stirring, wldch will tend to hasten the decay of 
the greener tops; otherwise, they should be care- 
fully stirred every pleasant day with a wooden- 
toothed rake. See that they are not injured 
by the raking or treading of a careless liand. 

"When the crop is tlioroughly dried, the 
onions feeling hard to the handling, it will be 
ready for topping for market. They are care- 
fully collected in baskets, rejecting all stones, 
scullions, and rotten onions, and taken in wugim 
loads to the barn, and there the tops are cutoff 
clean to the onion with a sharp knife. This is 



usually done by boys or women, at two or three 
cents by the bushel. While collecting, look 
sharply on the bottom of the onions to detect 
rotten ones. Some growers prefer to leave 
such of the crop as they design to keep for a 
late market untopped. If it is intended to 
market the crop immediately, the onions may be 
jiiled to a depth of three or four feet, otherwi.se 
the}' should not be over two feet in depth. 
Leave the barn doors and windows all open 
every pleasant day. As the crop is topped, 
those of the size of a hazel-nut are classed aa 
pickle onions, these being marketed principally 
for that purpose, and usually bringing nearly 
as a high a price as the full grown ones." 

Tracing or Hoping Onions. — The onions are 
sometimes traced. Tliis is done done by cut- 
ting off' the neck within about two inches of the 
bulb, and binding it to a handful of straw. 
Beginning at the butt-end of the straw, lay 
the neck .against the straw, give two or three 
firm turns with the twine, add another onion, 
and thus proceed until the straw is covered, 
the larger onions being tied to the bottom 
and gradually decreasing in size to the top. 
Onions so slowly ripened that they would soon 
spoil if stored in a mass, will keep well when 
traced, and oftentimes bring a greater profit 
than the best of the crop. Rareripes and such 
of the earlier onions as are to be sent long dis- 
tances, or be kept awhile before marketing, are 
usually' traced. Traced onions keep in good 
condition a long while in a cool dry place. 
The crop is usually put up into ropes of three 
an<l a half pounds, and a fair crop is from six 
thousand to eight thousand such ropes. 

Fall Sowing. — In England, and in the lati- 
tude of Connecticut, in this country, it is .some- 
times profitable to sow in the Fall. Farmers 
who wish the crop for early marketing, sow in 
September, cover tlie bed, about the time of the 
first frost, with sea-weed or barn-yard manure, 
to prevent Winter thawing, uncover when the 
frost is out, and the onions will have a month 
or two the start. This practice is, however, 
■subject to some danger of injury to the seed. 

Profit as Crop. — There are a few rural towns 
in Connecticut where no area cf good friable 
land can be purchased for ¥500 an acre, be- 
cause it is adapted to the onion crop, and 
farmers have acquired wealth in the culture. 
A good harvest is five hundred bushels to the 
acre; though seven or eight hundred bushels 
are often gathered. Onions are, perhaps, the 
most profitable crop that can be raised by a 
farmer who has good market facilities. 



PARSNIPS — PEAS. 



113 



One large cultivator says : " I tliink one 
tlioiisand bushels or more can be grown In- 
proper cultivation. Bed onions are now (1864) 
wholesaling at three dollars per barrel, and 
white ones at four dollars per barrel. One year 
I sold niy onions at one dollar per bushel, and 
sent them to market in the Fall before housing. 
I have sold red onions as high as five dollars a 
barrel, and white ones at six dollars. There 
has been no time within twelve years, hut that 
onions «i>ul<l bring two dollars a barrel in the 
course of the yeat." 

The onion crop of Scott county, Iowa, in 
1S65, reached a million bushel.s, and averaged 
four hundred bushels to the acre. One man 
gathered three thousand four hundred bushels 
from six acres, while .^ome acres produced 
more than eight hundred bushels. 

A correspondent of the Agricullurist makes 
the following estimate of the cost of an acre of 
onions : 

Twenty londs of manure at $1 ai $30 0(1 

Carting, tilrnin:;, spreading, etc s tm 

A liuutlred btiehel:* ashes, at 17 cts 17 00 

}'lowiiig and liarrowing 4 (K) 

Kaking and sowing.... 4 00 

Kolir Itps. of seed, at SI 4 00 

Hoeing four times,*; da\ ? h do 

Pullingand piling, 12 liays lo no 

Drawing in with team, 2 dais 6 00 

T.ipping 500 bushels, at 2 CIS 10 lO 

Marketing S 00 

Interest on land 12 oo 

Total $137 00 

A crop of onions will vary from two hundred 
to eight hundred bushels to the acre, according 
to the state of the soil, manure, the care taken 
of them, etc. The price also varies from ten 
cents to one dollar per bushel. 

A correspondent of the Providence Press, 
makes the following statement of the profits 
of a single acre of land cultivated the last sea- 
son by D. S. Eeed, of Bristol, Khode Island : 
" Noticing in Monday's Prens your statement 
about Captain A. B. Chadsey's crop of onions 
and carrots from two and a quarter icres, I de- 
sire to give you a statement of D. S. Reed, of 
Bristol. His lot contained one acre, five-eighths 
of which was planted with onions and three- 
eighths devoted to raising onion-.seed and some 
other crops of small account. He sold in one 
lot from the five-eighths of an acre $1,248 
worth of onions, and has 1.50 bushels still on 
hand, which at $1 50 per bushels, would make 
his crop of onions bring $1,4.50. From the 
other three-eighths of the acre he .sold to BuR- 
DiCK & Barrett S600 worth of onion-seed, 
and reserved $100 for liis own use. Now add 
$75 for a good crop of carrots, put in after tak- 
ing off the onions, and we have the nice little 



sum of S2,24S as the yield of one acre. The 
net income from the acre was $2,000." This is, 
of course, an extraordinary result, but the rais- 
ing of onions, as a general crop, pays well; the 
conditions are a fertile soil, clean and thorough 
cultivation, and an early start in the Spring. 

Varieties — The round and solid onion known 
as the Wethersfield Red, is the sort mostly 
grown in Connecticut. It has a large yield, 
ripens early, is of beautiful color and flavor, 
and cooks and keeps well. The silver-skin is 
the handsomest onion, and brings a good price 
in n.arket. If grown for a Fall or Winter mar- 
ket, the Wethersfield Red is unsurpassed. If 
for the earliest market, the potato onion will 
be found excellent, cultivated on a small scale. 

Parsnips. — Parsnips are seldom raised aa 
a field crop. The ordinary varieties are the 
common Dutch and the Jersey or Guernsey. 
It is propagated from seed sown annually, in 
in deep, rich, loamy clay, or sandy .soils, and is 
cultivated like the carrot, already described. 

Peas. — Canada farmers use peas in.stead of 
corn to fatten their hog.s, and they make very 
firm and sweet pork. A good many intelligent 
farmers of New York, are imitating the Cana- 
dian practice, and they claim to find in it a 
double advantage — a saving of thirty to fifty 
per cent, in doing so, besides a quick and easy 
method of maintaining a maximum condition 
of fertility in their land, without expending 
half their income for expensive mercantile fer- 
tilizers. 

A writer in the Rural New Yorker says he 
planted last year two and a half acres in peas ; 
seed nine bushels. Land fair but very weedy. 
Sold green peas to the amount of thirteen dol- 
lars. Fed to two hogs and five pigs seventy- 
eight dollars' worth, and has on hand forty 
bushels, worth eighty dollars, making the whole 
crop worth one hundred and seventy-one dollar,*; 
deducting the seed, eighteen dollars, leaves value 
of crop, one hundred and fifty-three dollars. 
He began to feed in July and fed in August, 
September, October, and November, whereas 
his corn would not have been ripe enough 
to feed till October and November. It is easier 
to fatten pork in warm weather. He thinks a 
bushel of peas in September worth two of corn 
in November. The peas can be grown on soil 
too poor or too foul to give a good return in 
corn, are more easily raised and harvested, 
more solid, sweet pork, and the straw greatly 
nproves the quality of the manure — mixed 



11-1 



FIELD CROPS : 



with other grain it is the best food for horses 
he ever used He soaks the pens twenty four 
hours in water, when the hogs eat them greedily 
and fatten rapidly. 

The cow-pea is used with much advantage, 
as a green fertilizer, on soils too poor to bear 
clover or oats. Peas grown for stock, will gen- 
erally need the support of brush, or a twine 
trellis. 

The mo.st successful way lo avoid the bug is 
to grow a second crop of peas in a season from 
the seed obtained finrn the first crop, and there 
\*ill be no biigi;y peas, no matter where or how 
kept — for, as the weevil in question is single- 
brooded, a second crop of pea.s will be entirely 
exempt from its attacks. 

Potato. — This is an esculent root, of two 
well-known varieties — the sweet potato and the 
common white potato — and both are indigenous 
to Central and South America. The wild po- 
tato is a coarse, bitter, not very agreeable tnber; 
the potato of commerce is entirely the result of 
culture. 

History. — The introduction of the potato into 
Europe is somewliat obscure, on account of con- 
founding the two widely different varieties. 
The sweet potato was probably carried to Eu- 
rope from New Grenada by Sir John Hawk- 
ins about 15.50, or by the Spaniards somewhat 
earlier; the white ]iotato was carried from Vir- 
giiua (now North Carolina), by the colonists of 
Sir Walter Ealeigh about 1585. Hariot, 
the keen-eyed scholar and historian of the ex- 
pedition, gathered quantities of the potato, 
maize, and tobacco ; and Bancroft s.iys " the 
tuberous roots of the potato, when boiled, were 
found to be very good food." Specimens were 
sent back to the queen, and the experimental 
enltivation of the potato was begun. One of 
the first crops seems to have been grown upon 
Sir Walter's estates at Youghall, in Ireland — 
whence its name, Irish potato. 

Tlie new tuber crept slowly into Europe, 
meeting everywhere with great opposition. As 
tea had been lampooned and prohibited by law 
tweiUy years earlier, and as coflee was de- 
nounced as a poisonous invasion, so the abhor- 
rence of the potato plant was general in Eng- 
land, and universal in France. The scientific 
mcn.set forth its deadly qualities, and even the 
most moilerate of its opponents asked protcst- 
ingly why this coarse and detestable root from 
the land of the Incas should be forced upon the 
public, while the soil of France was capable of 
supplying the most salutary and delicious pro- 



ductions of the vegetable kingdom. The king 
wore the potato blo.ssom in his button-hole in 
vain. But the patronage of Drake and Ral- 
eigh, Parmentier, and poor Louis XVI, 
pressed the introduction gently, and at last in 
the famine of the revolution potatoes for seed 
were accepted by the people from the garden 
of the Tuilleries. 

When potatoes were introduced into Russia, 
toward the end of the last century,' the people 
conceived a great dislike to them and from their 
superstitions was evolved the history that the 
devil complained, on being driven from the " 
Garden of Eden, that he had no fruit, and the 
potato was created expressly for him. For gen- 
erations, the potato was known as " Devil's 
fruit." But it is now a chief article of cultiva- 
tion and use across the central belt of Europe, 
and its introduction has enabled the soil to feed 
double the population that it was formerly con- 
sidered possible to support. In Ireland, pota- 
toes constitute from three-fifths to four-fifths of 
the food of the people. 

It is claimed that New Hampshire first cul- 
tivated potatoes in America; that they were in- 
troduced in 1719 1^ the Londonderry colonists 
from Ireland. But they were cultivated a hun- 
dred and twenty years before this time in Vir- 
ginia; and in 1040 they were sent to the "vyne- 
growers" of the colony of the Massachusetts. 

Of the two kinds referred to, we shall first 
treat of the white or Irish potato. 

Amount oj Crop. — According to the census 
of 18G0, the amount of this crop was il0,571,- 
"201 bushels ; the crop of 1865 was estimated at 
5,000,000 more. About four-fifths were raised 
in the Northern States, and New York pro- 
duced almost one-fourth of the whole. Among 
the edible vegetable productions of our coun- 
try, potatoes rank fourth, following wheat, corn, 
and oats. 

Nutritive Value. — Professor Johnston finds, 
from twenty-seven analyses, that the greatest 
proportion of water in young potatoes was 82 
per cent. ; in full-grown potatoes, G8.6 per cent. ; 
the average of all being seventy-six per cent., 
leaving of dry matter 24 per cent. A large 
part of the solid matter in potatoes consists of 
starch ; the average being, according to Sie- 
mens, about 15.98 per cent. The nitrogenous 
(flesh producing) matter is from 5 to 10 per 
cent.; and the fatty matter is 1 per cent. The 
dry potato is about equal in nutritive value to 
rice, and somewhat less than the finer varieties 
of wheat flour. The acidity is due to the pres- 
ence of malic acid. 



PEAS — EXPERIMENTS WITH THE EARLY GOODRICH. 



115 



6'oi7. — Like corn, wheat, and grass, potatoes 
5nd their best adaptation in a fertile sandy 
loam of medium tenacity, pasture land, or any 
new turf lands, producing them in abundance. 
Tliey should never be put in a clay soil until 
it lia.s been reduced to a condition of friability, 
and received an abundance of proper manures. 

Preparation nf the Soil. — "As early in Spring 
as 1 lie ground is settled and dry enough to work, 
plow with the lap furrow to the depth of ten 
inches, laying tlje furrow slices smooth and 
true — make them of equal width. The potato 
being of a somewhat coarse growth, we are apt 
to plant it in ground but illy-prepared, which 
may be one cause of its degeneration." Deep 
plowing is of the utmost importance to the suc- 
cess of raising potatoes. Where the soil may 
not have been rendered deep, by thorough pre- 
vious cultivation, and fears may be entertained 
on account of turning up the under soil, the 
subsoil plough should be used, to break up and 
render the earth beneath the surface soil subser- 
vient to the action of the air, make the descent 
<ir the roots of the vines easy, and pass off the 
water, as it may percolate through the eartli, in 
order that it may not remain to stagnate and 
impede tlie healthful growth of the plants. 

I'lunting. — Planting should be done as early 
as practicable. In some parts of the South 
they are planted in December; in some parts 
of the North, in some seasons, in February 
and March. Lay off the land into rows, three- 
and-a-half feet apart, with a light plow, and 
drop the potato sets into the drill at the uni- 
form distiince of a foot. If a rot be feared, it 
is best not to apply fresh manure directly to 
the potato, but to fertilize the ground through 
previous crops, or at least apply it the previous 
Fall. 

Special Manures. — An analysis of the ashes 
of the potato gives the following result : 



the potash, salt will supply the soda, lime is 
easily obtained, and bones will give the phos- 
phoric acid. With these, and muck or loam, 
mixed together, and left for a few weeks, or 
during the Winter, to be fully pulverized, the 
farmer has the finest compost for his potato- 
field under the sun. The ingredients are cheap 
and accessible. 

Preparation of the Sets. — A great diversity of 
opinion e.tists on the subject of planting whole 
large or small potatoes, cutting in large pieces, 
and cutting to single eyes. It is generally ad- 
mitted that planting potatoes whole, produces a 
greater number of stalks, with the chance of 
yielding more potatoes. One advantage of em- 
ploying whole potatoes, is, that they are not so 
susceptible to the influence of a drought; and 
it will sometimes happen that a soil is so dry 
as to require whole seed. Dr. F. JI. Hexa- 
MEn, at a meeting of the American Institute 
Farmers' Club, gave the result of seventeen 
different ways of planting the potato. He 
obtained the best results froai putting one large 
whole potato in a hill ; the next best yield was 
from two large half potatoes cut lengthwise; the 
next from the seed end of a large potato; the 
next from a large half potato cut lengthwise; 
and nearly tlie same result when the larger po- 
tato had its seed end cut off. The lowest yield 
was from half of a small potato; one piece, 
with an eye, did a little better. 

W. Hudson, in tlie Country Gentleman, gives 
his experiment with the Early Goodrich, as 
follows: Of course all the rows had similar 
treatment. 





Roots. 
40.28 
23 .14 
3..1I 
.•i.24 
(l.ffl 
n..'!2 
n.S4 
.1.411 
4.01 
1.60 

82.83 


Tops. 


S.id.i 

l.iMH- 

Mll-M..slH 


I29.7 
17.0 






Siliin « 


49.4 






t'hluriiie 













From this, it will be seen that a manure 
composed of the right proportions of potash, 
soda, lime, and vegetable matter, and a little 
phosphoric acid, will form a most powerful 
fertilizer. Wood ashes, unleached, will supply 



hii.lli. 

242 

20« 19 

2.tO .16 

220 22 

19< .11 

IS7 .v- 



"There was very little difference in the po- 
tatoes of the different rows ; potatoes of good 
size. Row No. 1 contained very many the 
most small potatoes, rows No. 3 and 4 the most 
uniform in size, but my men thought 6 and 7 
as good as any." 

W. W. Daniells, Professor of Agriculture in 
the Wisconsin State University, reports the 
following interesting result of a similar exper- 



116 



FIELD CROPS : 



iment carefully made by himself. Planted, 
May 23, in rows three and a half feet apart 
each way, three inches deep, with similar after 
culture, seed differently prepared, as follows: 



£, Me 



Liirge potatoes, whole, one to 

II hill 

Laliie potatoes, qimltereil, 

lliree pieces to a hill 

Sroiill potiitoea, whulc, one to 

ahill 

Sjiiall p.rt;itoe8, eut in tliiidi, 

tlllee pieees to a Jjill 

Me.liiinisiz-;9ee.l-en.lto;ihill 
Meilium size: one to a hill, 

without see i-en.l 

Same as No. 2 

Single eyes, three to a hill 



ill 




20 
15 

6 

8 

■'.'< 
l.l 


Lai'ge. 

do. 

do. 

Medium. 
Large. 

Large. 

Me.iium. 

Small. 



All farmers should avoid the error of draw- 
ing general conclusions from a single series 
of experiments, however apparently uniform. 
Such conclusions can be safely tru.sted only 
when the experiments are sufficiently numerous 
to indicate a reliable average. 

A farmer in Northern Illinois says he has 
never failed to raise good potatoes, and an 
iibundance of them. " My plan is this : I plant 
the seed-ends of good-size potatoes on good 
ground, but never manure them. If the ground 
is not naturally rich, it should by all means be 
made so; but this manuring .should be attended 
to from one to two years before planting pota- 
toes. That the seed-ends are as good as whole 
potatoes, I have satisfied myself by re|ieated 
experiments. I plant two seeds in a hill, the 
rows five feet apart by two and a half, furrow- 
ing my ground one way with a light plow, 
then drop my seed across the furrows, which 
B:\ves marking my ground one way, and plow 
them in." 

A Long Island farmer last Spring planted 
four rows of equal length, of two varieties of 
potatoes. In one row, with e.nch variety, he 
planted only the "seed-ends" of the potato; in 
the other, the opposite or " butt-ends." These 
were the pink eyes and peach blows. "The 
yield was as follows : pink eyes, butt-ends, 217 
pounds; pink eyes, seed-ends, 170 pounds; 
peach blows, butt-ends, 22-5 pounds; peach 
blows, seed-ends, 179 pounds. Tlie potatoes 
raised from the butt-ends were much larger 
than those from the seed-ends, and appeared to 
be from a week to ten days earlier. Had the 
whole field been planted with butt-ends the 
yield would have been more than 500 bushels 
to the acre." 

In 1866, W. H. Fabquhar, and three neigh- 



bors, in Maryland, separately experimented to 
ascertain the best method of preparing seed- 
potatoes. The manner of the experiment was 
this: Nine row,s, each four rods in length and 
three feet distant from each other, were planted 
with the several preparati<ms of seed mentioned 
in the table, the sets being placed fifteen inches 
apart. The soil was similar, the same manures 
used in each row, and all were planted at the 
same time. The following table gives the result : 



KS3 



Pounds planted. 



Pounds planted. 



»»;;« :s »: 



S^ ^.ffi 



^ Pounds planted. 



Pounds planted. 



Pounds planted. 



x^s; »'« 



"I do not presume to say," writes Mr. Far- 
QUHAR, " tliat the conclusions to be drawn from 
the foregoing table have any claim to be con- 
sidered decisive. The number of experiments 
was too limited. Only one .sort of potato, the 
Buckeye, was used. The yield in each ca.se 
was quite moderate, and the trial was only for 
one season. 

"The results, so far as they go, however, are 
certainly very striking ; they are suggestive, 
though not decisive, and appear to me well- 
de.serving of consideration and careful repeti- 
tion. The experiments were made in the only 
way in which reliable conclusions can be ob- 
tained — that is, by accurate weighing and meas- 
uring, and the results coincide in a manner 
quite remarkable." 

If the indications of this table are correct 



POTATO— EXPERIMENTS IN PLANTING. 



117 



how treniendoiis is the loss, every yeiir, from 
the use of small potatoes for seed! The table 
fiirnislies striking evidence of the importance 
of ninking a number of systematic experiments, 
in order that this particular question may be 
settled — for its definite settlement would result 
in Ki'eiit benefit. 

Having been often told that anything would 
do for seed-potatoes, a correspondent of the 
Earul New Yorker planted four rows of twenty 
hills each, in the center of his field, with the 
following result: 



1 l;tr<r*' potato in a hill yielded.. 



Maiketal.le. Small. 



only' 



. 7ii 



.\notlier correspondent thus treats this sub- 
ject: "Why should whole potatoes be planted? 
Every eye on a potato (if sound) gives ri.se to a 
vine and itrms a root. If, therefore, there are 
a number of eyes planted together, as must be 
the case where a whole potato is deposited in 
the ground, can the vines flourish as they would 
if ^jrown separately and a considerable distance 
apnrt? They certainly could not; and the in- 
evitable consequences of thick bunches growing 
from so many eyes, will be potatoes of uneven 
size, many very small, and unripe when taken 
up, even late in the .\utnmn. I had found this 
to he the case with many crops when the seed 
had been cut into large pieces of uniform size, 
without regard to the number of eyes. Conse- 
quently, when the very question of whole seed 
planting or cut planting w:is being agitated, I de- 
termined to try the plan which seemed to be most 
in accordance with common sense— remembering 
that if too many branches are suflliired to remain 
on an apple tree, or too many apples to remain 
on tlie branches, the fruit would be very imper- 
fect, and of very small size. Accordingly, I 
carefully cut the seed so as to leave but one eye 
in a piece, and dropped the pieces about eighteen 
inches apart. The result was a fine crop of large 
potatoes, of uniform size — there not being small 
ones enough from an acre of ground for dinner. 
The potatoes from which these one-eye pieces 
were cut were selected from the largest of the 
previous year's crop. The combination of two 
cau.ses — seed not thoroughly ripe, and plants 
too thick — will manifestly deteriorate any crop. 
My motto for potato growing now is: The largest 
and most perfect seM, cut into one-eye pieceSj and 
hlanled wide apart." 

Towards the decision of this question, we 
liave at hand the details of an experiment of 
John Robertson, an intelligent cultivator of 



Ireland, reported by Doyle. This gives a su- 
periority of produce to whole potatoes, sixteen 
inches apart, hut at a greater expense of seed 
than with sets of two eyes. 

The following is the definite record of an 
English experiment — equal culture being given : 



< < < < 






A fanner in Michigan recently wrote thus to 
The Prairie Farmer : " Having fitted a piece of 
sward, and planted about one-third of an acre 
in the usual way, with cut seed, three pieces to 
the hill, I selected good-sized potatoes, cut off 
the .seed-end, about one-fourth of the potato, 
and planted a row of the butt-ends, and another 
of tlie seed-ends ; planted one row with whole 
ones of the same size, one to a hill ; then one 
row of small ones, of the size of a hickory nut, 
three to a hill, with .'takes to mark all the rows. 
Having dug the portion planted in the usual 
way with a yield of one bushel to twenty-two 
hills, I dug the row of butt-ends, yielding one 
bushel to fifteen hills, all large cooking pota- 
toes, and no small ones; then the row of whole 
potatoes, seventeen hills for a bushel, some 
small ones; next the row planted with seed- 
ends from large potatoes, twenty-eight hills to 
a bushel, some large ones ; and last, the row 



118 



FIELD CROPS. 



planted witli small seed, tliirly-four l.ills yield- 
ing a bushel, all small ones. Tlie icrws were 
three feet apart, and the hills two ;ind a luilf 
feet apart." 

These experiments would seem satisfactory 
in their uniform verdict against small potatoes 
for seed. Thompson says, in the English Gar- 
diiier's Assistant: "Large tubers are prefera- 
hle for seed, for the following reasons: In all 
plant.s, large buds tend to produce large shoots, 
and small or weak buds, the reverse. Now, 
tlie eyes of potatoes are true buds, and in 
small tubers tliey are comparatively weak; 
they consequently produce weak shoots, and 
the crop from such is inferior to that obtained 
from plants originating from larger tubers, fur- 
nished with stronger eyes." 

But the results above recorded appear incon- 
clusive as deciding the quesuon between whole 
potatoes and cuts, and between many and few 
eyes ; though the tendency of the testimony 
favors cuts, from i;iir, good-sized potatoes- 
"The practice of cutting to three or four eyes, 
or to a single eye, must depend on circumstan- 
ces. 'For ordinary management, or where the 
linest culture and best care can not be given, 
pieces with three or four eyes may be planted, 
twelve to twenty inches apart in the row. This 
is the mode now most, generally adopted by 
the better class of cultivators. But if the .soil 
is in the finest condition, a larger crop, with 
more uniformly large potatoes, may be ob- 
tained by adopting the single-eye mode. For 
this purpose the tubers should be of fair size, 
and be cut some days before planting, so as to 
form a thin dry crust on the cut surface before 
depositing in the ground. Some cultivators 
regard it as important to roll the pieces in 
slaked lime or plaster, while others entirely dis- 
regard it. We are unable to say what amount 
of value the practice possesses. The disiame 
should not exceed eight or ten inches in the 
row, but may vary with the character of the 
variety, for spreading at the top and at the 
roots — some varieties forming more compact 
masses of tubers than others." 

Selection and care of Seed- Potatoes. — The best 
time, suggests the Agriculturist, to select seed- 
potatoes, is when they are dug. As soon as 
they are brought to the surface and lie spread 
on the ground, the best can be selected with 
le.ss difficulty than at any other time. Those 
that are perfectly matured, and of gootl shape, 
having the marked characteristics of the vari- 
ety, and good average size, should 'be selected 
for seed, in preference to those of any other 



qualities. They should then be placed in box- 
es or barrcl.s, and kept where they will not be 
injured by freezing or by warmth. If seed-po- 
tatoes are saved in this manner for a few yeara 
in succession, we have no doubt a decided im- 
provement will be observed in the yield per 
acre, as well as in the quality of the crops. 
And we think this practice will also be found 
an effectual security against small ones, and a 
good defence against the rot. When potatoes 
first come from the ground, the skins have a 
clearne.ss, which they soon lose. 

Testing Potatoes for Seed. — The heaviest po- 
tatoes contain the most starch and are, on that 
account, most nutritious and valuable. As 
new varieties of seedlings are very desirable to 
keep up the vigor of the ]ilant and avoid 
disease, and are, of late frequently offered to 
the public, it is well to know of a convenient 
and accurate method of testing their respective 
qualities. The potato will sink in pure water. 
To test the relative qualities of different kinds, 
put a piece in a definite quantity of water and 
add .salt by weight until the potato will float. 
The potato which requires the greatest quantity 
of salt to float it in the water is the best. 

Culliraling. — As soon as the tops make their 
appearance generally above ground, go through 
with the horse cultivator, and repeat two or 
three times during the season, according to the 
condition of the field. Going through after a 
rain and pulling all the weeds carefully, will 
obviate the necessity of hand-hoeing, which is 
so expensive with large cultivators. The last 
dressing slumld be sometime previous to blo.s- 
.soniing, and the ridges be but slightly raised. 
In cultivating, the .soil will work into the 
furrows and somewhat deepen the covering. 
The young tubers will form and grow without 
disturbance. If the earth is now hilled much, 
new and late tubers will form higher or above 
the first, producing too many, and irregular in 
size. The best way is to leave the soil nearly 
flat until the middle or latter part of Summer, 
when the potatoes begin to assume considera- 
ble size, and to protrude toward the surface. 
Now is the time for hilling, which is, in eflect, 
nothing more than mulching the roots to pro- 
tect them from light, and to prevent them from 
becoming green. A small quantity of soil be- 
ing sufficient for a mulch ; the old Indian plan 
of drawing the earth up into great mounds is 
passing away. 

Harvesting. — The crop should be harvested' 
as soon as ripe, not left in the ground through 
the Fall raius, for this practice is often produo- 



POTATOES — STORING. 



119\ 



tive of rot. Potatoes are ripe wlien the tops 
liavn died down, and can be pulled without 
bringing miiny, if any, tubers with them. If 
the skin does not peel readily when rubbed 
with the thumb, the potato is ripe. The dig- 
ging on a small scale is best done with a 
potato hook ; on a larger by a plow ; and dry 
weather should, if possible, be selected for the 
operation. Potatoes should not be permitted 
to lie in the sun and wind, but should be gath- 
ered at once, on the same day, and carried 
under cover, with as much soil as will adhere 
to them. They may then be carefnlly spread, 
if they are wet or muddy, and dried, previous 
to being binned. 

Storiny. — Farmers, even the best farmers, 
have difJerent favorite methods of pie.serviug 
potatoes. All agree, however, upon certain 
indispensable conditions: 1, Potatoes should be 
kept dry; 2, they should be kept from the 
light ; 3, they should be kept a.s cool as po.ssi- 
ble, without the danger of freezing; 4, they 
should be well ventilated ; 5, they should be 
handled as carefully as fruit, for bruises invite 
disease. 

By disregarding these simple requirements, 
more than one-fourth of the entire potato crop 
of the country is sacrificed every year — an im- 
mense and a needless loss. 

If potatoes are .^^tored in cellar-bins, the cel- 
lar should be kept at a uniform temperature 
of 40° to 45° — and the fact that most cellars 
are much warmer than this in Autumn, and 
sometimes considerably colder in Winter, tends 
to make general cellar storage unadvisable. 
Bins should never be more than two or thr^ 
feet deep, and should be elevated a few inches 
from the ground, to admit of complete ventila- 
tion. A correspondent of the Scientific American 
earnestly recommends the following method, 
having been enabled by it to keep potatoes for 
years with complete success, tliough in some in- 
stances the tubers were disea.sed when taken 
out of the ground: "Dust over the iioor of tlie 
bin with lime and put in about si.x or seven 
inches deep of potatoes, then dust with lime as 
before. Put in six or seven inches of potatoes, 
and lime again ; repeat the operation until all 
are stored away. One bushel of lime will do 
for forty bushels of potatoes, though more will 
not hurt them, the lime rather itnproving the 
flavor than otherwise." 

The te:idency of potatoes to sprout in the 
early Spring is reported to be prevented in 
Scotland, and by so doing, their full edible 
qualities are preserved, and "mealy " potatoes 



can be had all Summer from the previous year's 
growth. The experiment costs but little, and 
is worthy. of being tested by every one who 
doubts its efficacy. " Obtain from a druggist 
one ounce of liquor of ammonia (hartshorn) 
to a pint of water; let the potatoes be im- 
mersed in a mixture of this proportion four 
or five days; dry them. Their substance is 
thus consolidated, and much of their moisture 
extracted without the slightest injury for all 
table qualities, but their vegetative power is 
forever destroyed. If spread out after immer- 
sion so as to be well dried, they will keep good 
for ten months." 

Storage by burying out of doors has been 
much practiced of late, and tends to supersede 
the old plan of cellaring for potatoes that are 
to be kept over until Spring. It is a little more 
work, and the roots are less accessible, but it 
.secures to them more uniform darkness and 
dryness, and an evener temperature, and ,so, 
better average preservation. 

For "holing out" select a high dry spot, 
thoroughly drained, and on its summit scoop 
out a circular earthen saucer, say four to eight 
feet in diameter, and eight to ten inches below 
the surface, and lay around the outside a ring 
or wreath of clean, bright straw, to keep the 
potatoes in place. Then pile up a potatoe 
pyramid, leaving the surface smooth and uni- 
form. Some farmers shovel over the heap first 
six or eight inches of fine dry loam — accord- 
ing to the climate — with a stratum of straw 
over that, but experiment indicates that the 
layers should be reversed, bringing the course 
of straw next the heap. 




The Annual Register says: " We have found 
that by placing sixty or seventy bushels in a 
heap, covering with a foot of packed straw and 
three inches of earth, has been uniformly suc- 
cessful, not one per cent, generally being lost 
by keeping through Winter." Ventilation is 
efiected by fixing a cliimney of straw through 
the earth at the top of the pile — projecting 
horizontally so as to prevent the introduction 
of water. From twenty up to a hundred 
bushels can be preserved in this way. They 



120 



FIELD CROPS: 



should be taken out of the pit in eaily Spring 
and marketed or put into barrels, headed up 
and pUiced in a cuol cellar, or ice room, where 
tlie temperature is low enough to keep them 
from sprouting. 

All other root crops may be kept in capital 
condition in the same manner, and the soundest, 
brightest cabbages we ever saw were cut from 
the stumps in November, piled up and cov- 
ered in that way, and came out the first week 
in May, not an nnedible head among them. 

Pluclciny the Blossoms. — M. Zeller, director 
of the Agricultural Society of Darmstadt, re- 
ported that in 1839, he planted two plots of 
ground with potatoes. When the plants had 
flowered the blo.ssoms were removed from those 
in one field, while those in the other field were 
left unlouclicd. The former produced four 
hundred and seventy-six pounds, the latter 
only thirty-seven pounds. Mr. Gbaham, in 
England, tried a similar experiment, and re- 
ports that the difl'erence of yield in favor of 
the rows from which he plucked the blossoms, 
was forty-three per cent. This testimony must 
be received with hesitation, and the e.\peri- 
ment should be tried on a small scale. 

Scusing Po atues under Straw. Colmak's 

Mural World has the following: "On a recent 
trip in St. Clair county, Illimiis, we saw hun- 
dreds of acres of land covered with straw. The 
ground had been plowed and harrowed, and 
marked off, and potatoes dropped, and then the 
whole surface covered about six inches deep 
with straw. The potatoes have no farther atten- 
tion till digging time, when two or three hundred 
bushels per acre are obtained. The straw keeps 
the weeds down, and the soil cool and moist. 
The straw is raked away in Autumn, and there 
lie the potatoes, white and clean. The straw 
potatoes bring the lii.;hest price in the market." 

This method of planting has been tried 
largely, sometimes resulting in great success, 
and sometimes in failure — depending appar- 
ently on peculiarities of climate and soil. J. 
Cass, Sacramento county, California, writes: 
"For the last three years my potatoes have in- 
variably run to vines and set no potatoes. 
Last year 1 tried the covering with straw, and 
I had splendid potatoes; the ground kept moist 
all Summer, and we could get a n;ess any time 
by rooting in the straw with onr hands. I 
planted as follows: Old ground that was in 
as.sorted vegetables the year previous, was 
plowed in, and half potatoes, cut lengthwise, 
dropped fifteen inches apart, in every third 
furrow, and put about eight inches of old wheat 



straw on them ; it seemed to check tlie growth 
of vines and made the potatoes .set." Tan-bark, 
and forest leaves, have each been used with 
similar success. 

Yield. — In former years, the average crop 
was rated at four hundred bushels an acre; at 
a later period, at two hundred bushels; at a 
recent period, at one hundred and fifty bushels; 
and, since the ravages of the rot, the average 
has been still further considerably reduced. 
General BuRNU.M, of Vermont, many years 
ago, raised a thousand bushels of potatoes to the 
acre, but his plan involved laborious culture, 
and a frequent supply of rich, light compost, 
during the period of growth. The national 
stali.stician in his report for 1867, estimates 
the average yield of the potato crop at eighty- 
two bushels per acre. Flprida gave the highest 
average, one hundred and forty-three bushels ; 
then Texas, one hundred and thirty; Vermont, 
one hundred and sixteen; Michigan, rinety- 
five; Some farmers still raise five hundred on 
an acre almost every year. 

Degeneracy of the Potato. — The frequency with 
which the jiotato fails to produce the expected 
harvest, seems to indicate that it ought not to 
be depended upon as the chief edible crop of 
any nation. Expenience has proved that there 
is a great tendency to deterioration in the po- 
tato when |)lanted for a long time. Some of 
the older kinds, that were so productive and 
good when introduced, have degenerated to a 
very low scale. By continued planting they 
lose their robustness of growth and great yield- 
in" powers, and become feeble, and liable to be 
attacked by disease. 

Corn, beans, turnips, etc., can be improved 
by careful culture, while the potato is be.st near 
the time of its origin. Remedies have been 
sought to prevent the potato disease. New 
ground, ashes, etc., have been tried; but the 
best specific is doubtless the adoption of new, 
vigorous varieties. At the present time this 
remedy is most easy, owing to the great num- 
ber of seedlings produced by enterprising culti- 
vators. Indeed, every man may try new va- 
rieties, producing them from the seed of the 
ball. 

Kenewal seems to be demanded by the potato. 
New blood serves it better than old. It is the 
most democratic of tubers. No aristocracies 
can long exist in its domain. The "first fami- 
lies" dwindle and die out from year to year, 
and their place is taken by some red-faced par- 
venue th.it has no reliable ancestry whatever, 
but is sweet in flavor and sound in heart. It 



POTATOES VARIETIES. 



121 



is a fact now generally admitted, that pprsist- 
ence in llie culture of any one potato for a term 
of years, tends lo rapid deterioration. Tlie 
tubers obtained from the true seed will be small 
the first season; the second growth will suggest 
tlie qUMliiy. 

Varieties. — The sorts of potatoes that 
have been cultivated are quite innumerable; 
even of tbose which have in tlieir time and 
home, proved to be of good quality. We shall 
enumerate a few that have been more or less 
e-xtcnsively grown: 

The Mercer, known also as the JXishannoch, 
(from the stream near which it originated), tlie 
Shannock, Chenango, and Philadelphia, was tiist 
grown lilty years ago in Mercer county, Penn- 
sylvania, by John Gilkey. It was for twenty 
years much more largely cultivated than any 
other potato, and was esteemed for its early 
ripening, excellent quality, and reliable yield. 
But it rots badly, and its culture lias been gen- 
erally discontinued, except on light, dry soils. 

The Carter, originated by John Caktek, in 
Berkshire county, Massachusetts, forty years 
ago, is unexcelled by any of the old varieties. 
It boils to mealiness, and has a delicate flavor, 
but it ripens late, is very liable to rot, and is 
now running out. 

The old Pinkeye family liave done good ser- 
vice in their time. They were of fair quality, 
but they straggled much in the hill, and were 
of poor average yiekl. 

The Early June, a fine, large, smooth tuber, 
especially prized for its early growth ; but thi.s, 
too, is crowded to the wall by varieties of a 
more productive yield. 

The Prince Albert is an English seedling, ob- 
long, flat, white, smooth, and handsome, and 
generally prolific. It is of good average qual- 
ity; but has yielded to the rot and promises to 
be superseded. 

The Dykeman originated in Oneida county, 
New York; it is large, round, and white, yields 
well, and the fact that it is earlier than the 
Mercer has made it quite a I'avorite in the vi- 
cinity of large Eastern cities. In some soils it 
still does well, in otlujrs it degenerates rapidly. 

Tlie Buckeye has been grown sometimes with 
remarkable 6ueces.s, especially in Ohio. It is 
a fine, large, white, round potato; matures 
early, and comes to the table mealy and de- 
licious. It is a little capricious, but often 
returns a heavy yield, and is said to be less 
aflected by the rot than most other kinds. For 
early use an excellent variety. 

The Pcachblow was originated by C.iLEB 



Shepabd, of Saratoga, New York, in 1850, 
and it has done excellent service in the coui-se 
of the rotation of potatoeti. It is stilt much cul- 
tivated, especially at the West, and is a general 
i'avorite for the table. It is of a color that sug- 
gests the name, but its flesh is white and deli- 
cious. The yield is good. Its habit is to ripen 
late, and this makes it less liable to rot. The 
White Peachblom was produced from the pit of 
the Peachblom, and now holds its place as one 
of the best known varieties. It is hardy, pro- 
duces remarkably well, keeps admirably, and 
takes the lead in the New York market in the 
Spring. Peac/t6/ows require to be planted early, 
and they will then be the very last to ripen. 
The vines grow rank, and they will not bear 
Crowding. The tubers run a great deal in the 
hill, which makes the digging slowerand more 
laborious than any other variety. The Shepard 
Beds were introduced, by the same gentleman; 
they are a good potato, much prized in some 
localities. 

The Jenny Lind; strong and vigorous; large 
and irregular ; in color red and wiiite; coarse 
in flesh, and not very good for the table. It 
keeps well, and seems Ireer from disease than 
most potatoes that are of better quality. 

There are also the Dover, small, red, and of 
good quality ; the Davis, large, productive, and 
hardy, farinaceous, and excellent for the table, 
but little known out of New England; Jackson 
While or Orono (nearly or quite identical), 
white, large, round, fair, tender, and a heavy 
yielder — an ofl'spring of the Carter; the St. 
Helena anil California, both immense yielders, 
one coarse and soggy, and the other coarse, 
strong, and watery, equally unfit for the table, 
and of doubtful value for stock; [he Bohan, fa- 
mous in history and infamous for the table; the 
Keeper Blue, a Western variety, large, round, and 
excellent fur the table — its meat white and ten- 
der, its coat a dark blue; the Black Mercers, 
Scotch Grays, Enylisk Whites, and other well- 
known varieties, cultivated, most of them, all 
through the last generation. 

The right to the field is being contested by 
newer varieties. Many of these seem more 
vigorous than the old sorts now are ;• less sus- 
ceptible (o disease, and more productive. If 
this shall prove to be as it seems, we shall have a 
clue to the whole mischief; the degeneracy may 
be checked, and the potato may be restored to the 
health and productiveness of its ancient days. 

South American. — These potatoes are some- 
times called the Early Peaehbluw, and were 
transplanted some years ago from South Amer- 



122 



FIELD CROPS : 



ica, to Columbus, Ohio, whence they have 
sprend. G. S. Innis says :* " They are stronger 
growers, have larger tops, and yield more abun- 
dantly than the Peachblow. We have yet to 
Bee the first rotten on^ or unsound one — that is 
to say, one with the potato disease or hollow- 
hearted." 

Among the recent varieties which attract 
general attention are a half dozen seedlings 
propagated by the late Kev. Chauncey E. 
Goodrich, Chaplain of tlie Lunatic Asylum at 
Ulica, New York, wlio spent sixteen years ex- 
perimenting, and who finally selected and dis- 
seminated these as the best out of some thousand 
new varieties. 

The Early Goodrich is the best known of these. 
It is very early and large, with a wliite skin, 
smooth eyes, white flesh, of fair but not the very 
best quality, sound and solid to the core, keeps 
well and yields abundantly — on good, rich soil, 
300 bushels to the acre. The testimony is al- 
most unanimous affirming the very heavy yield 
of the Early Goodrich during the last three 
years. A farmer planted. May 6, on a turned 
sward — three small cuts in a hill — and thus 
gives the result: "I dug a few hills August 14, 
when they were fully ripe. The crop was har- 
vested September 4th, and proved the finest and 
largest I ever grew. I weighed many hills that 
produced 11 pounds each, or five and a half 
hills to the bushel. Nearly lialf gave 9 pounds 
each, or less than seven hills to the bushel — 
many of the tubers weighing over a pound. In 
quality they are nearly if not quite equal to the 
Carter, ' the He plus ultra of potatoes.' In ordi- 
nary field culture they matured earlier and 
produced less — about 350 bushels to the acre. 
They are of medium size, with few small ones." 
Another gathered more than seven bushels 
from seven pounds planted ; another more than 
a bushel from a single potato. 

The Goodrich seems to be one of the very 
earliest of potatoes, boiling dry two weeks be- 
fore the Wliite Sprout, and yielding more. L. 
M. Brown, of Woodbury, Iowa, writes that he 
raised the Early Goodrich at the rate of over 
five hundred bushels to the acre, and that they 
were "in quality superior to any early potato 
with which we are acquainted." The extraor- 
dinary yield of this potato was maintained 
through 1869, though accompanied, some 
thought, with a tendency to degenerate in 
quality. 

The Harison is another famous potato of the 



1 Essay on the Potato in Oliio Agricultural Ecp. 



Goodrich seedlings, maturing rather late. It 
is long, large, and smooth, with full eyes, white 
skin and flesh, sound and healthy, an admirable 
keeper, of the best quality for the table, and 
very productive. The average yield on good, 
rich soil, well cultivated, is three or four hun- 
dred bushels to the acre. Its pre-eminence is 
mainly attributable to the fact that it is a first 
class table potato. C. R. Chipman, of Dane 
county, Wisconsin, writes; "I procured four 
pounds of the Harison potatoes, planted them 
on one and one half rods of ground, putting one 
eye in a hill; hoed them twice, and dug eight 
bushels of good sound potatoes, which is at the 
rate of eight hundred and fifty-three and one- 
thii'd bushels per acre." 

The Gleason is much esteemed among the 
new varieties. It is a handsome red ixitato; 
rough skin; small proportion of undersized 
tubers; luxuriant vines; grows till frost, ma- 
turing late; generally very free from rot, and 
good for the table. Is quite prolific, yielding 
three hundred to six hundred bushels to the 
acre, with proper culture. 

The Cuzco is another of these seedlings. A 
farmer says of it: "This will be classed as 
a late variety — is the most productive kind 
grown so far. The produce, with the little at- 
tention received, exceeils four hundred and fifty 
bushels per acre. White, irregular, and un- 
promising in appearance, with .some show of 
the disease; but the yield is so heavy it can not 
fail to be in demand for a market variety where 
quantity is the object to be obtained." The Cul- 
tivator says: "The Cuzco has yielded on tlie 
grounds of the writer at the rate of five hun- 
dred and twenty bushels per acre — and there 
was but one objection to this sort, namely, that 
the potatoes were not good for anything." 

The Qarnel Chili has been widely introduced, 
and is a good hardy sort of excellent quality. 
It perhaps averages better for the table than 
any other of the Goodrich seedlings, and this 
may be the result of the fact that it produces 
rather less. It has a rough red skin, and is 
hardy and little liable to disease. 

The Calico is a seedling of the Garnet Chili, 
which it fully equals in productiveness and 
hardiness. In shape it resembles the Prince 
Albert; being white, smooth, and handsome, 
with splashes of pink. Very good fur the 
table. 

A correspondent says: "I have raised the 
last two years, a potato called the Early Main, 
said to be a seedling from Mr. (joobrich's 
stock, whic!i I think very highly of. It is <t 



roTATOES — KXJ'EUIMENTS IN PLANTING. 



123 



I 



kidney pot:ito, with scarcely perceptible eyes — 
a good yielder when properly cultivated, quite 
as early as the Early Goodricli, and lor table 
use unexcelled by any potato now cultivated; 
white, mealy, and of the fl:ivor of roasted chest- 
nuts. P\ir baking, I prefer it to any potato I 
know of, early or late." 

The Coppermine is represented as being "early 
enough for an early market variety, a first-class 
table potato, light red, very smooth and regu- 
lar, not very productive as classed with other 
of the Goodrich seedlings, but has yielded two 
hundred and fifty bushels from one acre." 

The £ar!y Rose potato was presented two or 
three years ago as a c.indidate for the public 
preference, and it has succeeded in attracting 
much attention and winning many advocates. 
It is a seedling of the Garnet Chili, and was 
originated in 1861 by Albert Brazee, an intel- 
ligent Vermont farmer. It fs claimed to be the 
earliest variety known, and the most productive. 

Its general character is staled thus by the 
New York Sun: " Veiy early and large; skin 
smooth, of a pale rose-color, almost white when 
fully matured ; the eyes prominent, not deeply 
sunken as in many of the older varieties ; form 
long, oval, slightly compressed; flesh snow- 
white, and very dry and mealy, without any 
strong flavor as found in .some of the large late 
varieties; it is also very productive, and the 
tubers keep well and retain their good qualities 
until Spring." During 1867 and 1868, these 
potatoes were in demand at ten to fifty dol- 
lars a bushel, and were widely disseminated. 
The testimony in their favor was voluminous. 

N. RicHAHT writes from Columbia county, 
Pennsylvania, "I bought last Spring one pound 
of "Early Rose" which I planted May 6th and 
dug August 6th. After drying them four days 
I weighed them, and had one hundred and one 
pounds of the finest potatoes I ever rai.sed, sev- 
eral of them weighing over one pound eacli." 
G. and S. Boalt, nur.serymen of Norwalk, 
Ohio, testify to the foUovying astonishing yield : 
"We bought one pound of " Early Ro.se" po- 
tatoes last Spring and have just dug the crop 
from one-half of them, and we have (by meas- 
ure) four and three-fnurlhf bushels. Wtt do not 
think the other half will do quite as well, but 
we are confident we shall get three bushels from 
it, making seven and one-third bushels or four 
hundred and forty pounds from one of seed." It 
is said that marketable potatoes of this variety 
can be grown in si.tty days. Our readers will, 
of course, make some allowance for reports of 
extraordinary results, and proceed carefully in 



experiments based thereon. There is one great 
agricultural truth that farmers should under- 
stand, viz.: that different conditions in growing 
potatoes, in many instances, produce very dif- 
ferent results. The influence of soil and cli- 
mate and seasons, whether wet or dry, cold or 
hot, is great, and varieties that may yield abun- 
dantly and be of superior quality in one local- 
ity, often prove unproductive and almost worth- 
less in another. 

Unless the statements concerning ilie Early 
Rose are greatly exaggerated, and there is a 
wide-spread conspiracy to misrepresent in the 
interest of the propagators, which seems im- 
possible, the potato is worthy of general ac- 
ceptance wherever soil and climate are adapted 
to its growih. 

J. Lathrop, jr., of Centerville, Lake Su- 
perior, wiites: "On the 29th of last May I 
planted one-half peck eagh of the Early Good- 
rich, Harison, Gleason, and Calico potatoes. 
My land was new and just cleared, stum|is all 
green. I cut them the same as I cut all my 
potatoes, only a little smaller, planted three 
pieces in a hill ; each lot was planted on about 
five rods of ground (a trifle less). The Early 
Goodrich were ripe and tops all dead in Au- 
gust. I dug them September 20lh, before 
which time they had been killed by an early 
frost. The Calicoes were in full bloom, and 
some blossoms still on the Harison when the 
frost struck them : 



=-5? 


E**^ 


ill 
;12, 


lill 


.-. 


H 


4liu. 


112 


5 


U 

Via 


4 i; 


112 
IWl 



J. V. Van Wyck reports the result of an 
experiment to ascertain the best variety of po- 
tato, and the best method of planting. The 
following table shows the yield of each variety 
by each method, per acre : 



Glpason 

Common PeaclibU 
White Pfjichblow 

Cmn.-t 

.lackson Whites... 

Dyk.mans 

JuntB 

Av. of different ki 



_ 


- 




— 


^ 




























































c 


































: = :r 


■ ~ 


• - - 


■ ^ 


No. 1 


No ?. 


No, .1 


So. 4 


No. 5 


n:i 


iin 


llli 


llli 


ill. 


."il 


so 


41 


»1 


:« 


.18 


51 


4:i 


43 


41 


51 


51 


^K 


.11 


31 




llli 


ini 


SU 


SO 




31 


4.1 


:ii 


31 


su 


72 


62 


411 


40 


81 


74 


67 


45 


45 



124 



FIELD CROPS : 



" Those planted deepest, came up last, but 
looked better tliroughout the season than the 
others. They were all plowed five times and 
hoed once, the labor of cultivating being the 
same on each patch. The labor of digging 
Number 1, was somewhat the greatest, as 
the potatoes were nearly a foot beneath the 
surface. The season was very wet, so that 
the yield was small. Had it been dry, I 
tliink there would have been a much lar- 
ger difl'erence in favor of those deeply plant- 
ed. None rotted except a few of the Jackson 
Whites. 

"Tlie average of the whole was but sixty-six 
bushels per acre — a very small yield ; still, my 
object, to a certain extent, has been gained, and 
the lesson is as valuable as if learned from a 
yield of two hundred bushels per acre." 

Dr. F. M. Hexamer, of New York, recently 
read a paper before the Fruit Grower's Club, 
from wliich the following is an extract: 

"Had I to make a selection of six varieties 
to plant for early marketing, I would choose, 
for early : 

"Early Hose, because it is the earliest and 
best early variety. 

"Early Goodrich, which, although it has not 
succeeded well in the last wet season, is, when 
grown under favorable conditions, of excellent 
quality, of good size, shape, and color, produc- 
tive and free from disease. For medium or 
main crops : 

" Harison, because it is the most productive 
and most profitable table potato in existence, of 
white skin and flesh, large size, fair quality, 
and entirely free from disease. 

" Lapdone Kidney, for its beautiful shape and 
appearance. It succeeds in soils where the 
Prince Albert has failed. It is an excellent 
baking potato, and by many preferred to any 
other. For late : 

" White Peachhlow, because it is, when ma- 
tured, the most sought for potato in market, 
unequalled by any other variety for its meali- 
ness. The growing of the White Peachhlow 
has made many a farmer rich, and favorable 
seasons will no doubt improve it again, as they 
have improved other varieties. 

" Gleason. — For its hardiness. It is a surer 
crop than any other potato. Be the season wet 
or dry, be the land manured with fresh manure 
or old, or none at all used, the Gleason is cer- 
tain to grow, if it is planted early enough and 
well cultivated. Its quality is not first rate 
when dug, but it improves by keeping and is 



quite acceptable if kept till April, when some 
other varieties are no longer fit for table." 

The Potato Fever.— Beware of the 
potato fever. It is during some years and in 
some districts, more malignant than the potato 
rot. It affects the dealers more than the tubers, 
and generally breaks out in the eye — of the 
former. Printer's ink aggravates the infection. 
It soon makes its way to the pocket. 

The symptoms are indicated in the following 
extract from a newspaper: "Sixteen potatoes 
brought $825, twelve potatoes brought S615, one 
brought $50, and one was traded for a good cow, 
valued at $60." .Another paper tells of a man 
in Vermont who "bought one eye of a 
potato, and raised from it, this .season, po- 
tatoes that he has sold for $750, and haa 
three left. Eight were bought by one man 
for $400." 

We trust there is nothing in these pages cal- 
culated to spread this contagion. It is quite 
similar, in its general characteristics, to the 
tulip disease, which prevailed in Holland in 
the early part of the seventeenth century, 
spreading over the whole kingdom, affecting 
the inhabitants far more than the precious 
bulbs. While this disease was at its height, 
one person was known to invest his whole 
fortune, 100,000 florins (about $50,000) in the 
purchase of forty roots. A writer of that period 
gave the following inventory of articles that 
could be bought for one tulip root: "Two casks 
of wheat, four casks of rye, four fat oxen, eight 
fat swine, twelve fat sheep, two hogsheads of. 
wine, four tons of beer, two tons of butler, one 
thousiind pounds of cheese, a complete bed, a 
suit of clothes, and a silver drinking-uup — the 
whole valued at 2,500 florins." 

This fever comes in the shape of a mild 
financial insanity; the infected never know they 
have caught it. It breaks out in a virulent 
form about once in thirty years ; seizing, at each 
re-appearance, some new plant. The Morua 
Multicaulis was its last idol; then fools rushed 
from town to town offering thousands of dollars 
for worthless bundles of twigs. Beware of the 
fatal virus; once absorbed, there is no known 
remedy but " bleeding." 

The Potato Rot. — The disease, in the 
form of rot, which sweeps off most of the potato 
crop every few years, would seem, as already 
intimated, to be an admonition to warn us that 
no nation ought to rely upon the potato for the 



THE POTATO EOT. 



125 



principal food of its people. No certain remedy 
is yet developed; indeed, it is not positively 
known what causes the rot. One variety of rot, 
says the Scientific American, lias been found by 
Alexander Henderson, of Buffalo, Xew 
York, to originate in the depredations of a bug. 
"If a tuber be examined with a microscope just 
before planting, on it may be seen a small, yel- 
lowish, translucent, oval object, secured, as is 
common with insects' eggs, by a gummy sub- 
stance, to tlie potato. This will produce un- 
sound potatoes, and the egg is that of the Phy- 
tocoris. When the tuber is planted at the ordi- 
n.iry deptli, this egg hatches, but if the potato 
is planted deep, the egg is killed, and therefore, 
deep planting is one remedy, because air and 
light are prevented from coming to the delicate 
egg. After a sufficient amount of warmth and 
moisture has been obtained by the egg, the 
shortest time that has j'et been observed being 
six days, the shell opens along its greater axis, 
and out comes the small insect, without wings, 
from about tlie twentieth to a twelfth of an inch 
long. It has six perfect legs, two antennae, a 
proboscis, and a pair of brilliant black eyes. 
The proboscis is about two-thirds of its body in 
length, and one-third of its length from the 
head is thick, seen coiled upon itself, and the 
remainder is flexible and needle-like. It con- 
tains three tube.s, through one of which it sucks 
up the juice of the plant for its nutriment; 
through another it probably ejects a poison 
into the plant, and through the other it may 
perform part of its respiration." Mr. Hender- 
son's remedies for this rot, which he declares 
to be the most prevalent kind, are : 1, Killing 
the egg by sprinkling quicklime on the seed- 
potatoes; and, 2, preventing its development 
by deep planting. 

The efl'ects of all rot will generally be reduced 
by observing the following simple rules: 1, 
Select dry ground, or drain thoroughly; 2, plow 
deep; 3, do not apply barn-yard or any un fer- 
mented manure ; 4, secure new or other vigor- 
ous varieties; 6, plant early and cover well; 
6, keep the ground clean; 7, dig as soon as 
ripe; and 8, sprinkle air-slaked lime over them 
in the bin or heap. 

The Agriculturist gives as "an infallible rem- 
edy :" " When you drop the .seed, put one pint 
of slaked lime on it, in each hill, and then 
cover." All antiputrescents, such as lime, 
wood ashes, pulverized charcoal, p!.^ster, salt, 
nitrogen, etc., are believed to contribute di- 
rectly to the health of the potato, as well as to 



add to its richne.ss and flavor, and of course to 
prevent putrefaction and disease. 

Renewing the seed from the ball of healthy 
vigorous plants every few years, even resorting 
to the native place in South America, and taking 
the seed from the wild potato, is considered 
important. Planting on old sod has also some- 
times been a complete preventive. 

In an essay read before the New York Farm- 
ers' Club, by James Warren, of Monroe, 
Iowa, potato rot is largely attributed to care- 
lessness in farmers in selecting their seed, it 
being claimed that seed-potatoes should only be 
selected from such hills as produce fully ripened 
potato-balls. This will check the tendency to 
rot; whereas vitiated seed will naturally be 
followed by immature and disea.sed progeny. 

Cutting potatoes to plant, is thought by many 
to promote disease, by impairing the vitality 
of the seed. 

Dr. Klotzsch, a distinguished botanist of 
Berlin, proposed to strengthen the roots by 
pinching off the extreme points of tlie tops for 
half an inch, after they have .attained a height 
of six to nine inches. " The consequences of 
this check to the development of the stems and 
branches, is a stimulus to the nutrient center in 
the plant in the direction of the resource both 
of roots and the multiplication of the branches 
of the stem above ground, which not only favors 
the power of the root, but also strengthens the 
leaves and stalks to such a degree that the mat- 
ters prepared by the physiological action of 
these parts are increased and applied to the 
formation of tubers, while at the same time the 
direct action of the sun's rays on the soil is pre- 
vented by the thick foliage, and thus the drying 
up of the soil and its injurious consequences are 
avoided." The doctor made experiments on 
his theory, and the pruned plants were readily 
distinguished in their subsequent growth from 
the plants beside them, by more numerous 
branches, larger and darker foliage, and by a 
greater and better yield. 

"In the end of August, the diflTerence be- 
tween the rows treated by me, and those not 
treated, became so striking that it astonished 
all the work people of the neighborhood, who 
were never tired of inquiring the cause. The 
stocks of the rows left to themselves were all 
now partly dried, partly dead. On the contra- 
ry, the rows treated as above were luxuriant and 
in full vigor, the plants bushy, the foliage thick, 
the leaves large and green, so that most people 
supposed that they had been later planted." 



126 



FIELD CROPS : 



The Legislature of Massachusetts, a few years 
Bince, offered a prize often thousand dollars to 
any one who should satisfy the governor and 
council that, by a test of at least five successive 
years, he had discovered a sure remedy for the 
potato rot. Many communications were re- 
ceived, but none fulfilled the conditions of the 
offer. There is, probably, no specific infallible 
remedy. 

Hon. AM.iS.4. Walker, Secretary of State of 
Mass;ichusetts, publi>lied an abstract of the rec- 
ommendations, which we have already fur- 
nished to the reader in these pages. Mr. 
Walker closed with the following deductions : 

"The general conclusions to which the facts 
presented in these various communications 
seem to lead us, are: 

"1. That the disease has a striking resem- 
blance to the cholera, and probably exists in 
the atmosphere. 

" 2. That it is doubtful whether any specific 
cure has been, or ever will be <liscovered; but, 

"3. As in cholera, certain preventives are 
well a.scertained, by the application of which, 
the liabilities to disease may be greatly less- 
ened. 

"4. That by obtaining the soundest seed, 
planting in the most favorable soils, and by 
using the most suitable manures, we may have 
a good degree of confidence in the successful 
cultivation of this useful vegetable. 

" 5. That we may e.xpect, that like the 
cholera, the potato rot will become less and 
less formidable from year to year, and event- 
ually subside into a mild and manageable epi- 
demic, if that term may be used in such a con- 
nection." 

The .Sweet Potato. — Is grown very 

largely, as the principal esculent throughout 
the Southern States. Two hundred and fifty 
bushels to the acre is a large yield, under favor- 
able conditions. Its culture is somewhat pros- 
ecuted in the Central States, but when raised 
north of thirty-nine degrees, its growth must be 
much forced, and it generally lacks the peculiar 
flavor of the root in its native soil. Still, it 
will continue to be somewhat grown as an 
e.xotic. We will designate the method of its 
general culture : 

Sprouting. — In March or April, in the Mid- 
dle States, and earlier at the South, put the 
potatoes in a hot-bed. If they are large, split 
them lengthwise, laying the flat side down. 
They may be placed so near as almost to touch 
each other; then cover about two inches deep 



with a light, rich compost made of fine sandj 
manure, and good soil, or leaf-mold from the 
woods. When the sprouts push above the 
ground add an inch or so of the compost. 
Water occasionally with warm water; keep the 
bed warm at night, and on warm days give 
tliem air and sunshine to render them hardy. 
When ready to set, the sprouts may be pulled 
off, or the potato may be lifted out and the best 
plants selected and the potato returned to the 
hot-bed. A bushel of seed will produce from 
three to five thousand plants, and every thou- 
sand plants which are set should produce forty 
bushels of potatoes. 

Planting. — A warm, sandy loam is best 
adapted to the culture. Mark spaces three feet 
apart, merely scratching the ground for the 
rows, which should run north and south. 
On the marks spread barn-yard manure with 
a fork; then turn up the earth with a plow, 
from each side, toward the manure, and form a 
ridge about ten inches high, and finish the 
ridge with a rake. The base of the ridge, 
which should be a foot in width, should not be 
disturbed by the plow. The top. of the ridge, 
when finished, should be flat and three or four 
inches in width. Plants should be set as soon 
as all danger from frost is passed. 

Planting on Sod. — Sweet potatoes will grow 
more chubby when planted on sod than when 
planted in any other way. Strips of sod eight 
or ten inches wide may be laid in line on the 
surface of the ground with the grass side up, 
manure strewed on them, and the earth turned 
up on each side so as to form a ridge, as di- 
rected above ; or a piece of pasture or meadow 
may be selected, and the turf used as the base 
of the ridge to be formed by the plow. In 
either case, manure, or rich compost should be 
used; for, unlike Irish potatoes, these are not 
injured, but greatly benefited by manure. 

Setting the Plants. — A marker should be used 
to prick off the spaces for the plants, sixteen 
inches apart. A boy is then able to drop the 
plants in the right places, and the hole is made 
for setting them. The plants should then be 
put in the ground, down to the first leaf. Let 
one boy drop the plants, another pour from a 
water-pot, with the rose off", sufficient water to 
float the rootlets, and immediately fill up with 
mellow earth. One can water for three to set. 
Care should be taken to set the plants when 
the ground is moist, and, if possible, on a 
cloudy day. 

After-Treatment. — Keep the weeds subdued. 
Use a hoe or rake, raking upward toward the 



SWEET POTATOES — PUMPKINS AND SQUASHES. 



127 



plants. Where the plants run down the ridges, 
lift, and lay them on the top. Do this several 
times during the season, in order to permit the 
sun to act upon the ground. The sweet potato 
is not afraid of heat. After every rain, break 
up the crust of soil in contact with the plants; 
do this rapidly with both hands — clasping, 
raising, and pressing the eartli on the tips of 
the hills. It answers all the purposes of a reg- 
ular hoeing, breaking up the ant holes and' 
giving health to the young plant. 

Gathering and Preserving. — For early use, feel 
in the ridges and nip from the stem those that 
are fit for use, leaving the others to grow. For 
Winter use, after the first frost, select a dry, clear 
day. Cut the vines with a scythe, leaving the 
stem to which the potatoes are attaclied three 
or four inches long, to lift them by. The 
vines are readily eaten by cattle. Use a fork 
for raising the potatoes ; lift tliem by the stem 
and lay them on tlie ridge to dry. In a few 
hours they will be ready to pack. Prepare 
plenty of dry, cut straw (old straw is prefer- 
able), and take straw and barrels, or boxes to the 
field. Select the best potatoes, handling them 
carefully, without bruising them. Put a layer 
of straw at the bottom of the barrel, and then 
alternate layers of potatoes and straw until it 
is filled. The potatoes should be placed close 
to each other, one at a time, and handled as 
carefully as eggs. The barrels are then to be 
moved to a dry room or cellar, where there will 
be no frost. If they are placed in a cellar they 
must be raised from the floor, and must not 
touch the wall. Keeping cool and dry is tlie 
secret of their preservation. They will keep 
six or eight months, and improve in quality if 
subjected to a low equable temperature; but 
the difficulty of keeping them over Winter, 
much discourages their cultivation in the 
Northern States. 

A very good plan is practised by Dr. 
Phillips, of Mississippi, first, by laying down 
a bed of cornstalks several inches thick, which 
serves as an underdrain and ventilator, leading 
from the sides to the one in the center. The 
outside, he also covers with cornstalks and a 
very little earth, and the whole protected with 
a temporary roof. It is a very cheap, and with 
him, an effective way of preserving this most 
valuable edible root for all the soutliern por- 
tion of the United States. Mr. DeLaigle, of 
Augusta, Georgia, raises from 3,000 to 5,000 
bushels of sweet potatoes every year. A com- 
mon crop with him is 300 bushels per acre. 
His method of preserving them is in an im- 



mense root-house, made of bricks, partly below 
the surface, in which the roots are stored with 
pine straw, which is one of the best absorbents 
of moisture he could use, and serves to keep 
(he potatoes free from the dampness so natural 
to them. 

Pumpkins and Squashes. — Species 

of the genus gourd, and indigenous to both 
hemispheres. There are numerous varieties, 
varying in the shape and color of their fruit, as 
the globular, oval, pear-shaped, crooknecked, 
green, striped, yellow, marbled, etc. Within 
the memory of the middle-aged, the number of 
sorts has greatly multiplied. Many of us can 
remember the time when there were but two or 
three varieties; when the kitchens of our 
grandmothers and great grandmoth3rs were 
ornamented with long rows of pumpkin, cut 
spirally, in narrow strips, and hung ou harness 
rods of tlie old family loom, which found a 
place, if not in the front room, at least in some 
room, at times, in nearly all comfortable 
farmers' families, overhead to dry for domes- 
tic use, in making pies, brewing, etc.; then from 
the well-ripened fruit the old-fashioned pump- 
kin pie was made, to be passed around with 
good apple cider, at husking frolics, annually. 

In those times no known sort of this vegeta- 
ble equaled the nice yellow pumpkin, and 
every family provided for a Winter's supply 
by storing away some of the nicest and most 
perfect. The others were boiled with potatoes, 
and with a* mixed provender of oats, corn, 
buckweat, and bran of rye, fed to the hogs; 
which not only increa.sed their growth rapidly, 
but also rapidly developed their fattening quali- 
ties. The cows also came in for a liberal share, 
which greatly helped in prolonging the milk- 
ing season. 

Later the crookneck squash began to take the 
place of the pumpkin in domestic use ; then 
other sorts followed, until now we seldom see 
the pumpkin, and its growth as a field crop is 
greatly curtailed. Instead thereof we have 
many varieties of squash, which are an ad- 
mirable substitute, and some of them much 
superior to the pumpkin for either domestic or 
feeding purposes. 

As a field crop, squashes are generally as 
profitable as corn or potatoes, while the direct 
expense of production is much less, and the 
soil is not so much exhausted. The value of 
the produce of an acre in squashes, like all 
other crops, varies greatly; in favorable sea- 
sons, and with fair culture, §100 or more. As 



128 



FIELD crops: 



the hills are wide apart, the amount of manure 
required is not very large; not over four or 
five hundred bushels, for fertilizing, to the acre. 
Frequently white beans may be grown between 
the vines advantageously, requiring very little 
extra cost in production, yielding sufficient to 
cover the cost of the whole culture. 

Squashes will grow in almost any soil, but 
compost manure in the hill is quite acceptable. 
The culture is simple, and needs little descrip- 
tion. Plant six or eight seeds in a hill, at such 
distances as the variety requires — six to ten 
feet — when well up, dress out with corn har- 
row or cultivator; thin to three or four strong 
plants; keep the ground clean. To increase 
the squash crop pinch off the leaders a few- 
inches from the hill, until the laterals grow. 
Different sorts, planted adjacent, are liable to 
mix. Preserve squashes in a dry place. 

The following rank among the best: 

Summer Crookneck. — Bushy in habit, rather 
undersize, bright yellow, warty, sweet ; to be 
used when young. 

<ScoMo;3cd. — (pattypan)— Early, hemispheri- 
cal in form, deeply scolloped ; to be used when 
half-grown. 

Bonton Marrow. — An Autumn and Winter 
squash; very nutritious, thin skin, salmon color- 
ed, flesh thick, rich, dry, tine-grained, and of un- 
surpassed flavor. Introduced by J. M. IvES, 
of Salem, Massachusetts; an accidental hybrid. 

Hubbard. — We are indebted for this surpass- 
ing variety to a woman — Mrs. Hubbard, of 
Marblehead, Massachusetts. Fruit an irregu- 
lar ovoid, pointed at the ends, sometimes rib- 
bed ; pure, it grows to the weight of eight or 
ten pounds, and eight or ten inches in length ; 
of a bluish green color, occasionally marked 
with yellow, or brownish orange ; fine-grained, 
deep yellow flesh, sweet, dry, and of most ex- 
cellent flavor. Can be used eight to ten months 
in the year. 

Custard. — Of vigorous habit, fruit oblong, 
gathered in deep folds lengtliwise, abruptly 
shortened at the ends, flesh not very solid or 
fine, but well flavored. This squash, under 
careful culture, is one of the most productive. 
BcBR refers to harvests of fourteen tons to the 
acre. It is receiving much attention as food 
for stock. Is very hardy. 

Yokohama. — Sent from Japan in 1860, by 
Mr. Thomas Hogg. The fruit is about eight 
inches across, roundish, very much flattened at 
the extremities, and deeply ribbed, weighing 
from six to eight pounds; stem not as fleshy 
as the Hubbard, more resembling (he pumpkin ; 



color dark green to orange salmon, skin warty, 
flesh thick, dry, sweet, and excellent. Earlier 
than the Hubbard, and not as good for Winter. 

Turban or Turk^s Cap. — A superior late grow- 
ing variety, weigliing eight to ten pounds. 
Color greenish, striped with white; flesh or- 
ange-yellow, very heavy, fine-grained, dry, and 
weet, of good flavor; in perfection when first 
taken from the vine. 

There are a few other good kinds ; but the 
above are representative. Some of these vari- 
eties, as the turban and the crookneck, lose 
their fine texture and delicate flavor in the 
ranker growth of the West. 

For Cattle. — Squashes are much and very 
profitably used as cattle-food ; but it is believed 

It the seeds should be removed when fed to 
milch cows, as they have a strong diuretic 
(urine-producing) effect, and this tends to re- 
duce the flow of milk. The large, "mam- 
moth " squashes are generally the coarsest, and 
smaller kinds, like the Hubbard, are more 
profitable food for man or beast. 

Saving Ground. — Pumpkins may be planted 
among corn. The roots of the pumpkin and 
the corn do not feed on the same nutriment in 
the earth, hence there will be just as many 
ears and just as well filled though the pumpkins 
are thick enough to let a boy walk on them 
from one side of the field to the other. 

The culture of pumpkins in grass lands is 
spoken of as a very advantageous mode. Holes 
are dug and filled with manure proper for 
vines, and the seeds planted. The vines do 
not begin to run till after the grass is mowed for 
hay. An acre planted in this way, allowing 
about ninety hills to the acre, will produce 
about eighteen tons of pumpkins or squashes. 

" Puffing." — Some genius makes the follow- 
ing suggestion, which we give for what it is 
worth : " If you want big pumpkins and 
squashes, just bore a little gimlet hole in their 
rind when the fruit is a few weeks old, and push 
in a long piece of cotton-wick, with the loose end 
in a pan of water. The cotton will suck the 
water, the pumpkin will suck the cotton, and 
by the time your fruit is ripe, you will have 
the hugest pumpkin that was ever seen." 

Ramie or China Grass.— The South 
has been blackened and impoverished by a des- 
olating civil war; may it not be that Provi- 
dence will bring to the hands of its people new 
.sources of wealth, better adapted to their new 
system of labor, so that a blessing shall ulti- 
mately be found at the bottom of the cup of 



RAMIE OR CHINA GRASS. 



129 



defeat? The ramie plant promises to recon- 
struct the prosperity of the South, and it is 
now attracting wide attention among progress- 
ive planters. It produces a fiber, " coming 
between silk and linen," saj's the United States 
Agricultural Report of 1867, "partaking to 
some extent of the characteristics of both. 
Of this fiber, the Chinese have made, from 
time immemorial, their unique and cool sum- 
mer dresse.s, equaling, in many instances, the 
finest linen productions." 

This plant, a native of Java (and said to be 
indigenous to Mexico, also), was introduced 
into France in 184-1, and was finally brought 
to the United States, in 1867, by Don Benito 
KoEZEL. It belongs to the nettle family, and, 
like hemp, carries its valuable fiber in its stalk 
This fiber is of pure white, of a silken appear- 
ance, finer than cotton, or flax linen, and strong- 
er than either. It can be used separately in the 
manufacture of cloth, or can be. combined with 
silk or wool. In a warm latitude, the plant is 
hardy and vigorous; it grows with great pro- 
ductiveness in Louisiana and Jiississippi ; it is 
not affected by long periods of rain, and stands 
dry weather as well as cotton. 

It thrives even in Mexico, where the rainy 
seasons are so long. The crops are taken, like 
those of cane, by cutting at the ground. From 
the ratoons spring new growths, more vigorous 
than the old. It is believed that in South 
Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Missis- 
sippi, Louisiana, and Texa.s, the ramie will 
succeed admirably ; have rampant growth, and 
yield three or four crops a year. It takes two 
years to become established; but once stocked, 
it remains productive for a number of year^. 
It is said to yield eight hundred pounds of 
lint to the acre, from each cutting, or, in a 
good season, twenty-four hundred pounds per 
year. 

The following are some of its remarkable 
qualities, as summed up by a Mississippi paper : 

" 1. The ramie is stronger than European 
hemp. 

" 2. It is fifty per cent, stronger than the 
best Belgian flaxen or linen fiber. 

" 3. The fiber may be spun as fine as that of 
flax, and will prove twice as durable. 

" 4. It is a vigorous grower, and will produce 
the greatest amount of textile fiber of any plant 
known. 

" 5. It will produce, in the belt in which it 
flourishes, from three to five annual crops, each 
equal to the best gathered from hemp. 

"6. It promises eventually to supersede, in 

9 



some countries, the general use of cotton and 
linen fabrics." 

The' head of a prominent commercial house in 
Liverpool, speaks of its value in glowing terms. 
He refers to the plant as " yielding a fiber so 
textile, yet so beautiful withal, that it can be 
treated to rival silk and to supersede the finest 
of cotton. " 

In a warm latitude the plant is perrennial. 
It is propagated, not only by root divisions, but 
with perfect ease by cuttings, by layering, and 
by planting the seed. From one root, planted 
j in March 1867, Mr. F. J. Knapp reports an 
increase of a hundred; and from layers and 
cuttings of the same more than a thousand. It 
is stated that in one in.stance a hundred roots 
in nine months produced forty thousand plants. 
During 1867 and 1868, the plants sold at one 
dollar each in the South. ■ 

Kamie likes a rich sandy soil, but flourishes 
almost anywhere. " The culture," says the 
New Orleans Picayune, " is similar to that of 
cane; and as the plant, when once set, is hard 
to eradicate, grows vigorously, and defies the 
influence of grass or rival plants, cultivation 
is only needed to promote its growth." 

The St. Louis Journal, of Agriculture gives 
the following suggestions for the culture of 
the ramie: "It can not be too much recom- 
mended to have the piece of land intended for 
the ramie deeply cultivated ; subsoiled to four- 
teen inches would not be too deep, and this is 
the most laborious work in the whole cultiva- 
tion. The field ought to be laid oft' in pieces 
of about twenty rows in width, and a pas.sage 
left for a cart or wag(m. The rows ought to be 
about four feet apart, and the plants in the 
rows half that distance. When the fiijld is 
ready for planting, a furrow is made every 
four feet, about three to four inches deep, and 
in these furrows the plants are placed, with 
little more care than negroes plant sweet pota- 
toes. The furrows ought to be made so that 
the rain will not stand too long, yet all heavy 
washing ought to be prevented. Booted plants 
as well as layers ought to be covered with earth 
nearly to the top; roots ought to be covered 
with earth two or three inches deep. In Ciuse 
some plants or roots should not gro%v, the va- 
cancies should be filled as soon as possible, and 
always the best plants taken for this purpose, 
so as to get an even-growing field. 

" As soon as the plants have reached .seven 
to eight inches in height, they should be lopped 
(as in the nursery), to force out side shoots. 
When these latter are grown to about five or six 



130 



FIELD crops: 



inches in length, the plant has a kind of bushy 
appearance; then it is hilled nearly to the top. 
It is now left to grow until it has reached nearly 
to the height of three feet, when it is cut down 
even with the ground, or better, one inch be- 
low. The fiber of this first growtli can be used, 
but is not perfect yet, because the roots and 
bulbs are not large enough, and there are as 
yet too many side-shoots. A few days after 
this cutting, a great many ratoona will make 
their appearance on the surface. The wliole 
work now consists in keeping out the weeds. 
This second growth will be, under similar cir- 
cumstances, a great deal more rapid than the 
first was, and can be cut when about four feet 
high ; each growth will have fewer side-shoots, 
and soon they will disappear altogether. 

"Tile planting in tlie field ought to be done 
in tlie Spring, but can be continued until the 
beginning of September. Those whicli are 
planted late ought to be covered in Winter 
with straw or leaves, because they are too 
young and tender to resist severe frosts. Those 
planted early in Spring and Summer do not 
need any protection, as they will make roots 
eighteen or twenty-four inches deep. 

"The first year, weeds have to be cut out, 
but this will give but little trouble. The sec- 
ond year the plant will have so many ratoons 
that other plants will have no room to vegetate. 
From this time the cultivation will give very 
little trouble, except one plowing between the 
rows early in the Spring, and after each cut- 
ting, an<l manure over the fields during the 
Winter season. "All refuse matter falling 
off in cleaning the fiber, eught to be fed, or 
cured, and put in the barn for Winter use. 
All the manure coming from the plant ought to 
be carefully gathered and put back on the field. 
In this way, such a field will give a rich re- 
turn for many years, without need of being' 
replanted. The plant can be grown as far 
North as the earth does not freeze more than 
four inches deep in Winter." 

As a general rule, it may be said, as soon as the 
stems have reached a little more than four feet, 
the fiber will be of good quality, but does not 
get hurt if left uncut until it reaches eight to ten 
feet in length. P. L. Simmonus. editor of the 
Technologist, says of it : " So rapid is the growth 
of this plant, that, by careful observation, the 
Colonial Botanist of Jamaica found one of its 
shoots attain the height of six and a half feet 
in fourteen day.e, and ultimately eight and a 
h:iirfeet;,bnt in good land it would exceed this 
bv two feet, while in China and the East In- 



dies, where it is highly cultivated, eight feet i.* 
the height mentioned it now makes, from which 
fiber six feet long is obtained." 

The Southern Rtiralist says: "Suppo.se this 
plant to have none of this useful fiber, its cul- 
tivation would be of immense value as food frr 
stock, in a great many portions of tlie South 
Another most important point in introducing 
the ramie here, is its easy cultivation. The 
first year it requires no more work than sweet 
potatoes, and then the main work is in harvest- 
ing. In case a field should be plowed up after 
a series of years for some other purpose, then 
the roots and bulbs will make excellent food 
for hogs, or can be manufactured into a dura- 
ble dye. 

"The fences have to be kept in good order, 
because if cows and liogs are once accustomed 
to it, they will break down a poor fence to get 
to it. During the Winter cows can be turned 
into ramie fielc^, but hogs and horses should be 
kept out. So far this plant has no destructive 
enemies. The so-called nettle worm makes its 
appearance some season.s, but never hurts the 
fiber ; it is .satisfied with the lower leaves of the 
plant, and is in this way harmless. Besides, if 
they were aa destructive as the cotton worm 
they could not injure the crop very much, as 
each cutting is matured in a very short period 
of time." 

The United States Agricultural Keport foi 
1867, thus sums up : "The beauty, durability, 
and value of the fabrics made from this fiber 
are unquestioned ; the desirability of its suc- 
ce.^s as an important accession to the products 
of Aai^rican agriculture is conceded ; the only 
point to be made clear at the present time is 
the profit of the production. Will it pay? 
That is a more difficult question, and one that 
should be answered ; all present experiments 
should be directed to its solution. Then how 
can it be most successfully and economically 
grown? The plant will grow; it may yield a 
large pro.luct per acre. How, especially, shall 
it be most cheaply and most efficiently prepared 
for the market? and, finally, what modifications 
and improvements in its manufacture can be made 
to insure a large demand for the raw material? 

"The drawback to its more general u.se is its 
brittlene.ss, which prevents weaving it by ma- 
chinery, while the Chinese hand-loom is inad- 
missible in these days of steam and water pow- 
er. Therefore, it is not used alone, but always 
in combination with other material, the warp 
generally being cotton, the weft ramie. A 
chemical process of treating the fiber has re 



GRAPE — CULTURE OF. 



131 



suited in proJiiciiig, in combination witli cot- 
ton, an article resembling the best mohair, a 
slitr, stronir, and cool texture, silky and beauti- 
ful. It is possible, perhaps probable, that fur- 
ther discoveries in this direction may give a 
tenfold impetus to the manufacturers' demand." 
We do not wish to close without a word of 
caution. Difficulty Act* been experienced in work- 
iiKj up llie fiber, and little use has as yet been 
made of it, either in Europeor America, except 
to aid the New yrleans sjjeculators in root-cut- 
tin;js. These men falselj' state that the plant 
will not grow from the .seed. Hon. Horace 
Capron, United States Commissioner of Agri- 
culture, in his report for April, 1869, thus sums 
up the present slatiis of the ramie; "The eco- 
nomical utilization of the fiber by improved 
proce-sses and skilled labor is a great desidera- 
tum ; but the plunder of hopeful experiment- 
ers by extortionate prices (for a plant that will 
grow like willows) obtained thtough misrepre- 
sentation and gross exaggeration, will not be 
abetted by the Department of Agriculture. It 
has been plafited throughout the extreme South, 
and everywhere grows luxuriantly, and gives 
assurance that unlimited quantities of material 
for fiber could be produced. I am not disposed 
further to encourage its growth until manufac- 
turers perfect processes, and invent or adapt 
machinery for preparing and manufacturing 
the fiber so economically that a great demand 
shall spring up for the raw material. All de- 
pends upon the successful attainment of such 
an end. The farmer of this country can an- 
swer any demand for it, but will wait till the 
draught is made upon him." • 

Rape. — This is a vegetable of the cabbage 
tribe, cultivated extensively in Europe, and to 
some extent in this country, for its seed, which 
is used for the manufacture of oil, and also as 
food for cattle and sheep in Winter and Spring. 
General C. S. Hamilton, of Fond du Lac, 
Wisconsin, recommends its more general culti- 
vation among American farmers, because of 
" the uniform success that has attended its 
growth, the ease with which the crop is put 
in and harvested, and above all the quick re- 
turn and liigh remunerative price which it 
brings." We quote further from the same au- 
thority : " Much prejudice has existed against 
the crop in the minds of American farmers, 
through fear, that, like mu.stard, the rape is 
hard to eradicate from the soil. No greater 
error can exist. The plant is exceedingly ten- 
der when young, is completely killed bv a sin- 



gle frost, and the seed is so tender that it can , 
not be made to preserve its vitality in the 
ground over Winter, by any possible means. 
It is as harmless for self-propagation as a crop 
of corn or beans. 

"The advantages to the farmer over other 
crops, may be summed up as follows: 

1st. Time of Seediruj. — The best time is from 
the 10th to the 25th of June, in the northern 
section of the Union — a .season in which the 
farmer has comparatively little to do with his 
other crops. If the crop is to be put on old 
land, it should not be plowed until just before 
seeding. By this means, ail weed.s and grass 
are turned under, and the rape seed germinates 
at once, completely covers the ground with its 
broad leaves, and gives little chance for any 
other plant. 

" 2d. Cost of Seed. — Two quarts sown broad- 
cast, and lightly harrowed in, are sufficient for 
an acre, the cost of which does not exceed fif- 
teen to twenty cents. 

" The crop sown during the last half of June, 
is ready to be cut during the first half of Sep- 
tember, after wheat and other cereals are out of 
the way. It can be cut with cradle, scythe, or 
mower ; must be cut before it is ripe enough to 
shell ; should lie upon the ground until dry 
enough to thresh, wiien it may be handled with 
pitchforks, drawn to the barn-floor, and trodden 
out with horses, or threshed with flail as fast 
as hauled in. It shells with such ease, that 
a pair of horses will tread it out as rapidly an 
two teams can haul it in. If hauled any con- 
siderable distance, an old canvas or sheet should 
be spread on the* wagon-rack. It is readily 
cleaned in an ordinary fanning-mill, and is 
ready for market before any other crop. 

"3d. Yield per Acre and Price. — During the 
seven years past, the crop has averaged fully as 
much as wheat per acre. In the town of New 
Holstein, Wisconsin, where more .seed is proba- 
bly raised than in any other single township,the 
average yield this past season has exceeded nine- 
teen bushels per acre, of fifty-six pounds per 
bushel. 

"The price of seed is governed in a great 
measure by the price of oils, and ranged during 
the past season (1865) $2 25 to $2 75 per bush- 
el, and this with less expense and labor in seed- 
ing, harvesting, and threshing, than is bestowed 
on any other crop." It is admirably adapted 
to prairie and clay soils, and is excellent to pre- 
pare ground for Winter wheat. Claus Oesau, 
of New Holstein, Wisconsin, has done much to 
introduce rape culture in the Northwast. 



132 



FIELD crops: 



Rice. — Kice lias long been known and cul- 
tivated in India, and all Southern Asia, where- 
ever the land would admit of being flooded. 
It is an amphibious plant, thriving best in wet 
land; indeed, scarcely thriving at all where 
the soil is not much of the time submerged, as 
in Louisiana, and along the Carolina sea-board. 
In the hilly part of Java the mountain rice is 
l)lanted on hill-sides, where no water but rain 
can come; but it is planted in the beginning of 
the rainy reason, and reaped in the beginning 
of the dry season. 

The best rice is that raised in our Southern 
States ; it is larger and sweeter than that of 
India, which is small, meager, and mucli le.ss 
nutritious. Kice has some excellent qualities 
as an article of diet, but it contains only four 
per cent, of gluten and fat, to eighty-live per 
cent, of starch, and therefore, naturally enough, 
most persons use it as an au.xiliary, rather 
than the chief food. 

There are various nietliods of cultivating and 
dressing rice practiced in diflerent countries: 
The following is the mode which Captain Basii, 
Hai.l observed in Carolina: 

"The grain is sown in rows in the bottom of 
trenches made by slow labor. These ridges lie 
about seventeen inches apart, from center to 
center. The rice is put in by hand, about the 
17tli of March, generally by women, and is 
never scattered, but cast so as to fall in a line. 
By means of flood-gates the water is then per- 
mitted to flow over the fields, and to remain on 
the ground fifteen diiys, at the depth of several 
inches. The object of this drenching is to 
sprout the seeds, as it is taclinically called. 
The water is next drawn ofl", and the ground 
alloweJ to dry, until the rice has risen three or 
four inches. This requires about a month. 
The fields are then again overflowed, and they 
remain submerged for upward of a fortnight, 
to destroy the grass and weeds. These pro- 
cesses finish about the 17th of May, after which 
the ground is allowed to remain dry till the 
16th of July, during which interval it is re- 
peatedly hoed, to remove such weeds as have 
not been effectually drowned, and also to loosen 
the soil. The water is then for the last time 
introduced, in order that the rice may be 
brought to maturity ; and it actually ripens 
while standing in the water. The harvest com- 
mences about the end of August, and extends 
into October. It is all cut by the male slaves, 
' who use a sickle, while the women make it up 
in bundles. 

" From the pedicles the rice must be sepa- 



rated by a hand-flail, as no machinery has yet 
been devised for efiecting this purpose. The 
next process is to detach the outer husk, which 
clings to the grain with great pertinacity. 
This is done by passing the rice between a pair 
of millstones removed to a considerable dis- 
tance from each other. The inner coat, or film, 
which envelops the grain, is removed by tritura- 
tion in mortars, under pestles weighing frouj 
two hundred and fifty to three hundred pounds. 
These pestles consist of upright bars shod with 
irons, which, being raised up by the machinery 
to the height of several feet, are allowed to fall 
down upon the rice, the particles of which are 
thus rubbed against one another till the film i.s 
removed. It is now thoroughly winnowed, and 
being packed in casks holding about six 
hundred pounds each, is ready for distribution 
over all parts of the world. Each plantation 
has a mill. Though rice is now so largely cul- 
tivated in Carolina that it constitutes the chief 
produce, the swampy land being well suited to 
it, it is not used so much for food in America 
as maize and wheat, and it is mostly raised for 
exportaticm, the Carolina rice being found supe- 
rior to every other. The cultivation of it is 
the most unhealthy work in which the negroes 
of Carolina are employed. They are obliged 
frequently to stand ankle-deep in the mud, 
with their bare heads exposed to tlie fierce rays 
of the sun. The consequence is, that numbers 
sink under it and die. At the unhealthy sc;i- 
son, when the harvest commences, all the white 
proprietors leave the spot, and go to higher 
ground or to the North." 

A profitable rice plantation can not be estab- 
lished without a large capital and much hard 
labor, but under favorable conditions it be- 
comes a remunerative crop. Kice was formerly 
exported after being cleansed and prepared for 
commerce and use, but most of the export of 
late years has been in the form of padd) — un- 
huUed x-ice — this condition being deemed most 
favorable to its preservation. The export of 
the present century lias averaged two million 
and a half to three million dollars a year. 

Rye. — Kye is not a favorite cereal ; it be- 
longs among tlie plebians and is expected to do 
mueh of the agricultural drudgery. It is very 
patient under neglect, and will bear more abuse 
than any other crop; yet there are lew crops 
that will pay better, proportionately, for care 
and good culture. "With the application of 
a small quantity of fertilizers," writes William 
H. White, "it may be grown year after year 



SUGAR CROPS. 



133 



on the same groutul, witli better results than 
any other crop. Owing to tliis quality it has 
been grown on mucli good lanj at the North 
.■^o often, without manure, sneeessively, that it 
has proved nearly fatal to the fertility of tlie 
soil. 

"Often when wheat could no longer be 
grown at a profit, rj'e has been made to take 
its place, and remunerating crops have been 
realized without manure, the only rotation 
bring grass or weeds, occupying the place of a 
fallow. It has been, and still is, practiced to 
6 inie extent — although new ideas and improved 
agriculture have in a measure done away with 
the practice — to turn up an old field which has 
been in pasture, and sow it to rye without 
manure. An old sand plain which has lain 
dormant for a year or two, is often used for a 
rye field, and in return ten to fifteen bushels of 
rye is often realized, which usually satisfies the 
expectations of the producer; this, with the 
straw, will be a fair paying crop for such 
land." But with the application of four or 
five cords of rich compost to the acre — more 
might be too strong for the good of the grain — 
a heavier crop may be anticipated. The best 
soil for rye is a rich sandy loam, naturally dry 
— a rallier loose subsoil, capable of passing off 
the water when an excess has by any means 
accumulated on the surface. On such a soil 
the yield is usually satisfactory ; the grain is 
heavy, and makes lan excellent article of flour 
for family use. New cleared forest land pro- 
duces luxuriant crops, showing that rye de- 
lights in a soil well stocked with pabulum. 
Tills grain may be sown earlier or later than 
Winter wheat, but the best crops are realized 
when sown in September, in the North, as then 
it becomes well rooted to stand a hard Winter ; 
if it gets up large, it may be fed off, without 
detriment, by calves,"" cows, or young stock. 
Where wheat is uncertain, it is often made to 
follow corn, tobacco, etc. Sometimes, from the 
press of work or other causes, it is not sown till 
jnst as the ground is freezing up for Winter, 
when the seed lies till Spring before it starts 
into growth. In such case it has every quality 
of Winter rye sowed earlier, although matur- 
ing later in the season. 

The culture and harvesting of rye are so 
ne:irly like those of wheat, elsewhere treated, 
that little room need be given to their considera- 
tion liere. The whiteness an<l sweetness of i-ye 
flour depend on the soil in which the grain is 
grown, as much as on the skill of the miller. 
A close, heavy, or hard soil, will not produce 



grain that will make as light sweet flour as one 
of a different description. 

In England rye is little raised except as a 
green crop, and when fed off early in Spring 
the land is invigorated and will bear an excel- 
lent harvest of roots the same year. Many 
sheep raisers in this country profitably grow 
rye, for pasture in the Fall, after other crops 
are gone. It will never be much grown except 
for soiling or the distillery, in regions wliere 
wheat flourishes. 

Number of bushels annually produced in the 
United States amount to about twenty mill- 
ion — of which one-half grows on the .soil of 
New York and Pennsylvania. 

Sug'a.r Crops. — Sugar is one of the most 
important articles which commerce has brought 
into general use. As a condiment and nutri- 
ment it is extensively employed in a great 
variety of articles of food; it forms the basis 
of all kinds of confectionary; it is largely used 
in the preservation of fruits, and also, in con- 
nection with other article.s, in the preservation 
of fish and meats ; for medicinal purposes, 
sugar is among the most valuable of demul- 
cents, and is also a gentle aperient; aside from 
being of value for its direct medicinal qualities, 
it is universally used as a medium for admin- 
istering many active remedies, for disguising 
the disagreeable taste of others and preserving 
mixtures from change. 

Important as sugar is now regarded, it was 
mostly unknown to antiquity. Sweet calamus 
and cane are alluded to by the Old Testament 
writers, but in language that indicates little 
knowledge of their use, and honey seems to have 
been their chief saccharine reliance. The first 
mention of (he boiling of the sugar-cane comes 
to us from the fifth century, and the Saracens 
introduced it 1o Europe, via the Levant. The 
cane is regarded as a native of America, an in- 
ference from the fact that it grows very readily 
and productively, imder favorable conditions, 
in our Southernmost States. 

Sugar is one of the ordinary products of 
vegetation, and different varieties are extracted 
from common sugar-cane, sorghum, beets, In- 
dian corn, maple trees, grapes, and other fruits, 
chestnuts, pumpkins, potatoes, and a large num- 
ber of tropical plants. The sugar product of 
tlie world, as it was known to commerce in 
1861, was as follows: 



Bl'Cl Mlgl 



1,9.V1,™" toll! 

t-ill.ODd •■ 

ugai- Hm.rjft) " 

ugai- 2U,Ul«l " 



134 



FIELD crops: 



Beet Sugrar.— The exhorbitimt price of 
sugar lliat prevailed during the late civil war, 
induced some enterprising manufacturers of 
Illinois to begin on a large scale the extraction 
of sugar from the beet. Considering that we 
pay nearly $100,000,000 annually for foreign 
mgar, and that this may be made from the 
beet at less than half the present price of sugar 
from the cane, it would seem to be the part of 
wisdom to cultivate it more largely. 

Hon. Horace Capron, United States Com- 
missioner of Agriculture, wrote, in 1868, an 
interesting letter on this .subject, from which 
we extract : " A manufactory of beet sugar was 
in successful operation in Silesia as early as 
1805; and in France repeated experiments 
were undertaken a few years later. Up to 
1818, no very marked or rapid progress was 
made, though the business was constantly ex- 
tending. In 1839, the manufacture, already 
established upon a solid footing, embraced the 
operation of two hundred and sixty-eight fac- 
tories iu France, Germany, Sweden, and Russia. 

" In 1848, France had 294, Prussia 346, and 
Russia 425. The present number of factories 
in France, according to DeNeumann, is 499; 
many of them are more extensive than those 
of former days, and fourteen of the number 
have been established during the past year. 
On the first of January, 1868, 3,173 refineries 
of beet-root sugar were reported as in opera- 
tion in Europe. The total product, in 1828, is 
stated to have been 7,000 tons; in 1851, 180,000 
tons; and in 1867, the enormous quantity of 
663,000 tons, or 1,485,120,000 pounds, worth 
$100,000,000 or about seven cents per pound. 

"Sixteen years ago, France was able to 
manufacture half of her total consumption of 
sugar, or 60,000 tons; Belgium, consuming 
14,000 tons, imported in 1851 but 4,000 tons. 
Germany, on the same date, produced 43,000 
tons; Austria, 15,000, and Ru.ssia, 35,000 tons; 
the latter country also importing, at the same 
time, 60,000 tons of sugar in addition to the 
home product. The total manufacture of Eu- 
rope as stated above, has been almost quadru- 
pled since that date, and cane sugar in several 
of those States is now scarcely known. The 
amount manufactured in France during the 
three months ending November 30, 1857, was 
120,553 tons — 18,613 more than was made in 
the same period of the previous year. 

"As an illustration of the extent of such a 
business, a record may be cited of an estab- 
lishment for obtaining sugar by infusion of 



dried beet, at Waghausel, near Carlsruhe, in 
the duchy of Baden, in which 3,000 people 
were employed, a capital of eighty millions of 
francs ($16,000,000) used, and twelve acres of 
land covered with buildings. 

"The product of the beets per acre is from 
fourteen to fifteen tons in France and Belgium. 
Enormous crops have occasionally been re- 
ported. The English Gardener^s Chronicle con- 
tains the statement of M. DeGasparin, of 
twenty, seven tons seven hundred weight grown 
upon thirty-nine perches sixteen square yards, 
or nearly one hundred and ten tons per acre. 
He sowed the seed under glass, transplanted 
the plants in April, hoed repeatedly, and irri- 
gated every two weeks. 

" A ton of beets yield about one hundred 
pounds of raw sugar. At first the proportion 
of .sugar obtained was about three per cent. It 
was increased to six, and even seven and a half 
per cent. 

"The beet cake for feeding purposes, the 
mola.sses, alcohol, and other products obtained, 
greatly increase the aggregate which makes the 
total value of this branch of industry. Beet- 
.sugar districts become so enriched that far 
greater amounts of the cereals and other pro- 
ducts of agriculture are obtained than before 
beet faciorles were known. 

"The growing of the beet requires rotation, 
as well as thorough culture, and careful weed- 
ing. It would therefore lie a boon of untold 
value to our wheat-producing districts of the 
West, which are decreasing year by year in re- 
turns for labor expended from these cause.s, and 
the additional neglect of stock-growing. 

"The large and increasing quantities of sugar 
and molasses required for consumption in this 
country, and the amount of money paid for for- 
eign labor in its production, can be appreciated 
by a glance at the following statement of im- 
ports for five years, which is in addition to a 
small domestic product of cane, maple, and 
others, and large quantities of sorghum syrups; 
a small amount, 'also, by indirect trade, is not 
included, on account of incompleteness in the 
oflBcial statement of imports : 



" Here is a total of $133,943,150, gold value. 



BEET SUGAR — CANE STGAR. 



135 



paid for foreign sugar in five 3ears, and S30,- 
115,073 for molasses, an average of about $33,- 
000,000 per year, and more than §50,000,000 in 
currency, the most of which, if not all, should 
be retained at home. In view of the great 
success of the business in Europe, the Ameri- 
can people owe to the world's estimate of Ameri- 
can enterprise a determined and persistent ef- 
fort for its establishment here." 

Mr. Ca-PKON further elaborated these views 
in the Agricultural Report for 1867: "Our 
present annual con.sumption amounts to $60,- 
000,000, of which we produce only a moiety. 
TJ'.e domestic production in 1859, as returned 
by the census, was, of cane sugar, 230,982,000 
pounds; of maple, 40,120,205 pounds. The cane- 
sugar interest, though advancing slowly from 
its depressed condition during the war, yielded 
in 1867 not exceeding 40,000,000 pounds. Of 
beet sugar there was produced, during the last 
season, by the establishment at Cliatsworth, Il- 
linois, 1,000,000 pounds. Other companies have 
been formed in Illinois, in California, and in 
Wisconsin. 

" When we consider the enormous outlays 
upon a canefsugar plantation, for the neces.sary 
buildings and machinery for its manufacture, 
reaching, in some cases, $100,000, and that this 
is only required to be in operation two months 
of the twelve, it becomes an important inquiry 
how the manufacture of sugar from the two 
substances may be combined to advantage. 
Chemical analysis of sugar-beet, at difiercnt 
periods of its growth, by Professor AuTlSELL, 
the chemist of the department, shows that it is 
most productive of saccharine matter, in this 
latitude, in the months of July and August, or 
during the prevalence of alternate showers and 
warm sunshine. In Louisiana the beet-seed 
may be sown in January ; the beet would at- 
tain its greatest perfection in April and May, a 
time most luopitious for that climate. The ma- 
chinery, with slight additions for rasping and 
preparing the root, may then be put into opei'a- 
tion and continued upon the beet until the cane 
is ready for use, and again, when the cane is 
e.xhausted, placed upon the dried beet for the 
remainder of the year." 

Dr. Thomas Antisell, chemist, made an 
iutere.-^ting report to the Department in 1867, 
the result of a variety of experiments with the 
beet for sugar purposes. From this we quote : 
"The Castelnaudry Yellow, White Magdeburg, 
Viluiorin's Improved White, and the Improved 
White Imperial are the varieties which yielded 
the- largest amounts of sugar. The sudden fall- 



ing of the sugar per centage at the close of 
September in all the varieties is remarkable; 
and a.s toward November, although the per cent- 
age of sugar increases, it never attains what it 
was in the middle of September, it is evident 
that there is no advantage in delaying the press- 
ing of the roots beyond the 10th of September, 
and that nothing is gained by allowing the 
beets to remain in the ground after the 1st of 
October. 

"The greatest yield of juice in the majority 
of the varieties was obtained within one moiUh 
of the plant growth, from about the middle of 
August to the middle of September. Thus the 
maximum volume of juice at different periods 
in growth of the several varieties were as fol- 
lows ; Wliite Silesian Ked Top, August 17 to 
27; Improved White Imperial, August 17 to 
27; Vilmorin's Improved White, August 21 to 
September 6 ; White Silesian Green Top, Sep- 
tember 9 to 30 ; Beta Imperialis, No. 1, Sep- 
tember 17 to October 3; Beta Imperialis, No. 
2, September 17 to October 3; White Magdel- 
burg, September 23 to October 7; Castelnaudry 
Yellow, October 10 to 17." 

It is not probably practicable for farmers to 
manufacture their own beets into sugar for do- 
mestic use. The result on so small a .scale could 
not be commensurate with the expen.se. The 
better way would be, as in the C3.se of the cider- 
mill, to make one manufactory suffice for the 
wants of a considerable section of country. To 
this the beets, either in a green or dried state, 
could be transferred at the proper lime and .sold 
at a given rale per ton, or be manufactured at 
so much per pound, as might be agreed upon 
by the parties to the arrangement. If the beets 
are to be transferred to a factory and the dis- 
tance is considerable, the best way would be to 
cut the roots into small pieces — first washing 
them — and then drying by artificial heat. This 
will evolve eighty odd per .cent, of their weight, 
correspondingly diminish their bulk, leaving a 
residuum containing about fifty-five per cent, 
of sugar, which is-extracted by infusion after 
months of delay, if this becomes necessary. 

Cane Su^ar. — By this, reference is had 
to sugar made from the common cane. This 
cane is very sensitive to frost, and can oidy be 
grown south of 32° — the latitude of Vicksburg, 
Missis-sippi, and Savannah, Georgia. The crop 
is sometimes destroyed, even in Lousiana. Of 
the 230,000,000 pounds cane sugar annually 
raised in the United States, Louisiana liad pro- 
duced, up to 1800, 221,000,000 pounds. The 



136 



FIELD CROPS : 



importations of sugar into the United States in 

the same year (1860) were as follows: 

Brown sugiir. pounds 692,941,S72 

I,..Hf and renned, punnda 771,3:11 

Moliss.-s. pi.un.lB ':il.3.''2 

■White clayed powderc-d sugar I,fl3:..l)3!) 

These figures show how small a proportion 
of the sugar consumed in this country has been 
raised within its limits; this, too, in a year 
during which there was no unusual interfer- 
ence with the industry. It will be seen that 
we produce less than one-third of the sugar 
which we consume. 

Sugar-cane is indigenous to both the East and 
the West Indies, and was transplanted to Lou- 
isiana about 1750. The first sugar-mill in the 
United States was erected in 1758, by M. Du- 
BREUIL, on his plantation, just below the pres- 
ent site of New Orleans. From this beginning 
the cultivation of sugar prospered to such a de- 
gree that in 1770 it formed the staple export of 
the colony, and, after our revolutionary war, 
was prosecuted so vigorously by emigrants from 
the United Stales, that, upon the delta of the 
Mississippi river alone, there were eighty-one 
sugar plantations in 1803, at the date of the 
ce.ssion to the United States of the territory of 
Louisiana. 

The principal variety of the cane grown in 
Louisiana is the Striped Ribbon or Java, the 
hardiest that has been found. An average crop 
is one and a half hogsheads of sugar and one 
hundred and fifteen gallons of molasses to the 
acre. 

Soil and Sued. — Tlie sugar-cane thrives best 
in a rich sandy loam, plentifully supplied with 
lime and phosphates. The plant is grown from 
cuttings, and these ought to be carefully se- 
lected from the ripest and strongest cane of the 
previous year, and preserved in a "bed" two 
feet deep in the field, to protect it from frost 
and sun. 

Cultivation. — The plant grows in a succession 
of joints, from four to twenty feet high, the 
stem being from one to two inches in diameter; 
long, slender leaves shoot out from the opposite 
sides of alternate joints, and fall off when the 
plant comes to maturity. When from eleven to 
twelve months old, a sprout without joints, 
called the "arrow," grows seven or eight feet 
above the top of the cane, terminating in an 
ample panicle with numerous white flowers. 
Seeds, however, are rarely ripened by the cul- 
tivated cane. 

The method of planting varies in different 
countries. The general practice, however, is, 
after breaking up the land deeply, to run 



straight, parallel furrows, at a distance of from 
four to six feet apart in the West Indies, or 
eight feet apart in Louisiana. Slips of cane, 
each having several joints, are placed in these 
furrows and lightly covered. Some planters 
lay from two to four canes in each furrow, lap- 
ping them the whole distance. The cane 
sprouts at the joints, usually throwing up hut 
a .single shoot to the slip, although there may 
be several joints. In the West Indies the cane 
is planted from August to November, and in 
Louisiana from January to March. When the 
young plants make their appearance, the rows 
are plowed and hoed, the process being repeated 
often enough to keep the ground free from 
weeds. When the cane is large enough to shade 
the ground — which should be early in June — 
the last deep furrows are run, and left to drain 
off the surplus water. 

Harvesting — The first crop of cane is removed 
in Louisiana in October following the planting, 
care being taken to cut the cane two or three 
joints above the ground. From one of these 
joints — the "ratoon " — a new shoot springs up, 
which is the cane of the following year. The 
"ratoon " is not so strong and vigorous as the 
'•plant canes," but yet affords better juice, and 
is more readily converted into sugar. In Louis- 
iana a succession of three crops can be de- 
pended on from one planting, or, in other 
words, the cane needs to be planted only once 
in three years. In the West Indies the " ra- 
toons " continue to renew themselves, sometimes 
for more than twenty crops. As it takes the 
entire cane growing upon an acre of ground to 
replant itself and three acres adjoining, or one- 
fourth the cane every third year, the planting 
of the cane has been a serious drawback upon 
the sugar interest. Planters were loth to part 
with so considerable a portion of their product, 
sought to make the burden lighter by devo- 
ting the smaller and inferior canes to planting, 
and crushing the sounder ones. This led to a 
.serious deterioration in the quality of cane, and 
resulted in a gradual decrease each year of the 
yield of sugar. To remedy this evil the United 
States government, but a short time before the 
breaking out of the rebellion, -collected a new 
supply of fresh and vigorous canes from the 
northern portion of South America, and dis- 
tributed them among the planters. The war 
prevented the collection of statistics to show 
how much the crops were improved by the in- 
troduction of new canes. 

The juice is expressed and reduced to sugar 
by the use of heavy and expensive machinery 



t 



CORN SUGAR — EXPERIMENTS. 



137 



The present product of a hundred pounds 
weight of sugar-cane does not exceed nine 
pounds weight of sugar, whereas the natural 
contents are about eighteen. A new method is 
advertised, whereby nearly the whole of the 
natural contents can be extracted. 

Corn Sug'ar. — Tliis is produced either 
from the grains or from the stalks of Indian 
corn. We copy from an essay by William 
Webb, of Delaware. "The results of my ex- 
perimenls have been encouraging. The maim- 
facture of sugar from Indian corn, compared 
with its extraction from the beet, offers many 
advantages. It is more simple, and less liable 
to failure; the machinery is less expensive, and 
the amount of fuel required is less by one-half. 
The quantity of the sugar produced on a given 
space of ground, is greater, besides being of 
better quality. The raw juice of maize, when 
cultivated for sugar, marks 10' on the saccha- 
rometer, while the average of cane juice (as I 
am iij formed) is not higher than 8°, and beet 
juice not over 3°. 

Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, in one of his pub- 
lications, states, as the result of actual weighing 
and measuring, " that corn, sown broadcast, 
yielded five poimds of green stalks per square 
foot ; this is at the rate of 108J tons to tlie aci-e. 
In the first place, it has been satisfactorily 
proved that sugar of an excellent quality, suit- 
able for common use without refining, may be 
made from the stalks of maize, and that the 
juice of this plant, when cultivated in a certain 
manner, contains saccharine matter remarkably 
free from foreign substances. 

"A conclusion from my observations is, that 
if the ears were taken ofl' in their embryo state, 
the whole quantity of saccharine matter pro- 
duced by the process of vegetation would be 
preserved in the stalk, from which it might be 
extracted when the plant was matured. 

" Grain is produced in the West in such over- 
flowing abundance that tlie markets become 
glutted, and inducements are offered to employ 
the surplus produce in distillation. This busi- 
ness is now becoming disreputable. The happy 
conviction is spreading rapidly, that the use of 
alcohol, as a beverage, instead of conducing to 
health and strength, is the surest means of de- 
stroying both. Some other production, there- 
fore, will be required, in which the powers of 
our soil may be profitably employed. This, it 
is hoped, will be found in the business now pro- 
posed. Instead of distilleries converting food 
into poison, we may have sugar-houses, manu- 



facturing at our doors an article of universal 
demand, not merely useful, but necessary, fur- 
nishing, as it does, one of the most simple, nat- 
ural, and nutritious varieties of human .suste- 
nance found in the whole range of vegetable 
production." 

Mr. Ellswokth details the method of plant- 
ing — broadcast or with a drill^and alter culti- 
vation, when he continues : "The next opera- 
tion is taking off the ears. Many stalks will 
not produce any ; but whenever they appear, 
they must be removed. It is not best to under- 
take this work too early, as, when the ears first 
appear, they are tender, and can not be taken 
off without breaking, which increases the 
trouble. Any time before the formation of 
grain upon them will be .soon enough. 

" Nothing further is necessary to be done until 
the crop is ready to cut for grinding. In our 
latitude, the cutting may commence with the 
earlier varieties about the middle of August. 
The later kinds will be ripe in September, and 
contiime in season nn|til cut off by the frost. 
The stalks should be topped and bladed while 
standing in'the field. They are then cut, tied 
in bundles, and taken to the mill. The top and 
blades, when properly cured, make an excellent 
fodder, rather better, it is believed, than any 
hitherto n.sed ; and the residuum, after passing 
the rollers, may easily be dried and used in the 
same way; another advantage over the cane, 
which, after the juice is expressed, is usually 
burned. 

" The mills should be made on the same gen- 
eral principle employed in constructing those 
intended lor grinding cane. An important dif- 
ference, however, will be found both in the 
original cost ami in the expense of working 
them. .ludging from the comparative hard- 
ness of the cane and cornstalk, it is believed 
tliat one-fourth part of the strength necessary 
in the construction of a cane-mill will be amply 
sufficient for corn, and less than one-fourtli part 
of the power will move it with the same ve- 
locity." 

The process of manufacture and crystaliza- 
tion is described as somewhat similar to that 
of the syrup of sugar-cane, but the novice will 
probably need to experiment with some patience 
before thoroughly mastering the conjury. 

The Dubuque Times says : " Mr. Thomas 
Randolph, a farmer of this county, residing 
between Worthington and Cascade, informs us 
that he has tried the experiment of making 
molasses from sweet corn [stalks]. He says 
it is superior to that made from sorghum or 



138 



FIELD crops: 



imphee. The cornstalk yields aa much mo- 
lasses as the sorghum. He promises to send us 
a sample, when we shall liave the quality tested 
by judges and report their decision. If it sus- 
tains Mr. Randolph's opinion, it will be of no 
small consideration to our farmers, as the sweet 
cornstalk will mature in this latitude when 
the sorghum and imphee will not. Mr. Ran- 
dolph used his cornstalks immediately after 
he had removed the crop of ears for table use." 

Sugar from Indian Meal. — The discovery of 
obtaining "gluco.se," a liquid or gummy sac- 
charine substance, from starch, was made in 
1811 by a Russian chemist, Emil Kirchoff. 
It has since been largely manufactured in all 
the countries of Central Europe, and is much 
used as the basis of champagne. The granu- 
lation of starch sugar was accomplished in 
1854, by Joseph Hirsh, a Munich chemist, 
now resident in Chicago. 

Cane sugar is understood to be two and a 
half times as sweet as corn-slarch sugar. Tlie 
syrup made from corn starch and sugar-cane 
contains, in one hundred parts, the following 
constituents : 



Sugar.... 
Dextrine 
■\Vatcr ... 

Salts 

Caramel 



Coin. 


Cane. 


41.-lfi 


43.15 


3rt.2o 
1.12 


3.1.49 
2.17 
21.19 



" The yield of sugar," says tlie Chicago Times, 
" is about si.xty pounds to one hundred pounds 
of corn meal — ^the yield of .syrup, of the proper 
density and sweetness for table use, being about 
seventy pounds. The crystals of the sugar are 
much smaller than those of cane sugar. The 
sugar is not liable to change back into syrup, 
or even to become soft or moist from absorp- 
tion of moisture from the atmosphere, and, 
when the .syrup is properly made, it is not lia- 
ble to become hard or congealed into cakes. 
It can be made as clear and transparent as 
water, and possesses a flavor peculiarly its own, 
and pronounced superior to that of maple mo- 
lasses, though by no means similar to it. It is 
by far the most pleasant to the taste of any 
sweet so far discovered." 

Extracting the Starch. — Tlie Times gives the 
process of Mr. HiRSH, by wliich the manufac- 
ture of corn sugar was begun in Chicago : " The 
first thing to be done is to manufacture the 
corn into starch. Less care and attention are 
bestowed upon its manufacture than where the 
starch itself is to be made an article of com- 



merce, the object being simply to extract all 
the starchy portion of the grain, The corn is 
first ground into very fine flour or meal ; the 
finer it is ground, the more easy and satisfac- 
tory the future process. It is then mixed with 
water to about the consistency of thin cream, 
and kept thoroughly agitated for some time, 
and is then run slowly*lnto a cylinder made of 
fine wire gauze, revolving very rapidly. As 
the cylinder revolves, the water flies ofl' through 
the gauze, carrying with it the starchy portion 
of the grain, and leaving behind it in the cyl- 
inder the glutinous portions. The cylinder is 
stopped every few moments, and the gluten, 
which adheres closely to tlie sides, removed 
with scrapers. 

"The starch water is conveyed to a vat, 
and allowed to sellle, which it does in a few 
hours, the starch going to the bottom, and the 
water, which is quite yellow, collecting at the 
top. The water is drawn off, and clean water 
introduced, and the starch stirred thoroughly 
into it, and again allowed to settle. This ope- 
ration is continued several times, and lias the 
effect to wash out from the starch much of the 
coloring matter, which would be much more 
ditficiilt to remove at a later stage in tlie pro- 
cess. When the .starch has been sufficiently 
washed, no new water is let in, and the starch 
soon thickens and hardens at the bottom to 
about the consistency of stiff clay, in which 
condition it is used. 

"The corn contains from thirteen to seven- 
teen per cent, of gluten, and from sixty-five to 
seventy-five per cent, of starch, the remainder 
being water, husks, salts, etc. The gluten is 
used in large quanties in dyeing establishments 
and in cotton mills, as a medium for fixing or 
setting colors. It is said that the beautiful 
color of ultramarine blue can not be imparted 
to cotton fabrics save by the u.se of this sub- 
stance, or animal albumen made from the white 
of eggs. Mixed with sugar, large quantities 
of gluten are manufactured into macaroni ; and, 
mixed with other ingredients, as potatoes, it 
can be made of use as an article of food to 
much advantage. 

From Starch to Sugar. — " In transforming the 
starch into sugar, it is first changed into dex- 
trine, then into syrup, and then into sugar. 
Dextrine is the same as British gum, and is 
u.sed for making mucilage, fixing dye-stuffs, 
and applied to all purposes to which gum ara- 
ble is applied. 

"The starch, about the consistency of stiff 
clay, is shoveled from the f;ettling tub into a 



I 

4 

I 



SUGAR FROM INDIAN MEAL. 



139 



large boiler, which will hold many tons. A 
few inches of water is let in on the top, filling 
the builer about two-thirds full, when sulphuric 
aoid or oil of vitriol is added, and the lid closed 
and fastened. Entering the top of the boiler, 
and running down to within an inch or two of 
the bottom, is a steam pipe, which terminates 
in pipes branching off from the center to all 
points of tlie boiler, and only an inch from the 
bottom. Tliese branching pipes are perforated 
willi small holes, and, wlien the lid has been 
closed, steam is let on, and, forcing its way 
through these aaaall apertures, in about five 
minutes penetrates and softens the whole mass 
above it. In a short time, the contents of the 
boiler resembles starch as used for laundry 
purposes, and soon after it is changed to a sub- 
stance resembling mucilage. In a few minutes 
more the contents become as thin and transpa- 
rent as water, which is an indication that the 
starch has become thoroughly dissolved. If some 
of it be now placed in a proof glass, and a little 
iodine added, it will assume a dark blue color. 

"Continuing the boiling, the starch is turned 
into dextrine. When this change is perfect, 
iodine produces a purple or red color. If the 
boiling is still continued, the dextrine changes 
rapidly to .syrup, and then to sugar. Iodine 
will not indicate, by producing difl'erent colors, 
the changes as they occur, and alcohol is there- 
fore employed. If any considerable quantity 
of dextrine is present in the contents of the 
proof glass, a few drops of alcohol will cause a 
'flock' to be precipitated to the bottom imme- 
diately. If only a small quantity of de.Ktrine 
is present, as in syrnp and molasses, alcohol 
simply renders the contents of the boiler 
slightly turbid. When the dextrine is all 
changed, the work is completed, and the intro- 
duction of alcohol will produce no change in 
color or transparency. 

" The temperature of the contents of the kettle 
is raised to tiiree hundred degrees, and over, 
Fahrenheit, and the boiling requires very close 
attention and care. If the contents are boiled 
after all the dextrine has been changed, the 
most injurious results will follow. The first is 
perhaps a more complete change to cane sugar, 
but with such a combination with the sulphuric 
acid as will baflle all attempts at separation, 
even with the strongest of chemicals; it will 
be dark in color, salty and acrid to the taste, 
and comparatively worthless. The next change 
is to acetic and formic acid, and humus. At 
this stage, by the presence of the acetic acid, 
the compound can be made into vinegar by 



simply adding water, though not in large 
enough quantities to render it practicable for 
the manufacture of vinegar. The formic acid, 
which is a mere chemical curiosity, having the 
power to neutralize alkalies, but devoid of ef- 
fect otherwise, and distinguishable by its pe- 
culiar odor, which resembles freshly-baked 
bread, will not act injuriously in transforming 
it into vinegar. If the boiling is continued 
still farther, the product is transformed into 
humus or mold. But boiling too long with 
the acid is not the only danger; there is great 
danger of raising the temperature too high. It 
is necessary to raise the temperature over three 
hundred degrees Fahrenheit; but, if it is raised 
three hundred and sixty-five degrees, the syrup 
becomes changed to an amorphous sugar, known 
as barley sugar, which it is impossible to crys- 
talize. If raised to four hundred or four hun- 
dred and twenty degrees, caramel, or burnt 
sugar, is the result, which can be boiled down 
until thick enough to run into cakes, and then 
dried and pulverized into powder, but not crys- 
talizing, it will settle back into^akes agiiin, ab- 
sorbing moisture enough from the air for that 
purpose. 

"Presuming the temperature not to have been 
too high, or the boiling continued too long, the 
steam is shut off from the boiler as soon as the 
transparency of the contents, when tested with 
alcohol, show that the desired stage has been 
reached. The liquid, as soon as possible, is 
drawn into a cooling tub, or settler, where the 
acid is saturated by the addition of slaked lime, 
which must be used with much care, because, 
if the liquid is too hot, and a trifle more than 
necessary is used, the lime will impart to it a 
bitter taste. Chalk and marble dust, being, 
when pure, the carbonates of lime, are used for 
the same purpose. Immediately upon the in- 
troduction of the lime, the sulphuric acid com- 
bines with it, forming sulphate of lime, or gyp- 
sum, the natural form of plaster Paris, which is 
precipitated to the bottom. In forming this 
union, provided the carbonates are used, large 
quantities of carbonic acid are thrown oft', caus- 
ing an effervescence similar to a glass of cham- 
pagne or Seidlitz powder; and, to prevent the 
liquor from being thrown from the tub, it mu.st 
be filled only partially, and the carbonates of 
lime introduced in small quantities. When 
eflervescence ceases, it is proof that the sul- 
phuric acid has all been neutralized. 

" The liquor is now allowed to settle from six 
to eighteen hours, when, as clear and transpa- 
rent as water, and of a fine, sweet taste, but 



140 



FIELD CROPS : 



containing so much water — from 85 to 90 per 
cent. — as to prevent erystalization, it is drawn 
off into a fresh tub. 

"The sulphate of lime is e:isi!y soluble in 
sugar, and, in neutralizing the sulphuric acid, 
the liquid takes up more or jless of this com- 
pound, wliidi it still holds in solution. As its 
presence would render the syrup black, or 
nearly so, and also prevent perhaps twenty-five 
per cent, of the sugar from crystalizing, it 
must be removed. Mr. HiRSH claims, among 
other things, the use of carbonic acid gas, in 
connection with the phosphate of ammonia, or 
the hyperphosphate of lime, for this purpose. 
The carbonic acid gas is made by forcing a 
strong current of air over burning charcoal, 
the acid passing o6f througli a pipe. This pipe, 
after passing through a trough of water, which 
cools the gas, terminates at the bottom of a 
vessel filled with water. The gas forced out 
from this pipe passes up through the water, 
and all ashes, soot, or dust of any kind con- 
tained in it, of course is left behind. The top 
of the vessel is closed, and a pipe leads from it 
to the bottom of the tub into which the syrup 
has now been drawn. From this pipe the gas 
passes up through the .syrup, and off into the 
air, causing a slight efTervescence. Every par- 
ticle of lime encountered by the carbonic acid 
gas, in its passage through the syrup, is sepa- 
rated from the sugar and rendered insoluble, 
and of course settles to the bottom. Where 
phosphate of ammonia is used, the phosphoric 
acid unites with the lime, separating it from 
the sugar, and rendering it insoluble, in which 
condition it falls to the bottom; the ammonia 
set free by the withdrawal of the acid with 
which it was united passes off into the air. 
Where hyperphosphate of lime is employed, 
containing two parts of phosphoric acid to one 
of lime, the superfluous acid unites with the 
lime in the syrup, rendering it, and by its with- 
drawal, the hyperphosphate also, a neutral in- 
soluble phosphate, which is also precipitated. 

"Tlie syrup, after having remained some 
hours undisturbed, is drawn into a vacuum pan 
for evaporation, for, even after having received 
the treatment already described, its erystaliza- 
tion does not follow as a matter of course, but 
depends to a great extent upon the treatment 
to which it is still to be subjected, and the care 
it receives in its later stages. 

"The vacuum pan is used because it is ne- 
cessary to bring the syrup to its proper consist- 
ency by quick evaporation, and at the same 
time not heat it to too high a temperature. 



The vacuum pan is closed at the top, and pro- 
vided either with a steam coil or steam pipes, 
running up and down, with a stop-cock near 
the bottom, by ivliich the contents can be re- 
moved, or additional syrup pumped in. An 
air pump, to exhaust the steam and air, is also 
provided, together with a thermometer, and, in 
the more complete ones, a vapor condenser, by 
which all the sugar carried off by the steam is 
caught and returned. By the nse of the vacuum 
pan, aiisuming it to work perfectly, of course, 
water can be made to boil at just one remove 
above the freezing point, thirty-two degrees 
Fahrenheit, wliereas two hundred and twelve 
degrees is the boiling point in the open air. 
Eighty degrees is the usual boiling point of 
the syrup, when first put into the pan, although 
as it becomes thicker, it retains more heat, 
and of course attains a higher temperature, 
about one hundred and forty-five degrees'being 
the lowest boiling point wlieii of proper con- 
sistency for cry.stalization. Tlie syrH|i is drawn 
into tlie vacuum pan until about two-tliirds full. 
All apertures are closed, and the steam let into 
the pipes, applying, in I'acl, tu-o hundred and 
twelve degrees of heat. The air pump ex- 
hausts the air, and at about eighty degrees, 
although lujt hot enough to burn tht hand, the 
.syrup commences to boil and give off steam, 
which is also removed by the air pump as fast 
as generated, and in this manner the syrup is 
boiled down quickly. When the syrup has 
been boiled part way down, more is pumped 
in, and the same operation continued many 
times until the pan is over two-thirds full of 
.syrup of sufiicient density to crystalize, when 
it is drawn off, and pas.sed through a Dumont 
filterer, of which mention has already been 
made as a cylinder, .some forty feet in length, 
filled with pulverized animal charcoal. The 
charcoal is first heated by the introduction of 
steam, to prevent the syrup from crystalizing 
while passing through it. From the filter the 
syrup passes over a coil of steam pipes, con- 
taining the waste steam from the vacuum pan, 
and consequently not heated to a very high 
temperature. This completes such little evap- 
oration as may still be necessary, and the syrup 
is run into molds, or boxes, similar to cane 
syrup for erystalization, receiving after it the 
same treatment." 

Maple Sug^ar. — The maple-sugar crop 
of the United States is reported at forty mill- 
ion pounds annually' — no le.ss than twenty 
thousand tons! Of this, Vermont produces 



MAPLK SUGAR. 



141 



one-half. The hard maple yields the true cane 
sugar; when properly refined it resembles pre- 
cisely the sugar yielded by the cane. In its 
brown, commercial condition^ it Iiolds the pe- 
culiar maple flavor whicli makes it one of the 
most delicious of conreclion.i<. Crude maple 
sugar is never worth so much for family uses 
as good cane sugar; but the maple syrup is 
more highly esteemed than any similar extract. 

In those regions where the rock maple 
flourishes, wliich includes a broad belt stretch- 
ing from New England to the far West, from 
the sugar camps of, Maine, beyond the natural 
sugar orchards of Wisconsin, maple sugaring 
is practiced. There is no brancli of farming 
carried on with so little outlay for fixtures. 
Farms in Vermont will not average over $40 
in investment for all their sugar-making con- 
veniences. Comparatively little improvement 
has been made in the maple-sugar business for 
two generations. The ax has given way to the 
auger; the old troughs for catching sap have 
been generally displaced by tin, or wooden 
buckets, and hemispherical cist-iron kettles by 
sheet-iron pans, for boiling, and the stone arch 
or straddle-pole, by a brick arch. 

Drawing Sap. — The early spring is the sap 
season, when the ground freezes by night and 
thaws by day. Never box your trees with an 
ax to gather the sap, but use an auger on the 
sunny side. Never bore with a downward slant 
into the tree, for this will catch and retain 
water, and greatly promote decay. Bore up- 
ward, about two feet from the ground, and 
never more than an inch or an inch and a half 
deep — the Cultivator says but three-fourths of 
an inch. If the auger penetrates beyond the 
bark and sap-wood, the vitality of the tree is 
injured. Most of the sap courses near the 
bark. 

There are various opinions about the size of 
bit to be used; but this depends somewhat on 
the size of the tree. The Ohio Farmer says: 
"an auger one and a fourth inches in size;" the 
New Eagland Farmer says that "a half-inch 
bore is as good for sap as a larger one ;" the 
Country Gentleman thinks "seven-eighths is 
large enough;" and Solon Eobinson says; 
" not over an inch." AVe believe a three-fourth 
inch auger is as large as should ever be used, 
if a tree bears two spouts. 

Mr. Robinson gives the following excellent 
directions for making cheap spouts from an 
iron hoop, which may be from two to three 
inches wide: "Cut into lengths of two to four 
inches with a small cold-chisel, using the end 



of a hard-wood block for an anvil Now grind 
one end sharp before nuking them into troughs, 
which you can do almost as fast as you ('an 
count, as follows: Bore an inch hole through a 
hard log, and saw it asunder so as to leave half 
of the hole exposed; drive two nails upon its 
side for a gauge ; lay the flat piece of iron 
over this hollow and a round bolt on it, and 
hit that with a stout hammer or an old ax. 
You need not go to the blaclfsmith's, and you can 
not make wooden spouts half so fast, and they 
will not last half so long." Tin spouts are 
somewhat used ; and in many localities wooden 
spouts are still preferred to either. It is de- 
sirable to have the hole nearly closed, so that 
the flow of .sap may not be checked by dryness 
of wood. When freshing over, an auger is 
used each time one-eighth of an inch larger 
than the one before it, and the incision made 
but a shaving deeper. The spile will not have 
to be removed to do this. It is also recom- 
mended that the holes be carefully plugged 
with short plugs when the season is over, that 
the bark may grow over the wound. 

One spiggot to a tree is generally enough. 
Very nearly as much sap will run from one 
spout as from two, and the life of the tree will 
thus be preserved to benefit those who follow 
in our footsteps. Let us remember the maxim 
to leave the world as good as when we found it. 

The buckets for collecting the sap are gener- 
ally made of tin; wooden ones are still used 
by some persons. These are propped up to 
the mouth of the spout, or suspended from 
a spike or hook driven into the tree. The 
holes from which the sap runs should be 
cleaned out and slightly deepened several times 
during the season, for the purpose of clearing 
away the mold which collects in the taps, and 
keeping them open and clean. 

Sugar Making. — Improvements have been 
made in the manner of evaporating the sap. 
Large sheet-iron evaporating pans are now used. 
Some of them are set up with brick and mortar, 
and protected from rain or snow by a shingle or 
boarded roof. Cross bars of iron are laid ou the 
brick, and on these the pans rest. The latter are 
generally made of Kussian iron, and are five 
or six inches in depth, and of sufficient size to 
suit the quantity of sap to be evaporated. Two 
pans, two feet wide by four long, set in a brick 
arch, one forward of the other, will be sufficient 
for a " bush " of three hundred trees, and will 
boil the sap to syrup in twelve hours. The 
rims of the pans sliould be turned over very 
strong wire, and handles for moving them at- 



142 



FIELD CROPS : 



tached. When several pans are used, they ahonld 
be set on the same frames, but not at the same 
heiglit, and each sliould be as much as its own 
depth higlier than the other, as by this means 
the sap can be drawn with faucets from the 
liifflicst to the lowest. Never pour hot sugar 
into wooden vessels. 

It is impossible to make good maple sugar 
unless the sap is boiled soon after it runs. If 
it be allowed to soiirin the least, the iron ves- 
sel in which it is boiled will darken the color 
of the sugar, giving it a disagreeable taste, and 
making it very injurious to tlie health of those 
who use it. 

When the sap is boiled down to a syrup, it 
should be strained through a flannel strainer, 
and then boiled again until it granulates. When 
an e.^tra quality of sugar is desired, the syrup 
is .sometimes clarified by using milk, saleratus, 
or the whites of eggs. Half a tea-cup of new- 
milk to every pailful of .syrup is the proportion 
found most effective. The .syrup and milk 
should be boiled slowly together, and the scum 
which ri.ses to the surface carefully removed. 
When the syrup becomes thick enough, it should 
be poured into tin molds, and when solid, the 
cakes should be turned upside down, to keep 
them from draining too much. They will .■^oon 
become hard. When the tapping and boiling 
are going on, the bush sliould be fenced, to keep 
all kinds of stock from upsetting the buckets, 
or damaging the works in any way. 

If sugar-makers would economize time and 
wood, by all means let them have a tight .sugar- 
house over their furnace, for a cold gust of 
wind, blowing on the surface, will stop the 
boiling, as the vapor is thrown back into the 
syrup. Try it for a moment with a lid, then 
raise your lid and see the water dripping back. 
The faster the evaporation, the more and better 
the sugar. 

John Bogue, received a patent for an evap- 
orator, which he used two years. It is very 
simple, consisting of the usual boiling pan, a 
reservoir for sap, a conducting pipe, and a pe- 
culiar float which rests in the pan, and admits 
the sap from the reservoir only at the same 
rate as it is evaporated. By this arrangement 
a man can fill the reservoir, build a big fire, go 
home to bed, and in the morning find his sap 
all boiled down.- Mr. BoGUE counts it better 
than a man at twenty dollars per month in su- 
gar-time. 

High fla?or in maple sugar is produced and 
retained by making it from the purest sap and 
richest syrup, and in the cleane.st buckets, and 



boiling in stirring ofT till it breaks brittle on 
snow or cold iron, and packing the cakes in 
air-tight chests or bo.xes. The .syrup should be 
sealed up while hot. 

Yield of Trees. — Sap is concentrated about 
fifty times to make sugar. An average yield 
of the maple, is from three to five poun<is per 
tree, each season, old trees yielding most. A 
New Hampshire farmer suggests the planting 
and culture ol sugar-maple orchards, and tells 
of one remarkable tree on his farm tliat started 
from the root of a small tree which was cut 
down for fence about sixty-two yejirs ago. It 
is now some two feet in diameter. Three times 
the sap of this tree has been made into sugar 
by itself. The first trial, when the tree was 
smaller than it now is, it gave twenty pounds 
of dry sugar; at another time twunty-five 
pounds, and at the last trial, twenty-seven 
pounds. The tree was tapped with nothing 
larger than a half-inch augur, and only in one 
place.. It has afforded at least twenty pounds 
of sugar annually fur the last twenty years. 
Large orchards sometfmes average ten pounds 
to a tree; and forty pounds have been made in 
one season from a tree in Ohio. 

Soi'^liuni. — Sorghum is a name now gen- 
eralh- applie<l to the varieties of Chinese and 
.\frican sugar-cane, which have been intro- 
duced so largely to the United Stjites within 
fifteen years. Under the name of Sorgo, these 
congenerous plants have been known from re- 
mote antiquity ; it is the IIolcus saccharatus of 
LlNN.EUS. About 1850, a variety of this plant 
was brought to France from China, by Count 
DeMontigny; and from there, after successful 
experiment, it was soon tran.splanted to Amer- 
ica. Im|ihee was brought about the same time 
from Kafiir-land, in Africa, and still another 
distinct species, from Otaheite. 

The new sugar-cane, being found well adapt- 
ed to our climate and soil, North as well as 
South, made quite an agricultural sensation for 
some years, and in 18G0, there were 6,G9S,181 
gallons of sorghum molasses produced in this 
country, and in 1862, the product of the West- 
ern States was more than 15,000,000 gallons, as 
much as there was of cane-molas.ses in 1860. 
Extensive areas in differant sections of the 
Northern States were planted, machinery was 
procured for crushing the cane and boiling 
down the juice; conventions of sorghum plant- 
ers and sugar manufacturers were held, and 
newspapers devoted to the specially of the new 
canes, were established. In the West, the in- 



I 



SORGHUM — PLANTING, ETC. 



143 



terest taken in the sorgliura question has been 
especially great. In this section of our country 
the demand for molasses has always been large, 
and the farmers, observing in the new cane a 
means of supplying this demand by their indi- 
vidual labor, did not hesitate to plant largely. 

In many parts of the West, wholesale dealers 
purchased no sugar-cane molasses whatever, 
during the continuance of the war. The new 
plant appeared to fulfill its promise. But the 
official report of the national statistician for 
1867, says: "Sorghum has sutTered a material 
decline for several years, which is continued, 
causing despondency to producers." And the 
national chemist's report said : "The attempt 
to separate and crystalize the cane sugar of sor- 
gliura on a large scale has been wholly unsuc- 
cessful, and as a sacrhariferous plant it is only 
valuable for its mola.sses." 

It must he admitted th.at sorghum has not, 
thus far, seemed to justify the extravagant 
hopes of the most sanguine ; but it has proved 
itself a very useful plant, and doubtless will 
henceforth form one of- the common crops in 
American culture. 

In the rotation of soiling for cattle, .sorghum 
already holds a high place, and even if sugar 
could not profitably be made from it, it will 
continue to be largely grown by farmers for its 
product of domestic syrup. The soil and geo- 
graphical range of the Chinese sugar-cane cor- 
responds nearly with that of Indian corn. It 
produces the best crop on dry uplands, but the 
most lu.turiantly on rich bottoms of the moist 
loams. It endures cold much better than corn, 
and e.tperiences no injury from Autumnal 
frosts. It will also withstand excessive drought. 
It takes five to ten gallons of juice to make a 
gallon of .syrup. 

The Chinese cane seems more closely related 
to broom corn than the African, and manifests 
a igre,ater tendency to " crossing " and deterio- 
ration from contiguous crops of the broom ; it 
is also very liable to be thrown down by the 
winds, and to the production of large, gummy 
joints, which exercise a detrimental influence 
on the production of either syrup or sugar. 
The plant, ton, when thrown down by winds or 
rain, in its efforts to regain the upright posi- 
tion becomes so crooked as to give great trouble 
to the workmen employed in handling the 
stalks. The African variety, or Imphee, on the 
contrary, is much more vigorous in the stalk, 
and seldom falls before the wind ; its joints are 
much smaller relatively to the size of the stalk, 
and its juices are more limpid and rich, gener- 



erally showing about one degree richer in sugar, 
by the saccharometer, than the juice of the 
Chinese cane. 

The Washington Sorghum convention said : 
" By accounts from all parts of the country, 
this plant is universally admitted to be a 
wholesome, nutritious, and economical food 
for animals; all parts of it are greedily de- 
voured in a green or dry state by the horses, 
cattle, sheep, and swine, without injurious ef- 
fects, the latter especially, fattening on it as 
well as upon corn." 

Soil. — Select either a lime soil, or supply it 
with a moderate amount of lime. Lime neu- 
tralizes the acids in the canes. A sunny ex- 
posure is preferred. Sorghum likes a strong, 
warm, and rich soil, such as will generally 
ripen common corn early, free from foul seeds, 
and one which will stand wet seasons well. A 
sandy soil is preferred, but it should be rich ; 
a clover lay is capital. This cane is much 
more likely to sutler from wet Springs than 
from dry Summers, and hence the above prefer- 
ence for a loo.se and porous soil. The ground 
can not be plowed too deep, as its roots pene- 
trate to a great depth, even as far as three and 
a half feet. 

Planlinij. — As soon as the ground is suffi- 
ciently warm and dry in the Spring put in the 
seed, from one-fourth to one-half an inch in 
depth, drilling it in rows about three and a 
half feet apart, and secure a good stand of 
cane every twenty inches. Many think time is 
gained by sprouting the seed, which may be 
done by pouring hot water upon the seed in a 
basket, and allowing it to stand by the stove a 
few hours. The object of "sprouting" is to 
crack the hull, and care must be taken not to 
let the sprout shoot forth too far before plant- 
ing, as it is easily broken off, and the seed lost. 

Cvltivation. — The young cane plant is ex- 
ceedingly diminutive, and is hardly distinguish- 
able from the fox-tail or Summer grass; hence 
the importance of having clean ground. Stir 
the ground freely from the lime you can see 
the cane until it is about three feet high. Let 
no weeds be tolerated. In some soils the cane is 
li.able to " tiller," or, as it is sometimes called, 
"sucker." It will, therefore, be advi-jable to 
remove the young suckers, in order to permit the 
main plants to mature uniformly and vigorous- 
ly, and also to facilitate thestripping and gather- 
ing. Where the suckers are permitted to grow 
up they detract greatly from the strength of the 
main plant, and impede the workmen in gather- 
ing the crop, as they are often in doubt ae to 



144 



FIELD crops: 



which to select and cut; besides, if gathered 
along with the main stalks, and sent to the 
mill, they impart to the syrup a wild grassy 
flavor, together with an excess of acjd, which 
is difficult to remove, and which proves a posi- 
tive barrier to the manufacture of sugar. It is 
well to know that this cane will bear transplant- 
ing. In this way missing hills may be sup- 
plied, or early crops grown, by starting in hot 
beds, and transplanting in May or June. 

Harvesting. — "Just previous to cutting," says 
Isaac A. Hedges, in the United States -Agri- 
cultural Keport for 1861, "the leaves should 
be stripped ofT by hand, if desired for fodder, 
or, if they are designed to be left on the 
ground, by a smart stroke of a stick about four 
feet long. The seed heads, together with about 
four feet of the cane, should be cut off and tied 
Into small bundles with the leaves; they are 
far better as food for every kind of stock than 
sheaf-oats, and are richly worth saving. I am 
aware of a rumor which has gone abroad to the 
effect that they are injurious; and, although 
the statement has a thousand times been re- 
futed, I am still asked whether the seed will 
not kill cattle and horses. I once lost a valua- 
ble horse by feeding to him imprudently a mess 
of oats, and so, but only so, it may be with this 
seed. 

"The dismantled canes should then be cut 
ofT near to the ground, and tied in bundles of 
twenty or thirty stalks, with the wilted leaves. 
Each bundle should be tied in two places, 
which will greatly facilitate the subsequent 
handling. In this condition the cane may be 
Bet up in ricks in the open air, or, preferably, 
under shelter, and kept for some weeks. Such 
keeping improves the juice not only in flavor, 
but also in saccharine richness, from one to 
three degrees. This improvement takes place 
upon the same principle and from similar 
causes which determine the sweetening of acid 
fruit after pulling, viz., the change of the gum 
and starch into sugar. If, at any time while 
the cane is standing, a sharp freeze should 
occur, the whole crop should be slashed down 
and thrown into windrows, with the tops up- 
permost. If much difficulty .should then arise 
in stripping off the leaves, the canes may be 
ground with the leaves adhering, but the tops 
should be freely cut off. All possible despatch 
should be used after freezing in getting the 
canes through the mill, lest a warm sun should 
come out, and fermentation and souring com- 
mence." In securing this culmination of the 
juice and oreventing re-acidulation lies one of 



the great fundamental means of success in the 
manufacture of sugar from any variety of cane, 
being rather difficult of attainment, more par- 
ticularly in the African cane, owing to the dis- 
position in the canes not to mature at the same 
time. 

Mamifacturing into Sugar. — Whatever may 
be the answer to the question raised by the 
chemist before referred to, whether the .syrup 
can profitably be crystalized "on a large scale," 
there is no doubt that sugar is being made from 
it on a moderate scale, for home consumption, 
to great advantage. D. M. CoOK, of Man.s- 
field, Ohio, thus describes the method : 

" Having secured the cane at its best stage, 
the next question is the best mode of manufac- 
turing. An iron mill, with at least three 
rollers, should be used, as the wooden mills 
(which answered well for our primitive ex- 
periments) lose one-half of their juice. The 
cane should be stripped, lopped, and, for very 
nice experiments, should be cut in the middle, 
the butts pressed and evaporated by themselves 
for sugar, and the tops for syrup. In my ex- 
periments in 1861 I used the whole stalk with 
complete success." 

"Of the most vital importance is the mode 
of defecation and evaporation. To boil the 
juice in the ordinary kettles or pans is to 
waste both your time and your crop, as has 
been fully demonstrated by the thousands of 
experiments heretofore oiade. Defecation and 
evaporation must be combined in one action; 
that is, during evaporation there must be a 
constant defecation. The albuminous matter 
will not coagulate except upon the application 
of an active heat, and, as this matter, and other 
impurities rising in the scum, can not rest upon 
a boiling surface without being again plunged 
by the currents into the juice, and, finally, so 
incorporated with the syrup as to prevent gran- 
ulation, it is clear that the evaporator must af- 
ford a means of retiring this .scum from the boil- 
ing surface as rapidly as it arises. Hence there 
must be a cool surface within the pan, outside 
the line of ebullition, where it may rest. This 
cooling surface is indispensable, and no one 
has succeeded in making sorgo sugar who did 
not use it. I therefore made a pan with the 
sides projecting over the surface several inches. 

"In my first experiments I used lime in def- 
ecation, but finding that a simple active heal 
was the best defecator, I abandoned it. To se- 
cure the best efTect in defecating by heat, and 
also the most rapid evaporation possible, which 
is another great requisite to success, the juice 



SORGHUM — METHODS OP MANUFACTURING. 



145 



should be boiled in shallow bodies. In doing 
so I found great danger of burning, and, there- 
fore, introduced a running stream of juice into 
my pan; but, as the scum collecting at the cool 
sides of my pan would pass down the whole 
length of it and mingle with the syrup as it 
flowed out into my coolers, I constructed ledges 
starting out from each side alternately, and 
reaching nearly across the pan, thus giving me 
a zigzag cun-ent from one end to the other. 
These ledges held the' scum at the cool sides 
until removed by the skimmer. They also ac- 
complished another important and very unex- 
pected result, which I will endeavor to explain: 

" Different degrees of lieat cause different 
kinds of impurities to rise to the surface. At 
the front end of my pan one kind came up, 
while further down, being hotter, another kind, 
and so on, until about half way down my pan 
I found all the green impurities removed, and 
nothing left but the "cane gum," as it is fre- 
quently termed; this is precipitated, and forms 
a white coat upon the pan for the space of about 
three or four channels. This coat must be re- 
moved from the pan, while soft, with a stiff 
broom, as it becomes almost as hard as steel, 
and is then difficult to remove. After this 
"gum" is removed the syrup is free to crys- 
talize, and to this principally I attribute my 
success. 

" Another thing I found essential. The 
syrup must be hurried to the point of crystal- 
ization as rapidly as possible, and, when it is 
attained, be instantly removed from the evapo- 
rator. That point is about two hundred and 
twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, and testing 
the syrup by weight it should weigh from 
eleven to twelve pounds to the gallon. Eleven 
pounds does very well, but crystalization is 
rather slow. The bubbles afford a good inde.x 
of the proper stage, the same signs used in boil- 
ing maple being applicable to sorghum. 

" In order to cause my running stream al- 
ways to reach the outlet of the pan just at the 
point of crystalization, I placed it upon rock- 
ers, and could thus hasten or retard the stream 
as my fire might require. I am thus enabled 
to have a constant stream of juice flowing into 
the pan, and a stream of syrup as constantly 
from it. This device secured for me the grand 
requisites, thorough defecation and rapid evap- 
oration. A patent for it has been granted me. 

"It has been a question what kin<l of metal 

should be used in evaporators. Galvanized 

iron has been very extensively used through the 

West, and is highly valued by many. The 

10 



objection to it is, the galvanized coating is liable 
to scale off. It is also affected by the acids in 
the juice, so that syrups made upon it have a 
saltish taste. Russia iron is highly esteemed, 
and, for a cheap article, is, perhaps, as good 
material as can be used, but the best yet tried 
is good heavy sheet copper. True, this is ex- 
pensive ; but this is more than balanced by 
its durability and the ease with which it is 
cleansed. 

" If any object to the use of sheet metal on 
account of its lightness, I would say that it is 
more durable and economical than cast iron. 
The latter often cracAs just at the time you can 
le.ast afford to stop your work. It also rusts 
out very rapidly — more so than Russia — and 
galvanized iron is cumber.some, diflicult to han- 
dle, and, morever, is very expensive. 

"In addition to a mill and an evaporator, 
which will accomplish llie above results, there 
are needed several shallow wooden coolers and 
a V-shaped draining box with slide-covered 
openings in the bottom. The mill m,ay be set 
upon a bank and a pipe lead from it to the 
evaporator below. 

"The .syrup should not be raised above two 
hundred and twenty-eight or two hundred and 
thirty degrees Fahrenheit. If made too thick, 
the atoms of sugar are not free to move about and 
assume the erystaline form. Keither should 
the syrup be allowed to get cold. The coolers 
should be set away in a warm room, at a tem- 
perature of about ninety degrees, and that tem- 
perature should be maintained day and night 
until crystalization is perfected. In our cli- 
mate artificial heat is, of course, required, and 
our farmers can not expect success unless they are 
willing to go to this trouble. My syrup crystal- 
ized in twenty-four hours, and in a very few 
days crystalization and drainage was com- 
plete." 

Mr. Hedges, in the article before quoted 
from, says: "Two main objects should be borne 
in mind in the construction and placing of 
pans, or evaporators, viz. : to use up all the heat 
of the furnace, and to give full employment to 
the attendant. I made one pan, for experi- 
ment, twelve feet in length and three feet in 
width, thus exposing a superficies of thirty 
square feet to the fire ; yet I found that the flame 
from the furnace passed ten feet beyond the 
pan, and then entering the flue of a ste;iui 
boiler twenty-.six feet long, soon raised steam 
therein, and in its mate, to four pounds press- 
ure. In this pan I could make fifty-four gallons 
of syrup in six hours by burning a half cord 



146 



FIELD crops: 



of inferior wood; now, had my pan been con- 
structed of a length of twenty-five or thirty 
feet, I should have been enabled, with the same 
fuel, to make from seventy-five to one hundred 
gallons of syrup in the same time. The fur- 
nace in the above case was twenty-four inches 
in vertical height, and deep enough from front 
to back to receive four-foot wood ; larger fur- 
naces, with large doors and corresponding ca- 
pacious ash-pits, good gratings, and so forth, 
will be found still more economical. The in- 
side of the furnace and flue should be con- 
structed of fire-bricks, and be well supported 
by outside work, anchored together, and made 
firm ; the door frames should be secured to the 
brick work by iron anchors." 

In an able paper on Sorghum Culture, in the 
United States Agricultural Keport for 18ti5, by 
William Clough, editor of The Soryo Jour- 
nal, we find the following: 

" The production of sugar from sorghum has 
been much retarded by a false notion on the 
part of many that it is to be accomplished by 
some sovereign specific, which is to make the 
synip crystalize. Tliis has led producers away 
after pretentious patent processes, to the neglect 
of a careful attention to every step in the ope- 
ration, which is the only certain means of suc- 
cess, and without which nothing else is of any 
avail. It should be understood that syrup fre- 
quently contains no crystalizable sugar what- 
ever, and to produce a single grain of true 
sugar from such syrup transcends all arts of 
man's device. Carbon has been made to crys- 
talize and afford artificial diamonds, but no 
man has ever yet succeeded in making a grain 
(if artificial cane sugar. It is developed alone 
in the great laboratory of nature, and all that 
art or science can do is to preserve it unim- 
paired, and separate it from excess of water 
and the impurities which obstruct granulation. 
It will then crystalize, when reduced to the 
proper temperature, without the employment of 
any 'process' or extraneous aids whatever. 
Syrup often contains so small a portion of 
crystalizable sugar— that is, the minute atoms 
of sugar are so far separated, that they are not 
attracted to each other; in which case crystali- 
zation can no,t occur. Sorghum syrup gener- 
ally contains a dense, viscid substance which 
obstructs granulation. This can be removed; 
but the only effectual means of removing it is 
by filtering it through a liberal quantity of 
freshly burned bone coal — a means which can 
not be considered practicable with the mass 
of the farmers. But it can be, in a great 



measure, avoided or prevented from occurring ; 
and this, together with the means to be era- 
ployed for promoting the development of 
cane sugar in the plant, and preserving it un- 
impaired, constitutes the whole art of 'mak- 
ing sugar from sorghum.' It all consists in 
strict compliance with the conditions imposed 
at each step in the operation, from the selec- 
tion of the seed to the final act of purging or 

' draining the crystalized product. It is not to 
be accomplished by any magical or sleight-of- 
hand process. There is absolutely no 'royal 
road' to sugar." 

! Mr. Hedges concludes liis essay as follows: 
Jlybridizalinn. — "Great care should be taken in 
the selection of seed. Our sorghum has been 

' grown indiscriminately with broom corn and 
other members of the millet iixmily, that it has 
become to a great extent hybridized. Know 
the history of your seed before you plant it. 

" The Sorghum taste will not be found in well- 
grained sugar, as it all drains out wiih the mo- 
lasses. The sugar is of fine flavor, surpassing 
the New Orleans and nearly equal to maple. 
In the syrup the 'sorghum taste' maybe re- 
moved by treating the juice with milk of lime 
or whitewash belore boiling. The proper 
quantity may be known by testing with litmus 
paper. With too little lime the blue litmus is 
changed to a red, and with too much tlnit red 
is changed back again. 

Value of the Crop. — "The expense of culti- 
vating and manufacturing an acre of sor- 
ghum is about 537. It may run, possibly, to 
S4.5 or $50. My cane yielded about two hun- 
dred and twenty-five gallons to the acre, and 
of this about seven pounds to the gallon were 
crystalizable sugar, giving one thousand five 
hundred and seventy-five pounds to the acre. 

" Mr. J. H. Smith, of Quincy, Illinois, 
made one thousand five hundred pounds to the 
acre from the crop of 1861, and had one hun- 
dred and fifteen gallons of good syrup beside. 
Brown sugar is now retailing throughout the 
West at 12J cents, and wholesale at 10 cents 
per pound. Molasses sells readily at whole- 
sale at 40 cents. The profits may therefore be 
stated as follows: 

1,500 pounda of susrar, incents per pound S150 no 

115 giiUoQS mulassed, 40 cents pLT gallon 46 (JO 

$1% no 
Deduct expenses, Bay fio^uo 

Balance, net prutit »146 CO 

" I look upon the day as near at hand when 
the North will raise sugar for export. All thai 
is wanted is for the farmers to give the sorgo 
crop the same care and attention they would 



TEA TOBACCO. 



147 



any other. So Ion?, however, as they are sat- 
isfied to make syrups in the most negligent man- 
ner, and in common pans and kettles, and so 
long as they take less care of it after it is made 
than they would of vinegar, they must be con- 
tent with miserable wild-tasting sorghum mo- 
lasses, leaving the sugar for their more enter- 
prising neighbors." 

D. J. Powers, of Chicago, thus writes: "I 
know from actual experience, that an acre of 
Borghum can be raised, and got ready for the 
mill as easily as an acre of corn, and an aver- 
age crop will yield one hundred and sixty 
gallons of good, thick, clean syrup, worth at 
wholesale, in any Western market, at least fifty 
cents per gallon, and seventy-five cents at re- 
tail, making the net product, when manufac- 
tured on equal terms, $40 per acre. Now, an 
average crop of corn would yield from thirty 
to thirty-five busliels to the acre, which at the 
ordinary price of twenty-three to twenty-five 
cents per bushel, would be just about one-third 
of the net amount of the acre of sorghum, say- 
ing nothing about the cane-seed, which, when 
mature, is worth nearly, or quite one-half as 
much as corn." 

Method of Planting. — A Connecticut sorghum 
grower made an interesting experiment in grow- 
ing cane in 18G4. He planted nine rows with 
the hills four feet apart each way, and nine 
other rows nine feet apart and the hills two 
feet asunder in the row — thus giving a less 
number of hills by the latter than the former 
planting; and yet he got fifteen gallons of mo- 
lasses from the former, and forty gallons from 
the latter; and, in addition, he raised a row of 
potatoes between the rows in the latter case. 
The sorghum needs light, and hence the great 
gain in the wide rows. 

Tea. — Tea can scarcely be regarded as a 
" field crop" in this country, but it grows readily 
in our Southern States, and an effort has been 
made to introduce its culture on a large scale. 
That tea can be grown successfully in Carolina, 
Georgia, and Florida, is certain, because the 
experiment has been fairly tried. The ther- 
mometer at Shanghai indicates a cold more 
severe by thirteen degrees than in Charleston. 
As early as 1851, Junius Smith raised the tea 
plant in South Carolina; and called public at- 
tention to the fact that, at the Chinese average 
of five hundred pounds per acre,it would require 
the cultivation of only 20,000 acres to supply 
the United States. " In 1860, W. Jones, of 
Liberty county, Georgia, set out fifty plants, 



and has supplied his family from them evei 
since." The tea plant is an evergreen shrub, 
leaves from three to four inches long, one in 
width; flowers white, one inch or more in diam- 
eter; center filled with large number of stamens, 
with yellow anthers; capsule u.sually three 
seeded; seeds the size of a chinquapin, abun- 
dant; blooms in October- and November; it 
seeds the ne.xt September; grows from cuttings 
or layers. 

In 1866, Mr. JoxE.s' plants were six to seven 
feet high, and as great in diameter across, the 
branches interlocking. The vigorous growth 
of leaves takes place in April. As soon as. 
they appear, they are plucked, gathered in a 
basket, and spread on tables in the sun fur one 
day. They are then rolled together in little 
moist balls; dried again; then rolled again in 
very small parcels. The curing is finished by 
putting them in heated pans, warm enough to 
admit of stirring them rapidly with the fingers. 
This should be continued about five minutes, or 
until they are perfectly dry. The plants pro- 
duce good <'rops for eighteen or twenty years. 
The growth of tea is not aflected by dry or wet 
weather, or by storm.s, and insects will not mo- 
lest the plants. 

Capt. James Campbell, near Knoxville, 
Tennessee, obtained a few Hyson Tea plants 
from the Agricultural Department in 18.58, and 
they have attained a height of five to eight feet, 
and furnished small quanlitiesoftea. All the dif- 
ferent varieties of green and black tea are obtain- 
ed from one kind of plant; the difference result- 
ing from time of picking and manner of curing. 

The chief obstacle to tea-raising in America 
seems to be the expense of curing it. A journal 
said recently: "The culture of tea in South 
Carolina has proved a failure. It grows well 
enough, but wages are too high in this country. 
It is profitable in China, but a fellow is hired 
there for a dollar a month, and boards himself." 

Tobacco. — America is responsible for to- 
bacco. " Some sailors having been sent ashore 
in Cuba by Columbus, were surprised to see the 
natives of the island puffing smoke from their 
mouths and nostrils. They afterward le;irned 
that this w.as the smoke of the dried leaves of 
tobacco." Its botanical name is Nicotiana, 
from Jean Nicot, who carried it from Central 
America to Spain in 1560. Its specific name, 
tobacco, is supposed to be derived from Tohngo, 
a West Indian Island ; or from TabacO, a 
province of Yucatan; or, as Humboldt in- 
sists, from tobacum, the pipe in which tlie JTay- 



148 



FIELD CROPS : 



tiens smoke it. It was carried from Virginia 
to England in 1586, by Ralph Lane, and Sir 
Walter Kaleigh was the tirst on the island 
to smoke it. Smoking soon became fashionable 
in street and palace, but it called from the fas- 
tidious monarch, James I, the famous " Coun- 
terblast." "It is," said he in his tract, "a 
custom loathsome to the Eye, hateful to the 
Nose, harmful to the Brain, dangeroiis to the 
Lungs, and in the black, stinking fumes thereof, 
nearest resemble the horrible Stygian smoke of 
the pit that is bottomless !" 

Tobacco has had its martyrs. Abbas I, 
seventh Shah of Persia, had the lips cut off 
those who smoked, and the noses off those who 
took snuff. Michel Fkederowitz, Czar of 
Bussia, executed without trial his subjects who 
were guilty of its use in any form. Mahomet 
rV had a hole bored in the noses of his cul- 
prits, and a pipe introduced across the face. 
The Parliament of Paris proscribed tobacco. 
Urban VII and URB.iN VIII excommunicated 
those who gratified a taste for the " filthy vege- 
table." Queen Elizabeth, of Spain, author- 
ized the confiscation of all snuff-boxes for the 
benefit of the church ; but Richelieu did bet- 
ter than that — he taxed them. Indeed, tobacco 
seems always to have borne heavy burdens in 
Europe. The English have sometimes paid 
eight hundred to a thousand per cent, for it, 
and the present British duty on tobacco is 
seventy-two cents a pound. In France it has 
yielded to the throne an annual revenue of fif- 
teen million dollars, and in Holland, of more 
than twenty million dollars. 

The St. Louis Gazette goes into a calculation 
to show the amount of tobacco a man chews in 
a life-time. The editor says : "Suppose a to- 
bacco chewer is addicted to the habit of chew- 
ing, fifty years of his life; each day of that 
time he consumes two inches of solid plug, 
which amounts to six thousand three hundred 
and seventy-five feet, making nearly one and 
one-fourth miles in length of solid tobacco, 
half an inch thick and two inches broad !" He 
inquires what a young beginner would think if 
he had the whole amount stretched out before 
him, and he was told that to chew it up would 
be one of the e.xercises of his life, and also that 
it would tax his income to the amount of one 
thousand and sixty-five dollars. 

Another Gradgrind shows that indulgence 
in the habit cau.ses the waste of an incredible 
amount of valuable time. But man is willful 
and weak, governed more by appetite than 
arithmetic; and the tobacco fields are still 



green, and presses are doggedly at work, and 
meerschaums are hopefully coloring, as we go 
to press. 

In fact, the culture seems to be increasing. 
The tobacco raised in the United States in 1850, 
was 199,752,655 pounds; and in 1860, it was 
434,209,461 pounds, an increase of nearly 220 
per cent.! Of this crop, Virginia and Ken- 
tucky produced more than half. Next came, 
in order, Tennessee, Maryland, North Caro- 
lina, Ohio, and Missouri. Connecticut pro- 
duced more than New York, and double the 
quantity raised by all the rest of New England. 
The war reduced the tobacco crop one-fourth, 
which loss liad not been recovered in 1868. 

The principal variety grown in the Northern 
States is the Connecticut seed-leaf. It is ordi- 
narily used for cigar wrappers, and the larger 
and the more perfect the leaf, the more profita-- 
ble is the crop. For smoking or chewing, it is 
an inferior variety. In fact, it seems very dif- 
ficult to grow a good quality of chewing to- 
bacco in the Northern States. It is found 
much more profitable to grow a large, tough 
leaf, suitable for cigar wrappers, than to at- 
tempt to grow a sii:aller crop of choicer variety. 

Soil. — A warm, sheltered location, deep, rich, 
sandy loam, free from weeds or grass, is tlie 
best. Plow or spade, in the Fall, ten to twelve 
inches deep ; make level by harrow or rake, 
and cover closely with tobacco stalks laid on 
straight. In Spring, as soon as the ground will 
work well, remove the stalks and plow three or 
four inches deep, making a very narrow furrow 
slice, and into each furrow, as turned, strew 
guano or hen manure quite freely ; work in on 
the surface three pecks to a bushels of poudrette 
or well-pulverized compost, to the square rod, 
and make the soil as fine, and the surface 
as smooth and level as possible. Use a table- 
spoonful of seed to each square rod of bed; mix 
it with sand, and sow broadcast very evenly ; 
finish by rolling with a heavy roll. Make the 
beds ten to twelve feet wide, that being a con- 
venient width in working ; cover with brush to 
keep fowls oflT, and to prevent radiation. To 
weed the bed, remove the brush and stretch a 
plank across the bed, using blocks under the 
ends to prevent the middle from setting on to 
the plants when you sit on it to weed. The 
bed should be kept carefully clean of all weeds. 

W. W. Bowie, writing for the latitude of 
Baltimore, says the soil should be well pulver- 
ized with two or three thorough diggings. " A f- 
ter the first digging sow Peruvian guano, at the 
rate of four hundred pounds per acre, and work 



TOBACCO — CULTURE OP. 



149 



it in. For every one hundred square yards 
mix one gill of seed with half a gallon of plas- 
ter or sifted ashes, and sow evenly, in the same 
manner as gardeners sow small seeds, only with 
a heavier hand ; roll with a hand-roller, or 
tread down the bed with the feet. If the seed 
he sown before the middle of March the bed 
should be covered with bushes, free from leaves, 
unless they be pine brush, which is the best 
covering. Sow any time during AVinler when 
the land is in order. The best time is from the 
10th to the 20th of March, although it is safest 
to sow at intervale, whenever the land is in fine 
working order." 

Manure);. — Tobacco is one of the most ex- 
hausting of crops. This paltry weed requires 
more mineral manures (salts) to supply itself, 
than any other grown. The proportion ab- 
stracted is enormous, and shows conclusively, 
the necessity of constant and heavy manuring 
with special manures, to sustain the highest fer- 
tility of the land. By special manures, we 
mean such as are designed by their composi- 
tion, to supply the appropriate food of plants, 
in the requisite proportions. 

We have, for instance, in eight hundred 
pounds of tobacco leaves taken from a field, 
one hundred and sixty pounds of mineral in- 
gredients (ash), of which the soil is absolutely 
robbed, and which it has no means of again 
acquiring, but by direct application. This 
amounts to twenty per cent., or one-fifth of the 
entire crop, and is composed, according to the 
analysis of Professor Johnston, of 

Potash 12.14 

Soila IUI7 

Lime 4.1.20 

Sliigiusia I'.m 

fhlurici,. ,.| .<(i(lnirii ?,.« 

Clllori.ll- nf |..,laBMUllI .f.'.iS 

PhoBi.hati' "I in. 11 .■^.4S 

Phosphate of lime 1.49 

Sulphate of lime (i.r. 

Si;ida SM 

lOO.iXI 

To supply these materials, ordinary farm- 
yard manure is insufficient ; so, too, is lime, or 
plaster, or salt, or any one article. It needs a 
combination of several, which are in a great 
mea.sure to be found in ashes, combined with 
the ordinary manure of the farm-yard. But if 
an application of special manures is sought, 
they will be appropriately found in the follow- 
ing proportions of the subjoined materials: 

Bone duet, sulphuric acid 23 Iba. 

Cai'bouHtu of potuBh, (dry) 31 '* 

" ** sofia, (dry) 5 " 

" " niaguetiia 2.i ** 

" " lime, (chalk) 60 " 

144 lbs. 
If the farm-yard must be the main reliance, 



there should be twenty to twenty-five cords per 
acre, well fined, spread broadcast after the sec- 
ond plowing, and harrowed so as thoroughly to 
incorporate it with the soil — this with four hun- 
dred pounds of mixed guano and plaster will 
do the work. Ashes is an admirable fertilizer 
for tobacco land. 

Transplanting. — It is essential to get the plants 
set as early as possible; from the 1st to the 
15th of June is best. A moist or wet time is 
desirable for transplanting, but by watering the 
ground and tlie plants after setting, it may be 
successfully done, even in a dry time, if done 
thoroughly. Good-sized strong plants grow 
more readily than weaker ones. One who can 
set cabbage or lettuce plants, can set tobacco, 
using care in pressing the soil up to the roots, 
and not pinching or covering the buds; set 
them as near as they stood in thu bed, leaving 
the soil a little dishing around them. 

Cullivation. — As .soon as the plants take root 
begin to use the cultivator and hoe. Stir the 
ground slightly close to the plant at first ; af- 
terward more thoroughly; let the cultivation 
be repeated as often as once in ten days, till the 
tobacco gets too large to go with the cultivator 
and horse ; keep the weeds down with the hoe, 
and stir the soil as much as possible without 
injury to the plants. 

Tupping. — To throw the growth of the plant 
into that portion of the leaves which will give 
the best returns in profits, etc., the plants need 
topping when the blossom is fairly formed ; just 
where, is a point demanding good judgment, 
and what is of importance, experience. The 
nearest we can come at it on paper is to say, 
top where the leaves are about six inches wide 
when the plant has run up to blos.som, leaving 
the plant about two and one-half feet high. 

Suckering. — This consists in breaking off the 
shoots which start from the stalk at the axils 
of the leaves ; these should be kept broken off 
as fast as they make their appearance ; the la.st 
suckering to be done immediately before cut- 
ting. 

Harvesting. — Tobacco should be cut as soon 
as ripe, which is known by a spotted appear- 
ance of the leaves; they also assume a harsh 
and brittle appearance and are easily broken 
when folded. A hay knife or backed saw is 
the best to cut with ; lean the plant a little and 
cut underneath the leaves close to the ground ; 
lay in regular rows to wilt so that it may be 
handled without breaking; then haul to the 
barn on a platform wagon. It should be looked 
to not to let it sunburn ; five minutes in a clear 



150 



FIELD CROPS : 



hot sun will sometimes injure it irreparably. 
Turn and cart it under cover or shade when in 
danger. 

Curing Bai-n. — A separate building, arranged 
expressly for the purpose, is the best ; but 
stables and sheds can be used for want of bet- 
ter. A building thirty by thirty-two, with 
fifteen foot posts, will hang an acre of good 
tobacco, by hanging three full tier and a part 
tier on the purlin beams. A basement room 
under a part, or all of the building is conven- 
ient for stripping, packing, etc. One-half of 
the siding should be hung on hinges, and there 
should be a ventilator in the roof to admit of 
free ventilation, etc. The girts should be ar- 
ranged equidistant, for resting the poles for 
hanging on. For poles get straight poles, five 
or six inches in diameter, or sawed scantling, 
two by five; these are arranged ten inches 
apart when tilled with plants. 

Calling and Housing. — A platform wagon is 
best to cart on; lay tlie plants on crossways, 
but unilbrnily one way. To save handling, two 
teams or wagons are necessary, with sufficient 
help to hand it from the load to the one who 
hangs. 1'hese directions are Irora William 
H. White, of Connecticut: "Twining on poles 
is the most expeditious ; other ways are peg- 
ging, spearing, and hanging on laths ; procure 
sawed or rived laths from straight-grained 
timber; taper them at one end to fit an iron 
socket which is pointed at the other end; the 
socket end is made to fit a latli one-half by one 
and one-fourth inches. The laths are four feet 
long ; scantling are arranged in the building 
four feet apart from centers for the lath to rest on 
after being filled. A one and one-half inch hole, 
bored a little slanting, tliree and one-half feet 
from tlie foot of a barn post, will serve to hold 
the lath wlule being filled. Commence by 
tying your twine to a plant, and place it by the 
side of the pole; on the opposite side, about 
six indies along, place the next, and secure it 
by a single turn of the twine Irom left to right, 
thiu? placing them alternately till the pole is 
filled, when the twine is secured. Good strong 
hemp twine is used." The above method is 
that most practiced in Connecticut. Mr. 
Bowie, in the article before referred to, gives 
the following: "There are various modes of 
securing it in the house — by pegging, splitting, 
tying with twine, and spearing, the latter now 
being considcr^'d the btBt and most expeditious 
method. Tobacco sticks are small, round, and 
Btraight, four and one-half to five and one- 
hall leet lung. They may be rived out like 



lath, or narrow paling, one to one and one-half 
inches square, smaller at one end than the 
other. One end is sharpened to admit the 
spear. The spear is round, or like the Indian 
dart in form. It is made of iron or steel, 
bright and sharp. These sticks are carried to 
the field, and dropped, one at each heap of 
newly cut tobacco. The spearing is done by 
punching one end of the stick into the soft 
ground, the spear being on the other end, 
and with both hands running the plant over 
the spear, and down the stick, thus stringing 
the eight or ten plants in the heap on the 
stick." 

The tobacco all hung, give it all the ventila- 
tion possible in fair weather, without allowing 
the sun to shine on it directly ; rainy or foggy 
wuather, close it in. The sweat, or pole burn, 
happens in about two weeks after hanging, if 
the weather be sultry and damp. Clear, dry- 
ing weather, or tight buildings are desirable at 
this time as a prevention. 

Stripping. — When the sap is all dried out of 
the leaf-stem, the tobacco is cured ; and when 
a mild damp time comes, open the barn that it 
may dampen; when it can be handled without 
rustling, lake it down, carry it to the basement 
and bulk it free Ironi the ground, butts out, tips 
lapping about one-third. No more should be 
bulked than can be stripped out in three or four 
days, or it may hurt. It is assorted into two or 
three sorts, according as it is more or less per- 
fect; each Sort is kept separate, and done up in 
hanks of about three to the pound; the butts 
of the leaves are kept even, and bound neatly 
with a leaf wound around and tucked into the 
hank ; neatness in this part often adds several 
cents per pound to the value. The tobacco, 
after being stripped, should be bulked soon, to 
keep from drying out. 

Casing. — Most of our large successful growers 
case tlieir own tobacco, after leaving it a short 
time in bulk ; a mild time is chosen, when it is 
pressed into boxes two feet four inches square, 
by two and a-lialf feet long, inside measure; 
three hundred and seventy-five pounds are 
pressed in each case, with a lever or screw for 
the purpose. The hanks are laid in, butts to 
the end of the box, away one inch, to prevent 
crowding against the end ; the leaves are 
straightened out smooth, to keep from pressing 
in wrinkles. The following season the tobacco 
undergoes a fermentation, or sweat, which 
makes it tobacco, ready for manufacture. 

We recapitulate several points upon which 
experienced growers strongly insist, because 



TURNIPS — FOR FEEDING, ETC. 



J51 



they express conditions of success in cultivat- 
ing tobacco. 

1. Tlie land must be in good condition — -well 
enriclied with manure. It must be plowed in 
the Fall, and again in the Spring, and thor- 
oughly pulverized. 

2. The plants in the seed-bed must be thor- 
oughly weeded and guarded against the fly, and 
so thinned out as to acquire a hardy growth be- 
fore being transplanted. • 

3. During the season for the ravages of the 
worm the plants must be examined twice each 
day for the purpose of destroying them. 

4. In curing, the leaf-stalk must be perfectly 
free from moisture. 

5. We add : farmers who are commencing the 
culture of tobacco should avail themselves of 
the services of an experienced man who can 
supply that knowledge which can not be learned : 
from books. 

Profit as a Crop. — Tobacco is one of the moat ' 
profitable crops grown. Cultivators in the 
States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Ohio, re- 
port as an average, under llie system of culti- 
vation practiced, and without much manuring 
in the latter States, from one to two thousand 
pounds per acre, according to quality of soil 
and variety of tobacco, sold at from ten to fif- 
teen cents a pound. In Connecticut the tobacco 
for years yielded a net profit of S200 to $400 an 
acre. It requires considerable expense to begin 
with, but after the preparations are made, it 
will, with proper care, realize at least $100 an 
acre. One farmer in Massachusetts raised two 
thousand four hundred pounds to the acre, and 
sold it at forty cents a pound. 

Turnips. — The turnip is far less nutritious 
than other edible roots ; but its adaptability to 
soils, its acceptableness to stock of all kinds, 
and the fact that it can be raised later in 
the season than almost any other vegetable, 
gives it a prominent place among farm crops. 
CuTHBERT Johnson, says : " No other vege- 
table has had such influence in advancing the 
husbandry of Great Britain as the turnip. Not 
only does it enable the farmer to supply the 
consumer with fresh meat during the Winter, 
instead of the salted food upon which our an- 
cestors had almost exclusively to depend, but 
also partially supplies the place of a fallow; it 
imparls to the land a degree of fertility which 
ensures, under proper management, a succes- 
sion of crops for the following years of the 
rotation. It is indeed the sheet-anchor of light 
soil cultivation, and the basis of the alternate 



system of husbandry, to whicn every class of 
the community is so much indebted." 

The turnip has been known in Great Britain 
for three hundred years, as narrated in its agri- 
cultural history, and its connection with civil- 
ization is, doubtless, much more remote. Cul- 
ture has brought it to its present perfection. 
One of the most distinguished men of I^i'.'laiid 
has declared that the failure of the turnip i-i"p 
of the realm would be a greater calamity iliaii 
the failure of the Bank of England. 

Scarcely any other crop can be raised with 
so little expense and trouble as turnijis, and 
no other plant will produce so great a quantity 
of food when sown after the first of July. Au 
advantage in turnip culture ari.ses from the 
fact that the crop may follow wheat, rye, barley, 
or other crops taken from the land ; it may 
also be grown in connection with corn, tobacco, 
etc., and be used to fill out wherever these or 
other crops fail. 

The ruta baga is rai.sed with greater ease 
than the mangels, in fact, the chief value of the 
turnip as a field crop, consists in its accom- 
modation to late planting, and its yielding good 
returns on comparatively poor soil. 

For Feeding. — As will be seen by a table, 
previously given, even the Swedish, or ruta 
baga, the best of the turnip tribe, is far inferior 
in value to the mangel wuizels, and other 
roots, while the white turnip is the least nutri- 
tive of all edible roots, being more th-in nine- 
tenths water. Yet cattle may be rapidly fat- 
tened on Swedish turnips and good hay alone, 
making rich, juicy meat, and when fed for a 
few of the last weeks, before slaughter, on corn 
meal, the meat is equal to, if not preferable, to 
that fed entirely on corn. 

Ruta bagas are valuable as food for stock, 
chiefly as an appetizer rather than for their 
nutritive properties ; and for this purpose, they 
are much more important than their analysis 
would indicate. Stock will be healthier in the 
Spring when they have had a regular ration of 
turnips during the winter, than when confined 
to hay and grain altogether. It is against na- 
ture to be fed on succulent food for six months 
of the year, and the next six wholly on d y 
feed. The ruta baga is the only root that in- 
creases in nutritious qualities as it increases in 
size. 

Soil. — Turnips will grow and make a fair 
crop in almost any soil, if it be mellow, in 
good heart, and free from standing water; the 
deeper the soil the better, as with all other 
root crops. The soil best adapted to the crop 



152 



FIELD crops: 



is the deep, black, moist soil of the bottom 
lands, whether in timber, openings, or prairie. 
While the ruta baga grows almost entirely 
above ground, there is nothing which delights 
more in a deep, mellow bed. The cleaner from 
weeds and grass the better for the crop. A 
light, sandy or gravelly loam, in good heart, 
produces the best flavored turnips for the table. 

Manures. — Superphosphate of lime is a spe- 
cific for turnips, and on any tolerably good soil, 
live hundred pounds will insure a fine crop. 
Lime, ashes, plaster, guano, bone dust, are each 
excellent in moderate quantities, harrowed in 
before sowing, or sc.ittered broadcast when the 
crop is hoed. On sward land it is best to turn 
under some fresh manure to insure fermenta- 
tion and quicker rotting of the sod. 

Varieties. — There are three classes of turnips, 
viz., Sweden or Ruta Saga, Yellow, and White. 
The white or common turnips are sown last, 
but used first, followed by the yellou', and lastly 
the Swede, which is the kind generally grown 
to store for Winter use. There are several vari- 
eties of Swede.s — Skirvinq's improved purple 
top being most generally sown. Laing's pur- 
ple top is also a good kind — does not grow so 
large as Skirvinq's, but is of a better quality ; 
top very small. Some farmers sow the com- 
mon red top or white stone for first con- 
sumption; Scotch yellow for second, and ruta 
bagas to consume last. But in sowing, this 
order wants reversing; ruta bagas may be sown 
from June 1st to July 1st, the others may go 
in later. 

Sowing. — There are three ways: 1, broadcast; 
2, on the flat, in rows 18 to 22 inches apart; 3, 
on ridges 26 inches apart. Each plan has its 
advocates, though drill sowing is gaining 
ground. William Anderson, of Kockford, 
Illinois, in a prize essay on the turnip, says: 
" In putting the turnip-seed in ridges, I have 
generally u.sed a drill covering three ridges, 
either with or without artificial manure. To 
do this properly, of course the ridges must be 
made true and straight; otherwise the drill 
would not keep the center of the ridge, and 
they would be difficult to cultivate, and it is 
quite as easy for a good plowman to make a 
ridge straight as crooked — in fact rather more 
so. With a drill taking only two ridges, hav- 
ing concave rollers and those made to vary ac- 
cording to the width of the ridge, there is not 
the necessity for such particular work. I have 
occasionally used a drill taking only one ridge, 
which is slow work. Probably some of our 
Western farmers will say this is altogether too 



much expense. So it may be on new land that 
does not require any manure to grow admir;ible 
turnips, such as we have had this year, but 
even here a little artificial manure with the 
seed is highly important to give the plants a 
vigorous start, to get out of the way of the fly, 
and other numerous enemies of the turnip crop, 
and on old land, such as a considerable portion 
of New York State, and some others, the ex- 
pense is trifling compared with the beneficial 
result." 

Seed to the Aere. — Sow a pound to the acre is 
the English rule; this should be varied accord- 
ing to soil and circumstances — sometimes more, 
sometimes less. " Sow thick enough, so that if 
the fly does attack them there will be plenty 
left for a crop; besides, the thicker they are 
sown, the quicker they will be out of danger, 
the plants drawing each other up." 

After Cultlmtion. — -William Beebe, in a 
prize essay in the Country Oentleman, says: "The 
young plants will make their appearance in 
about six or seven days. As soon as they can 
be distintly seen, they should have the horse- 
hoe run through them, and when the plants are 
about three inches high they will be ready for 
hand-hoeing; and this is one of the mosipar- 
ticular operations of the whole. If the horse- 
hoe has been properly used, it will have left a 
ridge from three to four inches wide, and two 
to three inches above the general level, with a 
row of plants in the center; these are singled 
out with the hand-hoe, by alternately pushing 
and pulling, which will give the ridge the 
proper form, being careful to leave but one plant 
at intervals of twelve inches, and if the land is very 
rich, they may be left still further apart. I 
have had the greatest difliculty in getting men 
to hoe properly; they will leave them too close. 
If your land has been properly cleaned before 
sowing, it will require very little attention — 
now running the horse-hoe through a couple or 
three times, and it may require going over 
again with hand-hoes. But if the weeds make 
their appearance, keep up the battle. You 
can't grow both. Whenever they show them- 
selves keep the horse-hoe moving; let them 
get once well ahead, and you are beaten. A man 
should horse-hoe from four to five acres a 
day, and single hoe one-third. When sown 
on the flat he won't be able to do so much, 
and the plants may be left still further apart. 
When singling, save some of the finest plants 
to fill up blanks with, if there are any. Swedes 
will do very well transplanted; white or com- 
mon turnips won't bear it." Most farmers 



153 



think that six or eight inches apart are thin 
enough. 

Harvesting. — Among the large stock -growers 
of our Western States, ruta bagas are seldom 
harvested at all, but are eaten from the soil 
where they grow. As soon as they begin to 
mature, the cattle or sheep are turned into the 
field for an hour in the morning and an hour 
at night, from day to day, and allowed to feed 
upon the roots which stand mainly above the 
ground. In this way, the labor of harvesting 
is saved, and the soil gets the manurial benefit 
of such bits of roots as the stock may leave. 

Jlr. Anderson, above quoted, says of har- 
vesting: "This I have done by topping the 
turnips with a hoe as they stand in the rows. 
A quick hand will top two acres in a d.ny; after 
this we run the skeleton plow, with a flat share, 
simply to cut the tap-root, leaving the turnip 
in the same position. The man holding the 
plow can very ea,sily tell when he is cutting the 
the root in the right place, by the feeling of it. 
In speaking of this plan it will be understood 
to refer to ridge or drill work." If the turnips 
ace sown broadcast, they are best gathered thus: 
Take a sharp hoe, and with one motion clip off 
the top, then strike the corner of the hoe under 
the root and turn it out. Take a swath about 
four or five feet wide, and as you jerk them out, 
throw them into rows. Then go through with 
your cart, and with pitchforks pick them up 
and throw them on — not by striking the fork 
into them, but by slipping the tines under them. 

Storing. — Turnips should not he kept in cel- 
lars in large quantites, but should be stored in 
pits, as already described for potatoes. 

Projit as a Crop. — The co.st of production can 
hardly reach fifty dollars an acre, in the very 
worst soil. The expense will not generally ex- 
ceed five cents per bushel. With good care six 
hundred to eight hundred bushels to an acre 
can easily be grown, and some farmers have 
raised as many as fifteen hundred bushels to an 
acre. At a shilling a bushel, an average crop 
would show a good profit. 

Condusion. — Mr. Gibson closes his essay as 
follow.s: " In summing up, the main things to 
be attended to are thorough pulverization of 
the soil ; the crop to be kept well clean ; you 
may as well expect figs from thistles as to ex- 
pect turnips to grow with weeds. Give plenty 
of manure ; the turnip is grateful and will pay 
you good interest for what it uses, and what re- 
mains will not be lost, the next crop receiving 
the benefit. Keep the horse-hoe moving, even 
if th.ere are no weeds. Give plenty of room ; 



let there be not less than twelve inches from 
plant to plant. Do everything required in its 
proper season. What is it that has brought 
the land in some parts of England to the pres- 
ent high state of cultivation? Sheep and tur- 
nips. I know large tracts of land in Lincoln- 
shire, which thirty years ago, were let at two 
shillings sixpence, merely as rabbit warrens, 
being thought too poor to grow anytliing — light 
blow-away sands — which are now being let at 
fifty shillings, equal to ten dollars, per acre per 
year ; by growing white clover and turnips, and 
eating all on the land with sheep, it soon be- 
came capable of growing barley, and now as 
fine crops of wheat are grown as can be found. 
And you may depend upon it, that in whatever 
district in this country turnips are grown to 
any extent, there you will begin to see the land 
increasing in fertility. It is a crop that de- 
mands such cultivation to be grown successfully, 
that the land and other crops will feel the bene- 
fit of it throughout the rotation, and then the 
farmers' motto will be the same as mine, viz.: 
' More roots, more stock ; more stock, more 
manure; more manure, better crops.' " 

Turnips among Corn — A snug little crop of 
turnips may be raised among corn without in- 
jury, if sown very thinly at the time of second 
cultivating. The turnips will take the place 
of late weeds and grow a month afterthe corn is 
cut. Tliey should, however, be sown thin, and 
a little earlier than in open ground. 

'Wheat. — This is the most important and 
the most widely cultivated of the grains, be- 
cause il is the most nutritious and palatable. 
EzekieIj speaks of it as being an article of 
commerce in the land of Judah. IsiS was .an 
Egyptian goddess, worshiped as the greatest 
benefactor of the country, because she taught 
the cultivation of wheat and barley. Ceres 
fills a similar place in Grecian mythology ; she 
gave to Triptolemus the first grains of wheat, 
and he gave them to the world. 

Whether the wheat plant has always been as 
we now find it, or had its origin in an inferior 
plant, is a question not well settled. A French 
gardener, M. Fabre, sowed the seeds of a coarse 
grass, named by botanists cegilops, in the Fall of 
1839, which ripened in July following. Its 
seeds he sowed in the Fall of 1840, and contin- 
ued sowing the seeds every year until in \Sio, 
when the plants then raised were regarded by 
all who examined them as genuine wheat plants. 
Its changes from the coarse grass were gradual, 
at first producing few seeds, but increasing in 



154 



FIELD crops: 



number as its resemblance to a wlieat plant be- 
came stronger. This experiment would indi- 
cate that the wheat plant is the result of culti- 
vation, and that the ancient wheat of Egypt 
was originally much inferior to that at present 
cultivated. 

Brought to America. — When America was dis- 
covered, wheat was not found on this continent, 
It was, however, soon brought here, and a slave 
of Cortez finding a few grains in some rice, sent 
from Spain, carefully preserved and planted 
them, and from these, it is believed, the wheats 
of Mexico and the Northern Pacific have been 
derived. It was introduced into the Elizabeth 
islands of Massachusetts, by Bartholomew 
GoSNOLD, when his colony made a temporary 
settlement there, in 1G02, and found its way in 
1611 into Virginia. In 1718 it was brouglit in- 
to the Valley of the Mississippi, and in 174G 
flour was first shipped from the Wabash river 
to New Orleans. This was the commencement 
of a trade that has become a part of the history 
of the West, and rendered the free navigation 
of the Mississippi so essential to its prosperity 
that no political changes or necessities will ever 
be permitted to close or obstruct it. 

The true and infallible symbol of civilization 
and refinement is the wheat plant. No unen- 
lightened nation ever cultivates it; no enlight- 
ened nation ever neglects it. Our Aborigines 
fully appreciated the influence of the wheat 
plant on society, if the following anecdote, rela- 
ted by C'KEVECCEUE, the old French traveler, has 
any foundation in fact: The chief of the tribe 
of the Mississais said to his people, " Do you 
not see the whites living upon seeds, while we 
eat flesh? — that flesh requires more than thirty 
moons to grow up, and is then often scarce? — 
that each of the wonderful seeds they sow in 
the earth returns them an hundredfold? The 
flesh on which we subsist has four legs to es- 
cape from us, while we have but two to pursue 
and capture it. The grain remains where the 
white men sow it, and grows. With them Win- 
ter is a period of rest, while with us it is the 
time of laborious hunting. For these reasons 
they have so many children, and live longer 
than we do. I say, therefore, unto every one 
that will hear me, that before the cedars of our 
village shall have died down with age, and the 
maple trees of the valley shall have ceased to 
give us sugar, the race of the little corn (wheat) 
sowers will have exterminated the race of the 
flesh-eaters, provided our huntsmen do not re- 
Bolve to become sowers." 

Production. — In 1850, the United States pro- 



duced 100,485,944 bushels ; in 1860, 173,104,924 
bushels — a gain of seventy per cent., and an in- 
cre.ise, in proportion to population, of more 
than twenty-five per cent. In 1850, Pennsyl- 
vania ranked first as a wheat-growing State, 
Ohio second, and New York third; in 1860, 
Illinois stepped forward from the fifth to the 
first rank, Indiana to the second rank, and 
Wisconsin, from the ninth to the third rank. 
In New England, the productiofi of wheat, lit- 
tle as it was in 1850, was even less in 1860, 
only enough being grown to feed the people for 
two months. The same is true of the .Middle 
States, where the population during the decade 
had increased two millions. 

In 1867, the estimate of the United States 
Agricultural Department of the year's crop, was 
212,000.000 bushels, and Wisconsin had risen to 
the second rank in the amount of production. 

A Look Ahead.— The question is forced upon 
us. Will the West continue to furnish wheat for 
export, after feeding the increasing population 
of the States east of the Alleghanies? 

The helt of country adapted to wheat-raising 
is certainly broad enough. Some tlieorists 
have tried to limit its natural range to ten 
degrees of latitude — between 33° and 43° 
north. But experience definitely refutes this, 
as is shown by the following, from the Census 
Report for 1860 : 



The growth of vegetation in Minnesota is ex- 
ceedingly rapid, for the Summers are warm. The 
isothermal and isotheral lines passing from New 
York westward bend gradually to the north, 
round Lake Michigan, and reach the Pacific 
by passing through Minnesota and Dakota. 
Minnesota is now perhaps the best wheat-grow- 
ing State in the Union, excepting California, 
which still maintains the high average of six- 
teen bushels to the acre. 

The damaging fact, in this connection, is that 
the average amount of wheat grown per acie 
in the United States is constantly diminishing. 
Hard cropping and thriftless culture are respon- 
sible for the degeneracy. John H. Klippart, 
Secretary of the Ohio Agricultural Society, in an 
admirable volume* on the growth of the wheat 



'The Wlieat Pliiiit. its t'ulturi) and Dis";is.>«," 700 
pafps, 12nu.,; by .l"]iN H. Kltppaut. I'libhsliua by 
MoOEE, WiLSTACH & MooilE, OJQuiuuati, Oliio. 



WHEAT DECLINE IN PRODUCTION OF 



155 



plant, says: "Virginia, Maryland, and Dela- 
ware, as well as New York, were formerly great 
wheat-producing sections. But many parts of 
New York, that formerly produced twenty-five 
bushels to the acre, do not now average over 
five bushels, and many parts of Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, and Delaware, that formerly produced 
abundantly, will not now pay the cost of culti- 
vation. Exhaustion is written all over them in 
language too plain to be misunderstood." 

Mr. Klippart, in his report for 1867, re- 
veals the unwelcome fact that Ohio is following 
in the .same road — ^here being, in that year, only 
two-thirds as many acres sown, and only one- 
half as much wheat grown a.s in 1850. He says : 
" Estimating that the population of the State, 
during the years 1864-5-6, was 2,500,000, and 
that each individual consumes five bushels of 
wheat per annum, then 12,500,000 bushels were 
required for bread within the State during each 
one of these three years — but the product, after 
deducting seed, was, at most, 9,500,000 bushels 
per annum — leaving an absolute deficit of three 
million of bushels per annum for each one 
of the years just named." The average per 
acre was also lower than ever before. 

It is a melancholy truth, says Klippart, 
and one that reflects much on the skill and 
foresight of American farmers, that, while the 
wheat crop of England has increased at least 
fifty per cent, in the last century, that of the 
United States has fallen oft' in nearly the same 
proportion He claims that little of the West 
is really well adapted to permanent wheat 
growing, because a large mixture of clay in 
the soil is necessary to the perfect growth of 
wheat, whereas the prairies are a rich friable 
mold, lacking the proper proportion of clay. 
To show that our wheat region is not capable 
of producing so great a surplus as we imagine, 
we have only to look at facts instead of fancies. 
We may take, perhaps, as the average crop of 
wheat produced, that of 1848 — which was 126,- 
000,000 bushels— and our population 22,000,000, 
which gives a trifle over five and a half bushels 
to each inhabitant. Now the consumption of 
wheat in England is 166,000,000 bushels annu- 
ally, which gives six bushels to each inhabit- 
ant — about half a bushel more to each person 
than we should have if we consumed our whole 
crop. It is true we have a surplus that will av- 
erage ten or twelve million bushels a year for 
export, but that is produced by the substitution 
of corn for wheat as an article of bread. Cut 
off this substitute and we should be our own 



consumers of all our own wheat, and there 
would be a scarcity besides. 

Our resource now, continues Klipp-Irt, is 
to preserve our wheat lands where they are 
not exhausted, and to restore them where they 
are. Under judicious and scientific tillage, 
the lands of England, that have been under 
cultivation for hundreds of years, now aver- 
age twenty-five bushels to the acre. This is 
done by a liberal use of lime, plaster, clover and 
a judicious rotation of crops. In wheat-raising, 
this rotation is clover and corn. Peas, beans, 
turnips, beets, and carrots all furnish a desirable 
rotation, and furnish excellent food for sheep, 
which are good on wheat land. In fact, the 
culture of wheat and raising of sheep should 
go together. The rotating crops furnish food 
for the sheep, and the sheep furnish the best of 
manure for wheat land. .\11 the manure de- 
rived from the sheep should be carefully pre- 
served for enriching the land. It is highly 
concentrated, and prepares the land for a gen- 
erous crop of wheat at a small expense. The 
manuriai agent consumes the crop that gives 
the land rest from wheat culture, and prepares 
the soil for another crop of wheat. 

It may be laid down as an axiom that, climate 
and local circumstances being the same, what 
one soil will produce, another by scientific cul- 
tivation may be made to produce; and that the 
farmer, from a like amount of skill and labor 
in the cultivation of the soil, may anticipate 
the same results that have attended like efforts 
in other countries. If they pursue the exhaust- 
ing process that has impoverished Virginia 
and some other States, they will reap an abund- 
ant crop of poverty and exhaustion. The work 
is going on rapidly. The estimated loss, by 
exhaustion, in the United Slates, is, annu- 
ally, $30,000,000. Th-s is equivalent to a loss 
of $.500,000,000 capital, at six per cent. If, by 
scientific cultivation and manuring, our farmers 
will arrest this system of exhaustion, they will 
restore this capital ; and these lands, that now 
produce from five to thirteen bushels of wheat 
to an acre, can he made to produce as thej' do 
in England — twenty, forty, and eighty bushels. 

Mr. J. R. Dodge, of the United States Agri- 
cultural Department, visited the Northwest in 
1868, and, on his return to Washington, painted 
the following humiliating, but truthful, pic- 
ture: "Western wheat culture is ruinous in 
impoverishment of the soil, in deterioration of 
the seed, in overrunning the country with 
weeds, in promoting a false and wasting sys- 



156 



FIELD CROPS : 



tern of economy. The prevalent mode of oper- 
ating involves first a partial breaking of the 
soil, rendering sowing irregular in position and 
depth, and drilling difficult and imperfect, giv- 
ing weeds quite as good a cliance as wheat. 
The next year a superficial, hasty plowing par- 
tially covers the stubble, and very slightly the 
tangle of weeds, and wheat is again put in. 
Year after year wheat follows wheat, and weeds 
incrense, while the yield of grain diminishes, 
partly from loss of certain elements of the soil, 
and partly because weeds have usurped a large 
area of the fields. In the meantime, as if to 
iiicrense the loss from the wheat necessarily 
carried away, the straw by millions of tons, 
worth almost as much per ton for feeding, as 
the marsh or prairie hay of the country, is 
burned nightly in harvest lime. till the sky is 
bright with a holocaust of greenbacks in straw; 
and the excuse for thus dissipating in thin air, 
not only elements of nutrition, but valuable 
elements of fertilization, Is that the way may 
be clear for the plow to scratch over again the 
maltreated soil. 

This picture may not be verified in every 
wheat field of the West, but who will deny its 
striking likeness in most cases. Is proof of 
impoverishment wanted? One witness only is 
needed — the soil itself. First, thirty bushels 
per acre is the boast of the farmer ; then the 
yield drops to twenty-five, to twenty, to fifteen, 
and finally to ten and eight. Minnesota 
claimed twenty-two bushels average a few years 
ago (some of her enthusiastic friends made it 
twentj' -seven ), but she will scarcely average 
this year twelve, and will never again make 
twenty-two nnder her present mode of farming. 
To be sure, there are excuses. The seasons do 
not suit as formerly, blight or rust comes, or 
the fly invades, but all these things are evi- 
dences of exhaustion, and prey upon the soil 
in proportion to its deterioration." 

Agriculture in the Middle and the older 
Western States is in a transition between the 
savage method of skinning and the civilized 
method of culture. 

The Annual Register of Rural Affairs says: 
"There is no question that the common belief 
that the wheat crop is not adapted to certain 
places, has been, at least, partly owing to bad 
nianiigement. When the country was new and 
the soil fresh and productive, good crops were 
obtained with but little difficulty. General 
success led to carelessness ; grain was sown after 
grain, without regard to a proper rotation, and 
the soil became gradually exhausted and filled 



with weeds. This pernicious course was much 
practiced in the best wheat regions of western 
New York, and the crops became so reduced 
that some went so far as to predict the entire 
failure of wheat raising. But by the adoption 
of underdraining, cleansing rotation, and en- 
riching by clover, and a judicious application 
of manure, many have succeeded in obtaining 
a gradual increase in .successive years, until the 
original yield of the fresh rich soil, has been 
exceeded." 

Farmers are proverbially slow to adopt new 
ideas. They abstract from the soil the accu- 
mulated organic matter, and do not realize the 
necessity of replenishing it. They exhaust the 
salts and the humus, and return nothing but 
more seed. This, with shallow plowing and no 
irrigation or draining, and little rotation is 
working the mischief. 

We invite thoughtful attention to the follow- 
ing words of Mr. Capbon : " With the preva- 
lent mode of culture, in very compact soils, 
wheat roots are so near the surface as to be 
thrown out by the mechanical displacement of 
freezing and thawing, and, if not utterly de- 
stroyed, they struggle fruitlessly to pierce the 
unbroken subsoil, packed, perhaps, by the tread 
of cattle fur a century, and finally yield to the 
blasting power of an early drought, blighted, 
shriveled, light, worthless for seed, and of little 
value for bread. The drill, planting the seed 
firmly in the earth instead of scattering it on 
the surface, already saves half the Winter kill- 
ing in the fields where it is used; and deep 
culture, with proper drainage, would procure 
exemption from most of the remaining liabili- 
ties, and, ordinarily, from all danger of loss 
from drought. The advantage of additional 
depth of pulverization, therefore, would often 
be far greater than the proportionate increase 
of depth, and the profit of the improvement 
would be increased in corresponding ratio. In 
this country the average yield per acre of one 
of the principal staples, wheat, under our sys- 
tem of shallow cultivation, has been gradually 
lessened, until at the present time it does not 
exceed twelve bushels per acre, while England, 
with her deep tillage and rotation system, has 
raised her average to twenty-eight bushels. 
Estimating our wheat area at 18,000,000 of 
acres, and allowing an increase of sixteen bush- 
els per acre under a system of thorough and 
judicious cultivation, the increased pi-oduction 
would amount, annually, to 288,000,000 bushels; 
and wheat is but one of the staples to be bene- 
fited by such improvement. 



WHEAT — ROTATION OF CROPS. 



157 



" Deep cultivation is a prime necessity of root- 
culture, which forms the basis of English agri- 
culture, and enables the English farmer to pay 
annual rents equivalent to the fee-simple value 
of our farms. The growing of these 'green 
crops' results in a more tliorough admi.xture 
of the food-producing elements of the soil, ana 
its prompt permeation by water and the gases, 
which are so necessary to plant-growth. France, 
following in our footsteps, or we in hers, in at 
least one particular — the want of a proper rota- 
tion system — has reduced the average yield of 
wheat to fifteen bushels. The single fact that, 
while England has two acres in 'green crops ' 
for every acre in wheat, France has three acres 
in wheat for every acre in green crops, and that 
with us roots are scarcely raised as a farm crop, 
explains the cause of the great discrepancy in 
the yield of that valuable cereal in these 
countries." 

Hon. J. C. G. Kennedy, Superintendent of 
the Census, says in the same vein ; " English 
farmers, guided by close observation and ex- 
perience, have slowly worked out an admirable 
system of rotation, and now scientific investiga- 
tions have elucidated the principles upon which 
it is founded. We may not be able at present 
to pursue generally the same system of rotation 
in this country, but the principles are as appli- 
cable here as there, and, if adopted, will pro- 
duce the same beneficial results. The applica- 
tion of plaster, ashes, superphospate of lime, and 
other mineral manures, has rarely any great 
efiect on the growth of the cereals ; but super- 
phosphate of lime has an almost magical effect 
on turnips, and plaster usually increases the 
growth of clover, so that these mineral ma- 
nures, wlien applied to these crops, may be 
rendered, indirectly, of great benefit to the 
cereals. 

"An English farmer once said to the writer, 
'insure me a good crop of turnips, and I will 
insure you a good crop of barley, and of every 
other crop in the rot.ition.' Of so much value 
do British farmers consider the turnip crop as 
a means of enriching the soil for the growth 
of the cereal grains, that they spend more 
money in preparing the soil for turnips than 
for any other crop, frequently fifty dollars per 
acre. The turnip crop enables the farmer to 
keep an immense stock of sheep and cattle, and 
thus enrich the soil ; the ammonia which tur- 
nips obtain from the soil, the rain, and the 
atmosphere being retained and left on the farm 
for the use of the following cereal crops. In 
the Norfolk or four-course system of rotation, 



one-fourth of the arable land is sown to turnips, 
followed by barley, seeded with clover. It 
then lies one or two years in clover, followed by 
wheat at one furrow. After the wheat, turnips 
again follow, and so on as before. Latterly, by 
the use of superphosphate and guano for turnips, 
and by feeding large quantities of oil-cake and 
other purchased cattle-food, the land in Eng- 
land has become so rich that many farmers 
have thought it necessary to introduce an extra 
grain crop into the rotation, in order to reduce 
the soil. But hitherto tlie rule has been never 
to take two grain crops in succession. 

" How different from this is the practice of 
some of our American farmers! Corn, barley, 
and wheat often follow each other in succes- 
sion ; then seed down with timothy, red-top, or 
some other exhausting grass ; take oft" all the 
hay and then renew the process. To call this 
a ' rotation of crops ' is absurd. We might 
as well grow a crop of Indian corn every year. 
We must alternate the cereals with crops of clover, 
peas, beans, tares, and other leguminous plants, or 
turnips ; feed them out on the farm, and carefully 
save and retwn the manure to the soil." 

Every plant uncared for shows a tendency to 
degenerate. As culture has much to do in 
developing new varieties, so the neglect of it 
will do much to destroy them, and there is no 
doubt that our best fruits, if removed from our 
orchards and gardens to their habitats in the 
forest.s, and reproduced from their seeds for a 
series of years, would be no better than the 
original species in a wild state. The delicious 
J<ewtown Pippin or the Pearmain would be no 
more agreeable in flavor than the little Eu- 
ropean crab apple (Pyrvsmalvs) , from which 
they probably originated. Professor A. Gray, 
in his Botanical Text Book, says; "The races 
of corn, wheat, etc., which now preserve their 
character unchanged, have become fixed by cen- 
turies of domestication. Even these at times 
manifest an unequivocal disposition to return 
to their aboriginal stock. Were cultivation to 
cease they would all speedily disappear; the 
greater part, perhaps, would perish outright; 
the remainder would revert, in a few genera- 
tions of spontaneous growth, to the form of the 
primitive stock." 

There is, perhaps, no one fact which gives a 
clearer idea of the great growth of the West, 
and the increase of its products, than the 
amount of grain which is shipped each year 
from Chicago. In 1838 seventy-eight bushels 
of wheat comprised the total exports from 
what has since become the greatest grain mar- 



158 



FIELD CROPS : 



ket in the world. In 1839 it was 3,678 bushels; 
in 1840, 10,000 bushels; in 1841, 40,000 bushels; 
in 1842, 586,907 bushels; in 1845 it first reached 
a million bushels ; in 1847 over 2,000,000 bushels. 
In 1861 and 1852 it again fell off to less than a 
million bushels; but in 1853 again rose to 
1,680,998 bushels. In 1854 it was 2,744,860 
bushels. In 1855, 7,110,270 bushels; in 1856, 
9,419,365 bushels; in 1857, 10,783,292 bushels; 
in 1858, 10,759,359 bushels; in 1860, 16,054,379 
bushels; in 1861, 22,913,830 bushels; in 1862, 
22,902,765 bushels; in 1863, 17,925,336 bushels 
of wheat. 

Eussia is our only conspicuous competitor 
in supplying the English demand for biead- 
Btufis; and in this rivalry we have every ad- 
vantage. Russia is wanting in sea-coast; while 
her distance from the markets of Great Britain 
and France, and the lack of a large commer- 
cial intercourse with those nations tend to limit 
her exports to the contiguous continental na- 
tions. This will permanently leave every sur- 
plus bushel of American wheat in demand. 
We have everything essential to success — a 
vast wheat region, the best means of transpor- 
tation, and a great and increasing home and 
foreign market. Shall indolence and slovenly 
culture prevent our vigorous West from win- 
ning the prize, and holding it? 

There must be a radical revolution in tillage, 
or we have arrived at the maximum of pro- 
duction. "Our population doubles in about 
twenty j'ears, yet the relative diminution in our 
wheat crop is so great that, unless our mode of 
agriculture is improved, and the ratio per acre 
increased, the export will entirely cease, and 
we shall not produce enough for ourselves." 

Soil. — Soils of a medium quality should be 
selected, says Klippart. Those which are 
too rich, such as the black mold, or black sandy 
soils of the river and creek banks, or low places, 
should never be selected for wheat. They are 
unquestionably better adapted for corn and po- 
tatoes. The soils on "bottom lands" as they 
are generally termed, consist in too great a de- 
gree of organic matter — of humus, and decay- 
ing or decayed vegetable matter, to grow 
wheat to any advantage to the grower. They 
lack the proper earthy materials, or if they pos- 
sess them, they are not in a proper chemical 
condition for the purposes of the plant. It is 
a generally admitted fact, that on such soils the 
wheat grows very rank, producing straw of 
enormous^growth, but the heads are invariably 
Email, even of the best varieties, and produce 
very few and indifferent groins of wheat. 



Aside from this, wheat grown on low places 
is more liable to suffer from frost, mildew, 
rust, and insects, than that grown upon higher 
grounds ; it is also as a general thing much 
more liable to fall or lodge. 

The best lands for wheat are those in which 
the principal ingredient is clay — either red, 
yellow, or white, of which the white, however, 
is always tlie poorest. There is no doubt that 
more labor must be expended on a pure clay 
soil than on almost any other; yet when prop- 
erly managed it yields more uniformly, and 
gives larger crops of wheat than any other 
soil. The first thing to be done after clearing 
a piece of clay soil, is, to have it thoroughly 
drained, before it is "broke up." Clay retains 
more moisture than any other kind of soil ; but 
wlien it loses its moisture, it becomes drier and 
harder than any other. A new clay will shrink ' 
or contract fully one-sixth in sun-drying or 
"baking;" it is ea.sj- to imagine what effect this 
shrinkage will have upon the tender rootlets 
of the plant.s. Lime in considerable quantities 
should be applied on new clay lands, to neu- 
tralize the excess of acidity with which they 
are almost universally impregnated. 

Where deep snows protect the crop, as north 
of the southern margin of our northern lakes, 
a light, carbonaceous soil is productive, which 
in more southern latitudes would be unsuitable. 
Where the snow is not an adequate protection, 
the substitution of Spring wheat obviates the 
natural difficulties to which the Winter varie- 
ties are there subject. In the southern and 
middle portions of the wheat region the tena- 
cious clay Soils are made more productive by 
manures, deep plowing, drainage, and drill 
planting. And where clay subsoil underlies « 
light carbonaceous top soil, the mixture of them 
by deep plowing is highly beneficial. 

Preparation of Soil. — Almost all clay soils of 
the West will bring good wheat for three or 
four years without manure, but it is better not 
to take off more than two or three crops with- 
out manuring. Barn-yard manure made on 
the farm is the best general fertilizer for wheat. 
When the land is much worn, two bushels of 
lime, and three of salt to the acre, is probably 
the best and cheapest fertilizer that can be used. 
Fall plowing often brings from five to seven 
bushels of wheat to the acre more than Spring 
plowing. Deep plowing is the best, as it lets 
the frost deep into the soil, preparing it for a 
crop the coming season, and destroying many 
seeds and insects. 

Variom Aids.— All old soils — by which we 



WHEAT — MANURES FOK. 



159 



mean not only the exhausted wheat farms of 
tlie East, but also much of the wheat land of 
tlie West, where the crop has deteriorated — 
ought to have thorough preparation for wheat; 
by underdraining if the land is worth thirty dol- 
lars an acre; by a rotation with clover; by sub- 
soiling and thorough pulverization; by the liber- 
al application of general and special manures. 
Clover. — Elsewhere, under proper head.s, we 
have treated of each of these auxiliaries. In 
regard to clover. Prof. Voelckek, in a valua- 
ble report recently published in the Journal of 
the Koyal Agricultural Society, England, ar- 
rives at the following conclusions: 

1. That clover removes from the soil more 
potash, phosphoric acid, lime, and other mat- 
ters which enter into the ashes of wheat than 
any other crop, and that there is fully three 
times as much nitrogen in a crop of clover, as 
in the average produce of the grain and straw 
of wheat per acre ; yet that clover is the best 
preparatory crop for wheat, because during its 
growth, a large amount of nitrogenous matter 
accumulates in the soil from decaying leaves 
and root.s, which contain from one and one-half 
to two per cent, of nitrogen. 

2. That more nitrogen is left after clover 
grown for seed than after clover grown for hay, 
and so a seed crop is better to precede wheat. 

3. That clover roots return less nitrogen to 
the soil, if nibbled at before they mature, and 
therefore that wheat is generally stronger, and 
yields better, after clover mown for hay, than 
when the clover is fed off green by sheep. 

4. That there is strong presumptive evidence 
that the nitrogen which exists in the air in the 
shape of ammonia and nitric acid, and descends 
in these combinations with the rain which falls 
on the ground, satisfies, under ordinary cir- 
cumstances, the requirements of the clover crop. 
This causes a large accumulation of nitrogen- 
ous matters, which are gradually changed in 
the soil into nitrates. The atmosphere thus 
furnishes nitrogenous food to the succeeding 
wheat indirectly, and so to say, gratis. 

As to the special advantage of underdrain- 
ing, John Johnston, one of the best farmers 
of the country, placed it at the very head of 
the agencies to restore the former productive- 
ness of wheat. He declared, at the close of the 
year 1856, after all the unusual disasters which 
had happened to the harvest 'or seve ral pre- 
vious years, " My own wheat crops for the last 
eight years have averaged more than they ever 
did before for thirty-five years. I have sown no 
tcheat on undrained land." 



Barn-yard Manure. — In regard to general ma- 
nures, we have already said that barn-yard com- 
post is the best. No other crop shows so quick- 
ly and so greatly its benefits. The efTects of 
the lightest application are readily seen. It 
gives a strong full growth to the roots of Win- 
ter wheat, enabling it the better to endure freez- 
ing, while its pulverizing agency renders the 
soil friable — a condition essential to vigorous 
growth. Its Summer influence is not le.ss strik- 
ing. The vigorous growth of the Fall is early 
resumed in the Spring, better enabling the 
plants to overcome the attacks of the fly, and 
it hurries them through the ripening stage, 
lessening the danger from rust. 

Professor Johnston, in his Agricultural 
Chemistry, calls attention to the belief that 
"the employment of manures which are rich 
in nitrogen not only causes a larger crop, but 
also produces a grain which is much richer in 
luten. The experiments which have hitherto 
been chiefly relied upon in proof of this result 
are those of Hkkmbstadt. On ten patches, 
each one hundred .square feet, of the same 
soil (a sandy loam), manured with equal weights 
of different manures in the dry state, he sowed 
equal quantities (one-half pound) of the same 
wheat, and collected, weighed, and analyzed 
the produce. His results are represented in the 
following table : 



^E; j i 1 : j ; ■ 




14 told 

4.3 
34-2 

1.0 
41.3 

1.9 

1.8 

13.9 
99.8 


pooiq XO 


14 fold 

4.2 
33.9 
1.3 
41.4 
1.6 
1,6 
1.1 
0.6 
14.0 

99.7 


IJOS }ti3!N 


12 told 

4.2 
32.9 
1.3 

1.5 
1.0 
0.7 
13.8 

99.7 


-Sunp s.d.ioqs 


g|-_^ S-S» S 


— -ganp Sjj^oo 


-.1 t^~iu=a.u.J.ua:a 1; 


12 fold 
4.2 

1.4 
39.9 
1.4 
1.6 
1.0 
0.9 
14.2 

99.7 


•eilun nmanH 


g|S^ ,„2- = „ ° 


•— ganp gs.iOQ 


CT.I 0=.0T.<7-.0 lU 1 


ilsssirsgs^-: i 


1 
•Snnp oooSia 1 


7 fold 

4.2 
12.0 
1.0 
62.3 
1.9 
1.9 
1.0 
0.5 
14.9 

99.7 


Snnp Avoj 


g|r_ Se.^^| I 


apitJloBUA 1 


<» 1 =--.o=.<c-ia.i..c 1 s 


3 fold 

4.2 
9.2 
0.7 

60.6 
1.9 
1.8 
1.0 
0.3 

14.0 

99.7 


' ■ 1 
•••■pojnnntnna , 



160 



FIELD crops: 



" The large percentage of gluten obtained by 
the use of the first five manures is very strik- 
ing, if the determinations are really to be de- 
pended upon. They are certainly interesting 
in a theoretical point of view, and are deserv- 
ing of careful repetition. In reference to their 
bearing upon practical farming, however, it 
must not be forgotten that the results of small 
experiments are never fully borne out when 
they are repeated on the large scale." 

Looking at the extent of wheat cultivation 
in the West, it is obvious that barn-yard ma- 
nure can not be produced in quantities at all 
approaching the demands of that husbandry 
which should regard the fertility of the soil as 
one of the highest ends it can have in view. 
Special manures, such as gnano, admissible near 
the sea-board, and for products bearing a high 
price, can not be much relied on in the AVcst- 
ern States. The only means for general ma- 
nuring is applying all the product of the barn- 
yard, in turning under green clover crops, and 
in hogging down others, such as corn, rye, and 
oats. 

Western farmers need to be constantly and 
repeatedly impressed with the necessity of 
giving all their manure and all their wheat straw 
back (o the soil. Some do this; but there are 
thousands of farmers along the frontier who 
never think of carting a load of manure, ex- 
cept perliaps, upon some choice garden corner; 
whose barns lie smothered in filth, the undis- 
turbed accumulations of years ! We have been 
into, or rather upon, barn-yards where manure 
was eight to ten feet thick ; and we know of 
many other farmers — if we may abuse a re- 
spectable craft by applying their name to sucli 
wretched spendthrifts — who move their barns 
from 3'ear to year, that they may "have a clean 
spot," and avoid the necessity of moving the 
heaps of rotted dung ! And these are the same 
men who burn their straw, instead of cutting 
it and returning it, either through cattle or 
without cattle, to the compost heap and thence 
to the soil. They are not farmers ; they are 
plunderers, and they deserve nothing better 
than crop-degeneracy and personal bankruptcy, 
unless they can learn more rational habits. 

Mineral Manures. — There are but two mineral 
manures for wheat that can very profitably be 
used by the Western farmer, gypsum or plas- 
ter, and lime. In connection with clover crops 
both are valuable, but especially the gypsum, 
called by chemists sulphate of lime, being com- 
posed of sulphuric acid and lime. The ash 
analysis of clover shows that these constitute a 



large portion of its mineral elements, and 
hence the cause of its heavy growth when gyp- 
sum is sown on the young clover. 

Effect of Plaster. — General Obr, of Laporte 
county, Indiana, an enterprising farmer, tried a 
series of experiments with plaster, which seemed 
to justify the following conclusions : 1. That 
three-fourtlis to one bushel of plaster per acre 
on lands which have produced grain for a num- 
ber of years in succession, applied on a well- 
set, growing clover crop, at .some six inches high, 
and plowed under when the seed balls liave all 
turned brown, will add fifteen to thirty per 
cent, to a succeeding wheat crop over tlie same 
clover turned under without plaster. 2. That 
the vigor imparted to the growing grain by the 
use of plaster, will, in a great degree, prevent 
the ravages of the fly on .such varieties as the 
fly works most upon. 3. That clover and phis- 
ter, on most soils, are the cheapest manures 
that the farmer can use, yet he should not ne- 
glect the use of any others within his reach. 
He adds that the cost of the plaster used and 
of putting it on was about fourteen dollars, or 
fifty cents per acre. 

Effects of Lime. — Says Lewis Bollman, of 
Bloomington, Indiana, in an exhaustive essay 
on wheat culture to which we are much indebt- 
ed : "Lime acts as a manure in three ways: 
by what it gives directly to a plant requiring it 
as one of its constituent elements ; by decom- 
posing vegetable matter, thus fitting it for the 
immediate support cf the growing crop; and 
by making soluble the silica and other miner- 
als of the soil. The importance of this last- 
named action may be seen from the analysis. 
To every ten bifshels of wheat raised there are 
about twelve hundred pounds of straw, and this 
straw contains seventy-two pounds of minerals, 
of which forty-seven is silica. Where the 
straw is removed from the field it will be read- 
ily seen how great is the need of tliis solvent 
action of lime to render the flint in our soils 
capable of supplying their large amount of si- 
lica, for the silica is dissolved flint. But an 
immediate and visible effect of lime depends 
upon the amount of vegetable matter in the 
soil. A neighbor who limed several of hia 
worn-out fields remarked to me that he would 
not give leaves of trees for any amount of lime; 
for alongside one of the fields the leaves had 
blown on it from an adjoining woodlamt, and 
on this portion he had raised excellent wheat. 
Here the lime found vegetable matter to act up- 
on ; in the other portions of the field it did not. 
Hence the liming should be on a full clover 



WHEAT — SELECTION OF SEED. 



IGl 



crop, and botli liinieil under together, or on a 
heavy bhie-grass sod." 

Lime i.s not properly appreciated in the West, 
to add to rich prairie hinds as a support for 
wheat straw. In England, where they raise 
larger crops of wheat than we think of getting, 
lime has long been the main dependence. 
More onght to be used in the Western States; 
■ind in many localities it can be made for fifteen 
cents a bushel. 

Varieties. — LiNN^us comprehended all the 
different varieties of wheat known in his day 
under six species; but modern botani.sts enu- 
merate about thirty species, and some hundreds 
of suhvarieties brought into existence by con- 
tinued cultivation. For mere practical pur- 
poses it is sufficient to have two general classes, 
namely, white and red, and the varieties dis- 
tinguished by their spikelets, as the smooth or 
bearded, the woody-chaiTed or the hairy-chaft'ed. 

" Before the appearance of the wheat midge," 
says the Anmial Register, " the Soule wheat was 
one of the most popular and valuable sorts 
throughout the Northern and Western States. 
The wide destruction produced by this insect 
led to the general introduction of the Mediter- 
ranean, which was found commonly to escape. 
This sort has now been cultivated many years, 
and from the success which has attended its 
crops, it has no doubt proved in the aggregate 
worth hundreds of millions to the country at 
large. The Blue Stem., a smooth, red variety, is 
an old well known sort, largely cultivated in 
the South. There is also a white variety of 
the same name, considerably resembling the old 
White Flint, The straw having a bluish cast 
below the head has given it this name. The 
Lambert is a newer sort, more lately introduced, 
and much cultivated in portions of the West. 
It is a red chaff, bald wheat, of good, but not 
of the highest quality, ripening a little earlier 
tlian the Mediterraneun, and remarkable for its 
entire freedom from the attacks of the midge. 
The Early Virginia May has been a very popu- 
lar sort at the Southwest ; but, although prom- 
ising well for a time in some places, on its in- 
troduction into the North it has not generally 
succeeded, and has now nearly passed out of cul- 
tivalhin. It is a white, bald variety, but not 
quite so white as the Sou'e. The Diehl wheat 
is a new sort not yet sufficiently tested to prove 
its standing, but recommended by some for its 
earline.ss, freedom from the midge, and gene- 
ral value. It is a bald, white wheat, with a 
short straw and short head." The Rural New 
Yorker speaks well of the Diehl wheat, and 
11 



.says that a farmer of the vicinity raised three 
hundred bushels from ten acres. 

Isaac Dillon wrote from Zanesville, Ohio: 
"The best varieties of wheat are red. The old 
Red Chaff Beardy stands at the head decided- 
ly, it more uniformly yields a fair crop; the 
berry is not equalled by any other red wheat ; 
the flour is much finer. This wheat, of good 
quality, is not excelled by any other whatever, 
except where fancy pastry flour is wanted. For 
sweet, tough bread, absorbing the greatest quan- 
tity of water, it is ahead of white wheat; and 
take it all in all, the Red Chaff Beardy is the 
best wheat for all purposes we have in the Uni- 
ted States." 

General Harmon, of New York, to whom 
the country is indebted for several of its be-st 
varieties of wheat, said on this question: "In 
selecting the best Winter variety, I will name 
the ones that 1 believe will do best on the dif- 
ferent soils where wheat is sown. There are 
some varieties that succeed better on some .soils 
than others. If the soil is rich clay loam, it is 
important to sow a small and early variety : 
the Kentuckij While, better known .is Hutehinson 
wheat; Mediterranean, or Wheatland Red. If 
sandy, gravelly loam, the improved Wldle 
Flint, old Genesee Red, Chaff Bald, SaxiVs WJieat, 
and Flint. In selecting the variety that will 
do best on all soils, I am confident the im- 
proved TI7ii'(e Flint stands first for the quantity 
and superior quality, producing more flour of 
superior quality than any other of nearly forty 
different varieties that I have had under culti- 
vation." 

Seteetion of Seed. — The tendency of our wheat 
to degenerate already referred to, is attributa- 
ble partly to the careless manner of selecting 
seed — if that method can be called "selecting" 
which carts the seed promiscuously from the 
granary to the field, year after year, with little 
or no thought that its quality will aflect the 
quality and quantity of the harvest, .\lmost 
every good farmer now selects, and saves with 
the greatest care, his best Indian corn for seed, 
and as a result corn deteriorates less than any 
other cereal that grows. No man expects a 
superior colt from an inferior dam or .sire, and 
the sheep-breeder rigidly culls his flock. This 
simple rule neglected, the finest stud, herd, or 
flock rapidly degener.ites. The vegetable king- 
dom is subject to the same law. Like begets 
like ; and the best crop, other things equal, 
comes from the best seed. 

Wheat for sowing should be cho.sen and pre- 
served with the greatest attention. A variety 



162 



FIELD crops: 



Bhould be selected by comparison, which yields 
well, is hardy, commands a good market, and 
makes a good article of flour. When such is 
found, secure it, even at a liberal outlay cf 
money. Having once obtained it, endeavor to 
improve upon it by selection and cultivation. 
Select the earliest and longest heads from the 
field, or that part of the field containing them, 
and let it get fully ripe; keep it separate from 
the general crop, thresh it with the flail, clean 
it; then separate it with a .sieve which will 
pass all the small, shrunken grains. A further 
improvement is by throwing it across a long 
floor, rejecting all that falls short as light, and 
retaining for seed the heaviest and best, which 
goes beyond. This process will eflectually 
clear the grain of cheat and other foul seed. 
Mr. Charles Darwin, in " Variations of An- 
imals and Plants," says that "Colonel Le Cou- 
TEUR, in his persevering and successful at- 
tempts to raise new varieties by selection, began 
by choosing the largest ears, but soon found 
that the grains in the same ear diflered so that 
he was compelled to select them separately, and 
cadi grain generally transmitted its own char- 
acter." Careful selection will prove an im- 
portant auxiliary in the systematic eflfort that 
ought to be made to restore the wheat crop of 
America. 

The best farmers of Germany have adopted 
a system of seed exchanges, whereby new seed 
is introduced to each farm every few years, 
some even obtaining seed from distant countries 
for this purpose- The plan is believed to be 
beneficial. The exchanges are conducted by 
the local agricultural societies. Undoubtedly 
a change of .seed is occasionally a good, or even a 
necessary thing; just as the Shorthorn or Devon 
breeder purchases from a di.stant herd to min- 
gle through his own stock a different strain of 
blood. But care in selection is more important 
than exchange. The well-known pedigree 
wheat, about which so much has been said in 
the English agricultural journals, was pro- 
duced, like the "barrel wheat," simply by 
following this rule of the transmission of 
qualities — selecting the best heads from the 
field, and then the best grains from the bead, 
and continuing the process for a series of 
y>.'iirs. 

riclding of Seed- — It is now generally ad- 
mitted that pickling seed-wheat acts as a pre- 
ventive of smut. Having cleaned your seed as 
above, preps'e a .pickle of salt dissolved in 
water sufficiently strong to bear up a potato, 
and for half a barrel of such pickle add half a 



pound of blue vitriol. When all is dissolved, 
put in the seed, stir it well, and skim off all 
that rises to the surface ; throw the remainder 
into a ba.sket to drain; let this be done ten or 
twelve hours previous to sowing. Just before 
sowing, spread it on a tight flooi-, and roll it in 
slaked lime, planter, <ir ashes, reduced tn ;i [low- 
der, stirring it well wi;li rakes. 

Thick Soirinff vs. Thin Sowing. — The report 
of the United States Department of Agriculture 
for February, 1868, says : " Too much seed is 
used in wheat culture. Scarcely less than 
twenty million of acres will suffice for the wheat 
area of the United States, requiring nearly 
thirty million bushels of seed, and little more 
than ten bushels per acre are produced. Ten 
million of bushels of this seed, worth perhaps 
sixteen million of dollars, might be saved to 
the country, sold for bread, and the proceeds 
applied to the cultivation of growing wheat, 
with a fair probability of obtaining by such 
means, more than twenty additional million of 
bushels for the bread of the nation. So large 
a portion of this seed is now wasted by sowing 
at irregular intervals and at unequal depths, 
and so much is choked by weeds, that farmers 
say they can not use a less quantity; but with 
universal drilling, at a width sufiacient to allow 
the tillering and growth which would result 
from hoeing or cultivating, two-thirds of the 
present supply would be more than ample. 

"Is not a severe reflection upon the judg- 
ment and skill of wheat growers, furnished by 
the fact that ninety-nine out of a hundred of 
them 'run out' their seed in a few years, and 
depend upon the special culture and superior 
ju-dgment of the remaining one to furnish them 
with improved seed at four or five dollars per 
bushel? 

"About one bushel in every seven produced 
in the United States is saved for seed, when the 
requirement should be no more than one for 
every twenty. Thus millions of bushels are 
wasted, buried in the earth, with no prospect 
of resurrection, and sacrificed to ignorance and 
thriftle.ssness. It is taking the children's broad, 
without the poor satisfaction of having fed a 
dog with it. 

"Such waste may be avoided. Thin seeding 
is impracticable with poor culture, though the 
result varies little whether it is thick or thin ; 
it is not only practicable, but necessary, in con- 
nection with deep plowing, thorough tillage, 
and cultivating for the purpose of killing weeds, 
admitting air, and retaining moisture about the 
roots of the plant." 



I 



WHEAT — SOWING AND DRrt-LINQ. 



1C3 



An article by an English farmer presents a 
large number of facts, obtained by an extensive 
correspondence witli farmers in England who 
have tested the thick and the thin sowing of 
wheat during tlie previous years. The testi- 
inimy is so stronglj'in favor of thin sowing that 
it appears wonderful that English farmers have 
not adopted the system generally. The requi- 
sitions are, that the land shall be in the best 
of tilth, the .seed of the best character, and the 
variety pure; also, that it be planted so as to 
give each seed one foot square of soil. It ap- 
pears from the experiments mentioned that the 
UKH-e grain sown the fewer the number of ears 
to each grain per acre. By special culture of 
small spots, a crop at the rate of lOS bushels 
per acre lias been produced, and another of 162 
bushels per acre. The general yield is stated 
to be at least doubled by thin sowing. By thin 
sowing it must be understood that but one seed 
was dropped in a place. 

J. J. Mechi, of Tiptree, England, the well- 
known experimental farmer, says that the thick 
sowing of grain is a great national calamity; 
that more crops fail to yield well from too 
much seed sown than from too little maiuire. 
He adds : " Liebig justly says that the greatest 
enemy toa wheat plant is another wheat plant, 
for the very obvious reason that both require 
the same food ; small heads and kernels, and 
weak, flabby, straw, are the natural conse- 
quences of this competition. For several years I 
tried one bushel of wheat per acre against two 
bushels per acre, both drilled. The difference 
in favor of the one bushel was equal to a rent 
of 303. ($7 50) per acre. 

" A peck of seed-wheat per acre, which 1 
dibbled at intervals of about four and a half 
inches, one kernel in a hole, produced fifty-eight 
bushels of heavy wheat per acre, and two and 
three-quarter tons of straw; in fact, the thickest 
and heaviest crop on my farm. During Win- 
ter, a single stem only having appeared from 
each kernel, the land, at a distance, appeared 
as if unsown ; but in the Spring each stem radi- 
ated its shoots horizontally, to the extent, in 
some instances, of thirty to forty-eight stems, 
and became the best crop on the farm." 

The Mark-Lane Express gives the following 
result of an interesting experiment by M. ViL- 
MOKIN, in France, the ground being diviiled 
iiuo five equal portions of one hundred and 
twenty square yards each. It is stated that the 
soil-was of a sandy character, and of an average 
degree of fertility, and had received a light 
manuring of horse dung. 



■OSS weight of 
ain harvest ' 
in pounds. 



Weiaht of ililTer- 



These figures are significant; for they show 
that, in this instance at least, the quantity and 
quality of the harvest were in inverse propor- 
tion to the amount sown. Three or four pecks 
to the acre are probably enough, when applied 
with a drill. 

There are about seven hundred thousand 
kernels of average wheat in a bushel, which at 
four bushels to the acre would cast the seeds 
about one and a half inches apart — sixty-four 
to the square foot. 

The Ohio Agricultural Keport for 1866 re- 
hearses the experience of Mr. Hallett, the 
enterprising advocate of thin seeding, to whom 
agriculture owes so much. By laying down one 
peck of wheat and one hundred and fifty pounds 
of guano to the acre, he produced a crop of four 
hinidred and eighty bushels of wheat from ten 
acres of laud so poor that it was not regarded 
as worth tilling. In 1860 he harvested at the 
rate of one hundred and eight bushels to the 
acre, by planting grains of Pedigree wheat, 
singly, in holes nine inches apart. • Afterward, 
planting half a peck to the acre, the grains one 
foot apart every way, he reaped at the rate of 
one hundred and sixty-two bushels to the acre. 

Our farmers can not cultivate their hundred- 
acre fields on the garden principle; but they 
may carefully study the rationale of produc- 
tion. The conditions of thin sowing must not 
he lost sight of, for they are imperative, viz.: 
Early sowing, a well-pulverized soil, and the 
best of seed. Beyond the fact that the.se essen- 
tials can not always be complied with, the 
strongest objection to dibbling single grains, is, 
that it allows no excess or reserve of plants 
to make up for casualties from the attack of 
drought, bird, insect, or disease. 

Conclusions should not be hastily drawn from 
the above recorded experiments, but they shoulvl 
promote further similar experiments, that tlius 
the true philosophy of seeding may be ascer- 
tained. Maryland farmers frequently sow but 
three pecks to the acre; and a single seed 
sometimes throws out a hundred stalks. 

Drilling Seed. — "The experience of the last 
few years," says the Valley Farmer, " has shown 
the great value of the grain drill to the farmer. 
Some years the wheat sowed by hand has 



164 



FIELD CROPS : 



nearly all been frozen out, while that which 
was drilled has withstood, in a great measure, 
the action of tlie frost. The drill saves from 
one to two pecks of seed to an acre, and in- 
creases the crop from fifteen to twenty-five per 
cent. It makes an equal distribution of any 
given quantity of seed, covering it a uniform 
depth, leaving a narrow furrow with a ridge 
on either side, which catches and holds the 
Know in Winter, and in the Spring, the earth 
washing from these ridges into the furrows, 
covers the roots. It economizes labor and 
time. A boy with a jiair of horses will drill, 
with ease, ten to fifteen acres a day. The ac- 
companying cuts sliow the difference between 
broadcast and drilled wheat. In the one will 




be noticed the irregularity of its growth and 
height, while in the other its growth is uni- 
form, vigorous, and of the same height; and, 
standing in rows some eight inches apart, the 
sun has a chance to shine in and around, and 
the air to circulate through the grain, render- 
ing the straw clean, bright, and firm ; and the 
depth to which the seed is covered — from two 
to four inches at the option of the operator, the 
drill being regulated to drop at any depth — 
gives it a strong, vigorous, and firm root, and 
it is consequently not so liable to lodge or Gill 
down, besides making it easier to'harvest." 

A farmer who sows only ten acres of wheat 
can afford to buy a drill for it. 



Depth nf Sowing.^A well-known farmer favors 
drilling the seed at least three inches deep, be- 
cause "the grain of drilled wheat being de- 
posited as deeply as its germination will allow, 
its roots, both the primary or tap root, and the 
secondary, are beneath the influence of the sur- 
face droughts, and, receiving their mnisture 
from the .subsoil, they turn toward it," thus 
making stronger roots, and resisting unfavor- 
able influences. The Annwd liec/iskr says: 
"As a general average, a depth of two inches 
is enough. One inch would be better if the 
soil was sufficiently moist; but it is difficult 
to get a drill so as to deposit the seed uniformly 
so shallow. Some years ago the writer of this 
article performed a number of experimenis 
with the following resuhs — the depth being 
carefully measured, and the soil laid on the 
seed-wheat in an even stratum : 
Pl;xnte<t ,S inch deep, the plants camo up )0 5 da\8. 



" As the crop approaches maturity, the dif- 
l<'rence between the shallow and deep planting 
becomes less obvious — so that one inch and thre 
inch planting are not greatly different in their 
results, although the latter is a little later in 
ripening, and is hardly so productive!" 

Time nf Sowing Spring Wheat. — Spring wheat 
is nut so widely cultivated as Winter wheat, 
though it is often profitably grown where Win- 
ter wheat will not thrive. It is not so produc- 
tive as Winter wheat ; its straw is weaker ; iis 
grain less plump ; its flour does not bear sliip- 
ping so well, and so sells somewhat lower iu 
market. The most popular varieties have been 
the Fife, Canada Club, and China Tea. Spriug 
wheat should be sown as early as the ground 
can be well prepared — from March to May. 

The following estimate of the region adapted 
to Winter wheat is from Swery's Journal of 
Agriculture, Chicago: "South of Minnesota, 
northern Wisconsin, and Michigan, the want 
of the snow coming to protect the young plants 
from the almost constant freezing and thawing 
of Winter, and drying winds of March, make 
it, in most seasons, a very uncertain crop. We 
have known good crops of Winter wheat on 
sod land, in the district indicated, but these 
are exceptions to the genera! rule ; nor do we be- 
lieve that Winter wheal, on an average, has ever 
paid the expense of its culture in the section nmu 
noticed. From the fact that its culture in that 
section is generally abandoned, and Spring 
wheat largely cultivated in its place, we think 
the question is fully settled." 



II 



■WHEAT — SPRING HARROWING. 



165 



Time of Soxoing Winter Wheal. — The time for 
sowing Winter wheat in the Northern States is 
from the 5th to the 20tli of September. If 
•Bown Uiter it is liable to Winter-kill from an 
insufficiency of root; and if earlier, it may be 
cani;ht by a drought, or attacked by the Hes- 
sian fly. If there is no danger from the fly or 
drought, it may frequently be put in during the 
last of August, with advantage. 

Winler-Killing. — In some localities in the 
Northwest there is now no cei-tain preventive 
of Winter-killing except to sow in the Spring. 
There are, ho^vever, [lartial remedies, practiced 
in Illinois, Iowa, and southern Wisconsin. 
One of the most eflfective is thorough under- 
draining. Top-dressing with manure, or a 
thin coating of straw after the ground freezes, 
lias also proved beneficial. The establishment 
of tree-belts — elsewhere treated — would, it is 
believed, protect the land from the fatal winds 
of February and March, and save the crop. 
The tree-belt system is sure to work an agri- 
cullur.al revolution in the Ncnihwcst, as soon 
as intelligent farmers shall appreciate its mani- 
fold advantages. Meantime, they must lesort 
to temporary expedients. 

The Chiciigo Tribune speaks of " a gentleman 
long and favorably known to the farmers of the 
Northwest," who has adopted the following 
plan; "The ground is carefully plowed and 
prepared toward the la<t of August and the 
early days of September, and the wheat is then 
put in with a drill. A quantity of oats, equal 
to about half that would be put in on a like 
piece of ground for a crop, is then sown broad- 
cast on the wheat, and both wheat and oats come 
forwaril, and before the cold sets in cover the 
ground with a mass of green. The frost kills 
the oats, and the decayed leaves, if they may 
be so called, surrounding and partly covering 
the still growing wheat, effectually shield it 
from the fatal effects of the rapid freezings, 
thawings, and furious winds of the early 
Spring." 

Spring Harrowing. — In English husbandry 
there are cultivators so constructed that a tooth 
passes between each of the drilled rows of 
*heat, there being as many teeth asthoseof the 
<!rill. There wheat is rather cultivated than 
harrowed. But in the United States, where 
i.he rigors of Winter and the dryness of Spring 
''.■racking open the .soil) render the u.se of the 
narrow more imperative, it is almost wholly 
neglected. The reason of this is the pressing 
demand of Spring labor for the corn crops, and 
tb> oustom of sowing clover-seed on it in 



I March. Still, tliere are many wlio could har- 
I row their wheat fields, but do not, simply be- 
I cause it is not usual to do so. 

We quote Thaek to show its utility : " Wheat 
requires more careful and continuous altenlion 
throughout the whole period of its vegetation 
than any other kind of cereal, and it amply 
repays all the labor and pains bestowed upon 
it. If it is only just beginning to vegetate ir 
the Spring, and the soil is tolerably dry, nmli- 
ing will prove so beneficial as to pass a harrow, 
having iron teeth, over it. By this means the 
crust will be broken up, which has been foriiud 
over the ground during the past Winter, and the 
superficial stratum of the soil brought into direct 
contact with the atmosphere; the coronal roots, 
which shoot about this time, there find around 
them a .soil recently impregnated with atmos- 
pheric matter, which tends greatly to favor the 
growth of the plants, while those weeds which 
shoot up at this sea.son will all then be destroyed 
by the action of the harrow. A fine day should 
be chosen for this operation, which must be 
buldly undertaken. If, after thi.s, the field has 
every appearance of being newly sown, and no 
:;reen leaf, or, indeed, anything but the bare 
ground, is perceptible, then there is every rea- 
son to hope that the operation will be attended 
with success. Should a few torn leaves or 
blades of wheat be perceptible, it will not mat- 
ter, provided that the plants themselves are not 
torn up. After a lap,se of eight or ten days, 
if the weather is favorable, the plants will be 
seen to shoot up afresh, and the field will 
present a much better and greener aspect than 
it did before the operation. The farmer may 
be pardoned lor anything but the omission of 
performing this operation at the most favor- 
able and propitious moment. Everything else 
should be set aside for the time being, in order 
that all the teams ma}' be brought to work in 
harrowing the wheat fields." 

The best farmers concur in this. The Culti- 
vator saya: "it has always been attended with 
good results, providing the ground was suffi- 
ciently dry at the time, and a light, fine-looth 
harrow was used." The young wheat plants 
will appear to be roughly treated, but few are 
torn out. Drilled plants defy the harrow. 
The "propitious moment" in this country lor 
harrowing is in April, when the surface is dry 
and cracked open. Clover-seed should be sown 
immediately after the harrow, and be rolled in 
before any rain has fallen. 

When the growth is luxuriant, decided 
benefit has attended feeding 08 the whe<i 



166 



FIELD CROPS : 



on the field early in the Spring when the 
ground is firm. 

Time of Cutting. — Wheat is usually cut ton 
late. It should be cut while the grain is in the 
dough and the tips of the chafl^ are green. 
THAEKsays: "Wheat which is intended for 
sale should be cut before it conies to Oill ma- 
turity, otherwise it assumes a dusky appear- 
ance, and does not yield such wliite flour. Be- 
."^ides, wheat is always disposed to shed its seed ; 
in dry, windy weather there will be some dan- 
ger of a great deal being wasted if the ciop is 
allowed to get too ripe. The e.tact period at 
wliieh the liarvest should be commenced must, 
tlierefore, be carefully chosen, and that has 
arrived when the grain has formed its farina, 
ceases to be milky, and yet has not hardened." 
A variety of experimejits in England, witli 
grain cut at the three different stages of ma- 
turity, "in the milk" (green straw), "in the 
dnugh" {lowerhalf of .stalk yellow), and "ripe" 
(siraw yellow), resulted as follows: 

No. 1. Cut when in milk, seventy-five pounds 
flour; seven j^ounds shorts; sixteen pounds bran. 

No. 2. Cut when in dough, eighty pounds 
flour ; five pounds sliorts ; thirteen jjounds bran. 

No. 3. Cut when fully ripe, seventy-two 
pounds flour; eleven pounds shorts; fifteen 
pounds bran. 

When cut too green, grain is likely to shrink, 
but Johnston, in his Agricultural Cliemistry 
insistsjudging from experiment, that " when cut 
a fortnight before it is ripe, the entire produce 
of grain is greater, tlie yield of flour is larger, 
and of bran considerably less, while the propor- 
tion of gluten contained in tlie flour is larger." 

A correspondent of the Western Farmer 
writes: "The last number of the Farmer con- 
tains an article, taken from the Farm and 
Fireside, in which an account is given of a 
farmer's experience and loss, consequent upon 
cutting his wlieat in the milky, or incipient 
dough state. All this may be quite true, yet 
if the facts were given, I apprehend it would 
be found that this unfavorable result grew out 
of the failure of the rakers and binders to keep 
up with tlie reapers. The stalks of green or 
unripe straw are filled with sap, vigorously 
tending upward to complete the growth of the 
kernel, and if allowed to remain in the swath 
even for a few minutes under a .scorching sun, 
the flow is arrested, the stalk is dried, and for 
lack of sustenance the soft kernel shrinks ; 
whereas if the grain had been immediately 
bouml, put into round shocks and cross-capped, 
the operation might have proved successful." 



The Scst Mode of Cutting.— The statistics ,e- 
hiting to farming machinery, in the census 
report for 1860, furnish the experimental 
opinion of the American faimers. The value 
of such machinery, in 1850, was $6,842,611, 
and in 1860, §17,862,514, an increase of 160 
per cent. A large part of this machinery was 
the reapers. In the last ten years they have 
been introduced into every portion of the 
wheat region, but especially in the Northwest- 
ern States, where the scarcity of labor and the 
increased wheat production rendered their aid 
indispensable. Even if they were no speedier 
than the cradle, the fact that it substitutes 
horse-power for human labor, is sufficient to 
insure their general use, for in this way har- 
vest labor is doubled, and therefore the harvest 
crop may be doubled. The reaper is one of 
the leading causes of the increased aggregate 
wheat product of the country. 

The subject of reapers, rakers, binders, etc., 
is elsewhere treated. It will be found safe 
never to purchase a reaper until you have tried 
the identical machine you intend to buy, if this 
is practicable. Reapers of the same manufac- 
ture will not work equally well, therefore try 
diflVrent ones, until you get one that will do 
the work well and fast. When you have a 
reaper keep it in repair, and if you are not 
capable of doing it yourself, put it in charge 
of a man that is. 

The power and wealth of Great Britain con- 
sists in its vast machinery. With a population 
of 29,000,000, it uses steam-power equal to the 
labor of 600,000,000 of men. We have grown 
great by the use of Iabor-.saving machinery in 
our nianulactures and transportation, and the 
more it is api)lied to agricultural pursuits the 
cheaper production will become, and, as a con- 
sequence, the more will be raised and consumed. 
All that is needed now is a good binder-attach- 
ment, and we trust this may be soon realized. 

Falling in Shocks. — Large fields of wheat are 
often seen thrown together, two and two, and 
then, in consequence of the huiTy and scarcity 
of hands, the grain is allowed to remain for 
weeks, and unless a man is employed to go 
over the ground after every blow or rain, it 
nmst damage to a considerable extent, for the 
heads can not remain long lying on the ground 
without growing. By wetting and drying a 
number of times it becomes bleached, the head 
shrivels, and the grain loses its vitality — called 
among farmers being "banged." Grain of all 
kinds, and more particularly Spring wheat, 
should be put in round shock? and capped with a, 



11 



WHEAT — STACKING 



167 



double cap. Commence by setting four bundles 
^ in a square, and then four more, one 

OOO in each corner, and then four more, 

CIOO setting the butts firm on the ground 
and pressing the heads together. Se- 
lect two smallish, long, slim bundles, break 
one across one arm hy handfuls uniil the whole 
is broken. Then lay it on the shock, spreading 
the heads and butt as much as possible. Then 
take the other bundle and slip the band well 
towards the butt, and proceed as before, placing 
tlie heads in the opposite direction from the 
other, letting th^ heads cover the bands of tlie 
first one. Wheat shocked in this way will stand 
a long time, and any storm, except a hard blow, 
without damaging. Wheat cut very green will 
care in this way as all the bands are left to the 
air. The oblong shocks, made by setting tin 
sheaves in a double row, are no adequate piu- 
teclion in wet weather. 

Stacking. — Stacking is generally regarded in 
this country, especially in tlie Middle and East- 
ern States, as an unfortunate, because wastelul, 
expedient; but in England, even with its snug 
farming, and moist atmosphere, many of the 
wisest farmers prefer stacking grain to storing 
it in barns, contending that the former custom 
is attended with less loss. In our Western 
States stacking out is the rule witli all large 
farmers, because crops are heavy, barns expen- 
sive, and the huge iron thrasher must have 
room according to its strength. 

In England, stacking is done on scientific 
principles. Instead of throwing up the grain 
loosely, in an awkward pile, on the frozen 
ground, exposed to rains and rats, they build 
on a shapely platform of stone, iron, or wood, 
elevating the grain a foot or two from the 
ground, and then the' whole stack is so firmly 
constructed and so completely thatched, that 
the grain will keep dry and sound for years. 
The accompanying cut represents the octagonal 
stathel or "corn-stand" much used in Great 
Britain. 




A Wood™ .Stathel ron Stacks. 
The engraving explains itself. The general 



introduction of this platform into this country 
may not be at present practicable, because grain 
Is thrashed so soon after harvesting; but in a 
few years something like it will, in particular 
cases, be demanded. We also append, with the 
same confident anticipation of its future useful- 
ness, a picture of an English grain stack, sliow- 
ing the lozenge mode of roping on the thatch. 




An E.NOLisH Stack. 
It requires about as much ingenuity, care, 
and skill to build a good stack, as to do well 
any other piece of farm-work. The best way 
is to learn the theory, and then take a lesson 
from an adept. The following is the theory, as 
practiced by English farmers ; it can not be 
much improved upon. It is from the pen of 
H(m. John Y. Smith, long editor of the TFis- 
consiii Farmer : 

" First : as to the foundation. It is the best 
plan to raise it about a foot from the ground by 
setting short posts in the earth, or sawed blocks 
or stones upon the surface, sufiiciently large to 
make it firm, and laying a floor of strong rails. 
It will give a circulation of air under thestack 
and the cats a chance to keep it free from mice, 
rats, gophers, etc. At any rale, there must be 
a foundation of wood sufiicient to keep it from 
acquiring moisture from the earth. This done, 
commence in the center by setting up sheaves 
as for a round shock, adding course upon course, 
setting the butts of each succeeding course a 
little more out so as to have the outside course 
at about the angle of a quarter-piteli roof, ladng 
careful to force the butts down between the 
rails so they will not slip and flatten down as 
weight is added. 

"Let this last course in working from the 



1(!8 



FIELD CROPS 



center, serve as tlie first course in the layer 
which you make back to the center, laying the 
butts of the next course about even with the 
bands of the ecnirse under it, and thrusting the 
bij^ts of each bundle, as you lay it, into the 
bundle under it, to prevent its slipping out- 
ward by pressure. Go round with a single 
course, keeping your work before you and press- 
ing down the bundles with your knees. Thou 
lay another course in the same manner, lapping 
at the same place, and so on till you get to the 
center. Then commence again at the outside, 
laying the butts of the first course even with 
those of the lower course, or projecting a little 
over, being careful as before to catch the butts 
of the new course into tlie lower one, and work 
inward as before. 

" The outside should be as little pressed as 
convenient, in building, and the inside packed 
as close as possible, so that the pitch of the bun- 
dles outward will be increased rather than di- 
minished as the stack .settles. If the heads of 
the bundles do not keep up the pitch of the 
sheaves equal to that of an ordinary roof, put in 
extra sheaves enough to do il, in any way which 
will keep the surface regular in form. The butls 
of each outside course should project a little 
over the course below it until you are ready to 
draw in, so that the stack, when done, will have 
the shape of a hen's egg, a little flattened at the 
large end. A little marsh hay makes a good 
c;ip, which should be secured against the winds 
by ropes made of the same, placed over the top 
and held by weights at the sides." 

A stack may be ventilated as shown under 
the head of stacking hay. 

Thrashing and Cleaning. — Hardly any work 
is .so much dreaded by the large farmer as 
thrashing ; partly, perhaps, because there are 
so many slovenly, lawless thrashers. One ex- 
perienced thrasher who has the faculty of keep- 
ing his machine in repair, is worth more to a 
farming community than six of the oppo.site 
stripe. 

A correspondent says in the Prairie Fanner : 
" Thrashing should never be done until the 
stacks are through sweating. Stacks after 
standing one week, commence sweating and 
continue to sweat about two weeks, so that it is 
not safe to thrash until the stacks have stood 
for al>out four weeks. Wheat thrashed while 
sweating is sure to be damp and liable to must 
in the bins ; but thrashed after the sweating 
process is over, it is better for milling than 
when thrashed before, from the fact that the 
bran is softer, and the flour is easier separated 



from it, thus giving a better yield, and whitei 
flour. Should your wheat be damp, and it 
be necessary to put it in bins without drying, 
avoid the foolish practice of putting in lime to 
absorb the moisture. Throw in a few stones or 
bricks, which will draw the moisture from the 
wheat, having the same effect as the lime, and 
leave the grain clean and smooth; wliich will 
please the miller much belter than lime and 
rough dirty wheat. To clean it of smut for 
seed, roll in lime for twenty-four hours, which 
will burst the smut-balls; then you can blow 
them out with a good mill." 

Another point is to be considered : whether 
it is better to employ an eight-horse-power 
thrasher, or the smaller two-horse-power — for 
the flail is generally obsolete. The eight-horse- 
power machines are now mostly used, but there 
are many considerations favoring the smaller 
in localities where the wheat crop is not very 
large. The time betwein the hay harvest and 
wheat sowing is generally emijloyed in thrash- 
ing, and a number of neighbors associate to- 
gether sufficient to attend the larger thrasher. 
This is in the most oppressive part of the year 
on account of heat, and the strength of the 
farmer is exhausted by the labor of the har- 
vest. It interferes with plowing for tJie wheat 
crop, and the August rains can not be taken ad- 
vantage of for this purpose. If farmers gener- 
ally had a two-horse-power the thiashing could 
be done after tlie wheat crop was put in. 

It can not be nece.ssary to say anything about 
the folly of sending grain to market in a half- 
clean condition; if any farmer has not yet 
learned its unprofitableness, experience is a 
cheap enougJ> teacher for him. 

Marketing. — An intelligent correspondent 
says, " Marketing wheat successfully depends 
very much on the locality in which the farmer 
is situated, and the facilities forgetting to mar- 
ket. Obstacles are often thrown in the produ- 
cer's way by the grain speculator, such as rais- 
ing the bids for a day or two, so as to get a large 
quantity coming into their place of buying, and 
then bidding down below all reason. In towns 
where that practice prevails, watch all their 
moves, and when your suspicions are strong 
enough to warrant it, call on the sealer of 
weights and measures. Still, that is of but lit- 
tle use, for as soon as he is gone the scales are 
out of balance or the measures are exchanged 
for others to suit the trade. Many ways are 
resorted to, to pilfer from the honest unsus- 
pecting farmer. Some of these I have detecied 
in my experience, and will mention. Every 



WHEAT, ETC — WILLOW. 



169 



farmer that goes to market should know his 
own weight, and before his wheat is weighed 
step on the scales, see that they are bahmccd 
and weigh rightly, for scales are so constructed 
tliat a sliglit move will throw them in the buy- 
er's favor — that is one practice. Again a set 
of false weights is sometimes kept and slii)ped 
on slyl)'. A sixty pound weight is sometimes 
placod under the large ones. The grain dealer 
will s[>ill a small quantity and forget to put it 
back. If measured, fi« your eye on some mark 
on the half bushel so as to know it, and see 
that it is not changed. Farmers that rai.se 
wheat enough to do so should send by the car- 
load, or cargo, to some commission merchant in 
a huge commercial town, say Chicago, Milwau- 
kee, or Buffalo, and consign their wheat to him 
as long as he is doing a large business, for be 
assured, that when a large number of his cus- 
tomers have left him, there is something wrong, 
and the less business he does the less he can af- 
ford to be strictly honest." 

llmij to Measure a Ripening Crop. — This is the 
English mode: A day or two before cutting, 
adjust four fine sticks in a light ."iquare frame, 
like a slate frame, enclosing exactly one foot; 
go with this to your field, and lower it carefully 
over as many beads of grain as it will cover; 
then cut and sliell the grain encliised,and weigh 
it. Multiply the weight by 43,560, and it will 
give yiiu, approximately, the weight of the 
acre's yield. Kepeat the experiment half a 
dozen times to confirm the result. 

To Measure Grain in the Granary. — Divide 
the cubic feet by 66, aiul multiply by 45, and 
the result will be bushels, struck measure. 

The Average Price of It^Aeat.— Wljeat started 
in Albany, New York, at seventy-five cents a 
bushel in 1793, but it has never touched that 
low figure since, though in 1S21 it stood at sev- 
enty-seven, and in- 1845 at ninety-three cents. 
Six times in the sixty years following 1793, it 
rose to two dollars a bushel in that city. The 
average price for the whole period was one dol- 
lar and thirty-eight cents; and for the last 
twenty-five years it has been one dollar and 
twenty-five cents. The price in Chicago for 
twenty years has ranged from forty cents to one 
dollar. 

Rust. — Bust, or mildew, is a most destructive 
enemy of the wheat crop. It seems to be al- 
ways lurking in the field, waiting for favorable 
circumstances to outspread and devour the har- 
vest. It flourishes in close, hot, damp weather. 
It consists of a breaking of sap from the straw, 
and the formation of a rusty crust. The dis- 



ease is produced by a minute fungus, whose 
roots penetrate the vessels of the plant. There 
is no remedy known ; partial pn vemives are 
believed to be the selection of hardy varieties; 
.sowing on high lands; early sowing; and the 
free use of lime, salt, charcoal, and phister, 
instead of barn-yard manure. Johnson's 
Farmers' Encyclopedia says: "Salt, if not a 
a complete preventive, is an effectual cure of 
the mildew." This statement is to be proved 
before being completely credited; in the mean- 
time, farmers will probably go on and harvest 
their grain at once, whenever rust makes a vig- 
orous attack. 

A correspondent of the Country Gentleman 
maintains that "sowing timothy or clover with 
wheat causes rust and blight, by keeping the 
straw moist near the ground till the hot sun 
comes upon it. If gra.ss is to succeed wheat, 
he is very deciiled that it should be sowed in 
the Fall, alter the wheat is removed. 

Snmt is a blackish parasitic plant, akin to 
the rust fungus. It attacks the head of grain. 
The cause is unknown. Wet seasons, logs, an- 
imalculie, exposure to intense sunshine when 
moist, deficiency in the organs of generation, 
and other conditions, have been assigned as pri- 
mary causes, but they are probably merely con- 
tingencies which aggravate the symptoms. The 
only known remedy for this is to wasli the seed 
before sowing, in two or three strong brines, 
and then roll it in quicklime. A Wisconsin 
correspondent of the American Agriculturist 
recommends the following: "Take one pound 
of blue oil of vitriol — dissolve it in two or 
three quarts of boiling hot water, in some 
earthen vessel. Then put it In a pail and fill 
with cold water. Now take ten bushels of seed- 
wheat on the barn floor, and sprinkle this solu- 
tion all over it, and shovel it thoroughly, so 
that every kernel is wet, and in two or three 
hours it is ready to sow." 

'Willow. — The osier or basket willow can 
hardly be made a general field crop in Ameri- 
ca, but it ought to be raised more than it is, as 
it grows on low lands, where little else will 
grow, needs no culture, and nets fifty to one 
hundred dollars per acre. In England and 
Scotland it produces an annual crop worth one 
hundred to one hundred and fifty doHars an 
acre, with a small outlay of capital or labor. 
It is worth in the New York market from one 
hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars a ton, 
and yields more than a ton to the acre; the 
supply is derived mainly from France and Ger- 



170 



FIELD CROPS. 



many, and amounts to five million dollars an- 
nually, with an increasing demand, which the 
importations, large as tViey are, fail to fully sup- 
ply. It is just as easy, and equally profitable, 
to grow this, or any other variety in the United 
States, as in Europe ; besides we liave here 
millions of acres lying idle, which might be 
appropriated to this purpose. There is not 
the least doubt that basket willow enough to 
supply ihe world can be produced in this coun- 
try at fifty dollars a ton, and pay a better profit 
to the cultivator than he can get from wheat, 
corn, or hay. 

An American farmer thus describes a crop 
grown by him in swamp land; "We had beds 
thrown up with the spade, about four feet wide, 
running across the enclosure — the ditches being 
about two feet wide and two deep, between the 
beds — each bed having two rows of osiers, 
planted, one near each outside. The weeds 
were kept down with the hoe till the young 
plants got strong, after wliicli they fully occu- 
pied the ground, smothering everything eUe. 
These were sold at auction, and made from $25 
up to $75 per acre, according to the crop, the 
purchasers taking them away at their own ex- 
pense— the best beds selling for the latter sum. 
I have seen osiers on a twenty -acre piece of low 
clay land (which could not be devoted to any 
other purpose), planted in beds as stated — the 
ditches between the beds having water in them 
nine months out of the twelve — and these have 
been sold at a much higher rate. On the piece 
alluded to all that was done was the shovelinj 
out of the ditches after every cutting, and lay 
ing the .sediment and any soil worked down in 
the getting off of the osiers, on the beds amon 
the stumps from which the crop had been cut. 



Manure, or any application besides, would be 
thrown away, and any cultivation alter the first 
year would do no good, because in a well- 
planted osier bed nothing else can possibly 
grow." 

The osier willow is worthy a place on every 
farm, because it takes up very little ground, 
requires very little care, and furnishes the best 
materials for baskets, which arc indispensable 
to the farmer. This, like all the willows, is 
readily propagated by cuttings. Where it has 
taken good root, its shoots, in good ground, 
grow from four to eight feet in a season. These 
shoots should all be taken off every winter, 
unless very large willows are wanted, and the 
number is tlicn-l'V minnally iniTCM-cd. Tlie 
art of fabricating baskets from them is easily 
acquired, and maybe practiced in evenings and 
stormy days in the Winter without cost. For 
ordinary baskets the osier is used with the bark 
on; but for neat house baskets they arc peeled. 
The best way to divest them of the hark by 
hand is to cut, sort, and tie the osiers in small 
bundles, say early in March, and place the 
bundles in a pool of stagnant water; and at the 
season the leaf buds are bursting, tlie bark will 
readily .strip off. The osiers may then be laid 
up to be used when leisure will permit. The 
most serious drawback to the raising of the 
osier is the peeling. It now costs forty dollars 
a ton to peel it, when it ought to cost but ten 
dollars. 

A large amount of this willow is rai.sed 
upon the estate of the late Colonel Colt, of 
Hartford, Connecticut, where the Swiss arti- 
zans have a picturesque little village of Swiss 
houses, and a manufactory that furnishes fancy 
baskets to the New York market. 



THE GARDEN 



Vegetables, Flowers, SnuBBERr, and Lawn. 



Since the time when our first parents planted 
and dressed the Garden of Eden, the culture of 
vegetables has received a large share of the 
attention, and contributed a large portion of 
the sustenance and happiness of every family 
of the civilized world. 

The origin of some of the principal vegeta- 
bles, fruits, and cereals deserves a brief notice. 
Beans blossomed first within sight of embryo 
mummies, in the land of the Sphin.x ; and the 
egg-plant fii-st laid its glossy treasures under 
the African sun, and Southern Europe gave us 
the artichoke and the beet. To Arabia we 
owe the cultivation of spinach ; and to Southern 
Europe we must bow in tearful gratitude for the 
horse-radish. What fair school-girl, of the 
pickle-eating tribe, dreams of thanking the 
East Indies for her cucumbers ? 

Parsley, that prettiest of all pretty greens, 
taking so naturally to our American soil that 
it seems quiie to the luaiiur born, is only 
sojourner among us. Its nniive borne is Sar- 
dinia, or, rather, there it first secured an ac- 
quaintance with civilized man. Onions, too, 
are only naturalized foreigner.s in America. 
Perhaps this pathetic bulb ought to have sprung 
from the land of Niobe, but no; Egypt stretches 
forth her withered hand and claims the onion 
as her own! The garlic came from Sicily. 

Who ever dreams, while enjoying his Berga- 
motte, his Flemish Beauty, or his Jargonelle, 
that the first pear-blossoms opened within sight 
of the Pyramids ? To Persia we stand indebted 
for peaches, walnuts, mulberries, and a score 
of every-day luxuries and necessities — the lus- 
cious peach having had its origin in the bitter 
almond. The chestnut, dear to squirrels and 
young .\mepica, first dropped its burrs on Ital- 
ian soil. 

Wheat had its origin in Asia. At Siberia, 
the victims of modern intemperance may shake 
tlair gory locks forever — for from that cold, 
unsocial land came rye, the father of that great 



fire-water river which has floated so many 
jolly souls on its treacherous tides, and en- 
gulfed so much of humanity's treasure. Maize 
and potatoes, thank heaven! can mock us with 
no foreign pedigree. They are ours — ours to 
command, to have, and to hold, from time's be- 
ginning, to its ending, though England and Ire- 
land bluster over "corn" and "praties" till 
they are hoarse. 

It has been well said, by a cultivator of large 
experience, that, as a part of rural and domes- 
tic economy, the garden should claim a share 
of the farmer's attention. Whether the num- 
ber of his acres be few or many, it is policy to 
devote a choice corner to the cultivation of such 
roots, herbs, plants, and fruits as plea.se the 
taste and add to the delicious stores of the 
kitchen. The care of a garden need not neces- 
.sarily tax the time of the farmer; for much of 
the tabor can be performed by the younger 
members of the family, while the odds and 
ends of time, that every one will have more or 
less of, will be quite enough for the remainder. 

To remunerate cultivation, however, it must 
be kept in order and free from weeds, for it 
never refuses to honor all drafts properly made 
upon it. We expect more tlian ordinary re- 
sults, but unless we give it more than the care 
ordinarily bestowed on the crops of the farm 
we must be disappointed. And here it is, one 
may see high cultivation epitomized, and learn 
that if we will extend equal care to all the land 
we cultivate, we shall be equally rewarded with 
high crops. All soils are not alike adapted to 
gardening purposes. By carefully noticing 
their faults, and pursuing a judicious couree to 
correct them, there are none but may, in very 
few years, be brought to the highest slate of 
gardening tilth. 

Who, having once realized the comfort and 
benefit arising to the health of the family, to 
say nothing of the gratified taste, would forego 
the well-filled and well-oared-for garden? As 

(171) 



172 



THE garden: 



it greiitly economizes the staple products of the 
farm, it is really, aside frojii all the other in- 
ducements, a matter of pecnniarj' profit. 

Let those who have not yet done it, get a 
garden, bring it to tliehigliest st:ite of tilth that 
time and circumstances will permit; secure it 
from all encroachments of vicious pigs and 
other unruly creatures, and they will fin<l it 
just the phice for currants, gooseberries, rasp- 
berries, strawberries, etc. — for every one with 
a trifle of pains, can have an ample supply of 
all these delicious fruits. And then at the 
proper time, let them put in the early and late 
peas and beans, the sweet corn, the beets, pars 
nips, salsify, onions, radishes, lettuce, cucum- 
bers, melons, squashes, tomatoes, pie plants, etc. 

The garden is a school. The educition 
gained there is never forgotten. It is a nur- 
sery of health, of happiness, and of good and 
simple and natural tastes. An enthusiast, but 
none the less an excellent judge, the Prince 
DeLigne has said : " It seems to me that there 
is not a virtue I could not attribute to him who 
loves to speak of and to make gardens. Fath- 
ers of families inspire your children with the 
love of gardening." 

Much of the attractiveness of the garden de- 
pends on the taste displayed in laying out the 
ground, as well as in its general culture. Land- 
scape gardening is calculated to combine beauty 
with profit. Richard Davies, a landscape 
gardener of twenty-eight years' experience in 
a communication to the Western Hurlkullural 
Seview, makes these practical suggestions : Im- 
provements may consist in laying out a new 
place, or in making alterations in the arrange- 
ments of old grounds, such as altering the di- 
rection and form of roads and walks, and the 
making of new slirubberies and plantations, or 
changes in those which already exist; the ad- 
dition to, or contraction of, the pleasure-grounds, 
the removal of trees and shrubs, and the alter- 
ation and re-arrangement of the flower garden. 
Varying the curve of a walk, removing or al- 
tering the shape of a flower-bed or clump of 
trees or shrubs, or any similar change, can only 
be an improvement when made in conformity 
to ta.ste. In the laying out and alteration of 
grounds, there is ample scope for variety 
within the wide boundary of acknowledged and 
consislent taste. 

In many places, much improvement could 
be effected by giving carriage-roads and walks 
more easy and graceful curves, as well as in 
keeping them in better order. Where walks 
from long use and frequent rolling have be- 



come too low, and where the introduction of 
gravel to raise them is expensive, a great im- 
provement may be made, if the ground will 
admit of it, by cutting and rolling up the sod 
for one, two, or more yards from the side, and 
removing as much soil as will bring the sod, 
when replaced, not more than an inch and a 
[half above the gravel. Few things are more 
insipid in garden scenery than perfectly straight 
walks and roads, unless when they assume 
character and dignity from contiguity to, and 
connection with, the straight line of a hou.se, 
veranda, greenhouse, avenue, etc. In forming 
a carriage-road or walk, the great object is to 
make a means of communication between two 
different ]ilaces; and the chief rule to be ad- 
hered to, where a straight line would not be 
desirable, is to render the curves gr.aceful and 
easy, never introdncing a bold, abrupt curve, 
unless there is a seen and felt reason for doing 
so, in the [)resence of an obstruction, either ex- 
isting previously, or placed there by you, to 
convey that impression, and thus alone, in such 
circumstances, to call forth feelings of pleasure, 
and the perceptions of the beautiful, becau.se as- 
sociated with the stern demands of necessity. 

We must have some standard to judge of the 
beauty and deformity of objects. If geometrical 
gardens are distinguished for undisturbed re- 
pose, those of an apparently irregular outline 
require something exciting. This eflfect can be 
produced by planting in clumps, trees and 
shrubs of different forms. There are of trees, 
as of every thing else, some absolutely beauti- 
ful, others relatively so; some are adapted to 
make a figure of themselves, while others ap- 
pear to advantage only in contrast, and are 
consequently be.st seen mixed in clumps. A 
definite purpose should characterize all that we 
do in plea,sure-gr<mnd arrangements ; whether 
it be limiting the growth of the tree or shrub 
to the size of the figure, or allowing it to extend 
beyond the regular line fir.st marked out in 
picturesque scenery, it matters not. In plant- 
ing clumps, we should select trees of different 
forms, choosing the round-headed for definite 
turns, but taking care that irregular-shaped 
ones are placed not in the center exactly — 
tliough there occasionally they m.ay be wanted — 
but nearer the outside of the clump, and just 
by the regular trees, so as to contrast with the 
latter, and break up the monotony that would 
otherwise prevail. But this may be advan- 
tageously relieved by planting separate and 
peculiar trees near the clumps, so arranged as 
to mass with them in certain directions, but 



TRENCHING AND MANURINO. 



173 



appearing distinct from them wlieii viewed IVoni 
otlier points, whence Ihey may show to advan- 
tage by way of contrast. 

The following cut, from tlie Country Gentle- 
man, represents a good plan for a kitclien gar- 
den, spaded or entirely worked hy hand ; it 
may be enlarged, or reduced in size, according 
(0 circumstances : 




Ti'cncli ills' Gardens.— One of the 
most important operations for the good gar- 
dener tu pen'oriu be. ore ilie Winter frosts set in, 
is to trench-plow, or spade in his garden. This 
ought to be done at least eighteen inches deep — 
two feet would be still better. Such parts of 
the garden as are enclosed by gravel walks, or 
small plats, or encumbered bj' shrubbery or 
plants, must be spaded — a long-bladed trench- 
ing spade, in connection with the common 
spade, will be essential for the purpose. First 
with the common spade trench or dig the 
ground, from one end of the plat to the other, 
about ten or twelve inces deep; and then fol- 
low with the trenching spade, about ten inches 
deeper. Be careful to leave this undersoil in 
its roiigli .state on the top, to be pulverized by 
the Winter's frost, and enriched by the snows 
and rain. 

Coarse manure should always be dropped on 
the bottom of each trench, also on the top of 
the plat, as fast as three or four feet in width 
are spaded. Thus the top and bottom will be 
undergoing an enriching process at the same 
time, and by Spring will form a first-rate gar- 
den soil of twenty to twenty-two inches deep. 
By adding bone-dust, ashes, guano, or anything 
else needed by the soil, and re-spading about 
twelve inches deep in the Spring, the gardener 
will seldom fail to produce the best of vegeta- 
bles, fruits, and flowers. By thus applying tlie 
manure in the Fall, it will become by Spring i 
the proper food for plants, and will not burn 
up the crops, as freshly applied manures in 



Spring often do, when the heat of Summer 
comes on. 

Some gardens are adapted to the use of the 
trench plow. Some plows of this construction 
have a share and mold-board narrower than 
those of the surface plow, with a high standard 
and arching beam — with over twenty inches 
from the beam to the point of the share. By 
the trench plow following the common plow, 
soil to the depth of twenty inches can be turned 
up well. 

Without deep trenching or plowing some 
gardens will sutler greatly during every dry 
Summer; but when the earth is turned up to 
the depth of eighteen to twenty inches, a severe 
drought will scarcely afl'ect. It. Something is 
doubtless due to the amelioration of the soil, 
but still more to the deep stirring the ground 
has received. This e.\tra labor is well repaid 
by the increased product, as w-ell as by enhanc- 
ing the certainty of the crop. 

As the subject of manures and composts has 
been specitically treated elsewhere in this work, 
a single suggestion only on this head, and its 
relation to the garden, need here be noted — and 
that simply with the view of adding line upon 
line, and precept upon precept: No manure 
need be bought for the garden, and every place 
can have a full supply of the best in the world 
by observing the following rules: Have a sink, 
or large water-tight box under the privy, and 
into this, throw muck, charcoal bottoms, or any 
kind of absorbent; having running into it a 
conducting pipe, or gutter from the kitchen, 
that all waste-water, chamber-ley, and soap- 
suds, may be run into this sink, saturating the 
dirt and coal bottoms completely, and dis.sem- 
inating among it the privy manure; then emp- 
ty it out once or twice a week. If a portable 
box is made for the sink upon wheels, it will 
be found to add much to convenience and save 
handling. It should be large enough to hold 
one or two cart-loads. This process makes the 
best manure in the world and the cheapest. 
.\ny ordinary family can make seventy-live to 
one hundred and fifty loads of this manure per 
annum, by attending to this simple process. 
The gardeners around Kew York and Philadel- 
phia have found privy manure by far the best ; 
in .some instances spreading it over the surface 
of the ground from buckets, for which they buy 
thousands of loads, and it invariably produces 
the largest vegetables, and the greatest growth 
of plants. An ordinary family, and the waste 
from an ordinary house, can make as much ma- 
nure under this process as can be made by five 



174 



THE GARDEN : 



horses. To get a great growth of plants, wa 
tering with liquid manure produces the largest 
results. In order to obtain this conveniently, 
bore holes in the sides of a barrel, and set it in 
the corner of your sink, or have a drain from 
one corner of your sink into a barrel. 

The Hot-Bed. — No garden is complete 
without a hot-bed, in which to raise earlv to- 
mato, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, 
squash, melon, and egg-plants, together with 
early lettuce and radishes. It should be made 
in the latter part of March, or beginning of 
April, varying, however, a week or two — or 
even more— according to the difference in cli- 
mate and latitude. The following figure of a 
hot-bed, on a small scale, may aid those who 
have had no experience in constructing one : 




The first thing to be provided will be a quan- 
tity of manure sufficient for the bed — one four 
by eight feet in size would be of very moderate 
dimensions; and forsucb a bed, tlireelwo-horBe 
loads of horse manure would be requisite. 
Deposit this in a loose heap convenient to the 
selected spot, permitting it to remain a few days 
for fermentation before it will be ready for use — 
if composted with leaves, or spent hops all the 
better. Horse manure has been indicated as 
preferable to any other on account of its heat- 
ing properties — that which has not been burned 
out, nor that which has had too much bedding 
mixed with it. 

Make the frame-work of your hot-bed with 
inch boards, or inch and a half plank— pine 
answers best, as it does not warp readily; and 
put them together in box form, the size of your 
contemplated bed — and placed facing the south, 
six or eight inches high in front, and about 
twice as much in the rear. This slope will 
carry off the rains from the sash-gla-ss ; the sash 
should have no cross-bars, or if common sash 
is used, cut down the cross-bare so as to let 
the panes lap over like shingles; and provide 
grooves on the upper side of the frame, to allow 



the sash to slide freely, for opening in warm 
weather, and closing at night, or when the 
weather is cold. Coai; the frame with crude 
petroleum, using gas tar, if convenient, for the 
inside where it comes in contact with the earth, 
or a coat or two of paint, if petroleum c.in not 
be had. 

It is time to make the bed when the steam 
begins to rise from the manure heap. Some 
prefer to dig a pit, the size of the designed bed, 
where there is th(iroiii,'h nalural drainage to 
the subsoil, and fill it with the manure; while 
)thers prefer to make the natural surface the 
b.isis on which to build their beds — placing the 
iianure in even layers over the whole surface, 
till Ihey reach a height of two and a half or 
three feet. Keep the iiiterior of the bed well 
beaten down with the manuie-fork when spread 
in each sncCe.=sive layer, and tread the out-side 
with the feet to render it suflicicntly compact — 
otherwise the outside will settle most, and the 
bed will crack open in the middle. When the 
whole is completed, put the frame in its place, 
as shown in the figure, and close the sasli till 
tl e 1 eat begins to rise, which can readily be 
scerlained by thrusting the finger'down into 
1 e manure. Then fill in about six or eight 
I es of the best, cleanest, richest mold — that 
k^n from an old rich pasture is better than 
tiom the garden, inasmuch as the latter, if a 
long time in use, is *j)t to cont.ain eggs of de- 
structive insects which are hatched by the heat 
of the bed — and if this contain a small per- 
centage of clay, and be composted with one- 
third of well-rotted leaf mold from the forest, 
it will be all the better. 

When this bed becomes warm, in a day or 
two, which the steam condensing on the glass 
will indicate, the seed may be sown in rows 
north and soulh. Of cucumbers, it has been 
suggested, if planted on pieces of decayed in- 
verted lurf, the plants may be removed with 
the turf, to the open ground; or, if planted in 
the Corners or middle of the bed, they may he 
permitted to remain and grow without removal. 
Radishes do best in nearly clean sand, which 
should be provided for that part of the bed set 
apart for them. 

As soon as the young plants are up, c:ire 
must be taken to give them plenty of air, l)ut 
not to chill or freeze them. Open the sash 
more or less, according to the condition of the 
weather. Be particularly careful not to leave 
the sash closed when the morning sun comes 
out upon the glass, as the air within is heated 
with great rapidity while thus confined, and 



PURITY AND VITALITY OF GARDEN SEEDS. 



175 



the pl;ints are easily scal'led or killeil. If a 
very, cold snap occurs, tluow a blanket or mat 
over the glass. A liberal siipiily of water of a 
moderate temperature must be given to the 
plants while growing in the bed — rain water is 
the best. 

Another mode of making a hot-bed has been 
recommended by one who has tried it: Take 
quick, or unslaked lime, reduced to small lumps 
or as fine as you please. It should be well burnt. 
Then prepare a place for your bed, by spad- 
ing or excavating the soil to the depth of four 
inches; or shallower or deeper, as you may 
wish to continue the effects, shorter or longer. 
Fill this nearly full with the lime; and cover 
it over sufficiently deep witli soil or loam, of 
the ordinary moisture. In this, plant what 
you design for your bed. The value of this 
kind of hot-bed consists in the evolving of heat 
hy the gradual slaking of tlie lime. The moist- 
ure necessary for the plants will be sufficient 
for this. The degree of heat, too, will be 
much greater than what can be procured by the 
decomposition of fresh manure, or any other 
means with which the wriler is acquainted. Be 
careful in watering not to put on loo nmch at 
a time; as this may increa.se the heat too much, 
sii as to be injurious, and by the rapid slaking 
of the lime exhaust the supply too sum. Sweet 
potatoes have been bedded in this manner, and 
very early slips or plantings produced; but 
they require a deeper layer of soil over the 
lime, and a thicker covering, than smaller 
plants. 

It may be well to give the manner of con- 
structing hot-beds in Germany: Take white 
cotton cloth, of a close texture, stretch and nail 
on frames of any size you wish ; take two ounces 
of lime water, four ounces of linseed oil, one 
ounce of while of eggs, two ounces yolk of eggs, 
mix the lime and oil with very gentle heat, beat 
the eggs well separately and mix them with the 
former; spread the mixture with a paint brush 
over the surface of the cotton, allowing each 
coat to dry before applying another, until they 
become water-proof. The following are the 
advantages this shade possesses over a glass 
one: 1. The cost being hardly one-fourth; 2, 
repairs are easily made; .3, they are light. 
Tliey do not require watering; no matter how 
intense the heat of the sun the plants are never 
ftruck down or burnt, faded or checked in 
growth — neither do they grow up so long, sick, 
and weakly as they do under glass, and still 
there is abundance of light ; 4, the heat arising 



entirely from below is more equable and tem- 
perate, which is a great olyect. The vapor ris- 
ing from the manure and earth is condensed by 
the cool air passing over the shade, and stands 
in drops on the inside, and therefore the plants 
do not require so frequent watering. If the 
frames are large, they should be intersected by 
■s-bars about a foot square, to support the 
cloth. These articles are just the thing for 
bringing forward seeds in season for trans- 
planting 

Purity and Tilallty of Garden 
Seeds. — .\s success in gardening depends 
nmch on good seeds, a few hints on raising, 
gathering, and preserving them, may be of im- 
portance. Plants intended for seed should be 
carefully cultivated during their whole exist- 
ence, and especially while their seeds are ripen- 
ing. They sliould be located in such a manner, 
as that those of the same species can not inter- 
mix and produce deteriorated varieties. To 
prevent mixing, they must be set at considerable 
distances apart, as even Indian corn has been 
known to mix at the distance of three hundred 
yards. It is utterly impossible to preserve va- 
rieties of cucumbers, melons, squashes, pump- 
kins, etc., in their purity, if they are permitted 
to flower and ripen their seeds in the same 
garden — the seeds of two varieties of the same 
species of plants should not, therefore, be raised 
in the same garden at the same time. It is 
this disposition to mix and degenerate that 
renders it diflicult for .seedsmen to raise a com- 
plete assortment of seeds on their own grounds, 
unless they are very extensive. 

The most lu.xuriant and perfect plants, and 
such as arrive at maturity the earliest in the 
season, should be selected for seed. They 
should be permitted to remain in the garden 
until the seed is perfectly ripe; and should then 
be gathered and cleaned in clear weather. If 
any moisture remain, they should be exposed 
to the rays of the sun until they are perfectly 
dry, and then be put up in bags or boxes, and 
secured from the depredations of rats, mice, 
and insects, and the action of severe cold. As 
a general rule, new seed is to be preferred to 
old, on account of its germinating quicker and 
producing a more vigorous growth; but good 
see<ls, gathered and preserved in the foregoing 
manner, will retain their vitality about as fol- 
lows, and even much longer, in many instances, 
if kept in strong paper bags of fine texture, 
and well pasted, so as to exclude the air: 



176 



THE GARDEN ; 



Aniso 3 to 4 

Asparitirns 3 to 6 

Artichoke 5 to ti 

Balm 2 to 3 

Basil 2 to 3 

Bean" 2 to 3 

Betts S to 111 

Brwcoli 4 to n 

Cabb»t;e 4 to o 

Carawiiy 2 to 3 

Carrot 2 to 4 

CaulitlowiT 4 to i; 

CVlerv 4 to ii 

(VuKiu.l-r 1 to 2 

r,.iii 3 to f 

C„- 2 ro 3 

l',„.|iiiili' r 5 to 11 

Dill 2 to 3 

Egg-Plaut 2 to 4 

KnUive 3 to S 

Fennel 3 to t 

Garllr 2 to .■> 

Gouril S tn 1( 

Hy«s..p 3 t" f 

Liiv.Mi.Irr ■-• tn : 

Leek - 1" ^ 

Lettuce = lu ^ 



Seeds. Years. 

Mangel Wurzel 5 to 10 

Marjoram 3 to 4 

Melons 5 to 10 

Mustard 3 to 4 

Nasturtium 2 to 4 

Okra 2 to 6 

Onion 2 to 3 

Pai.-ley 3 to 4 

Parsnip 2 to 3 

Pea 3 to r. 

Pepper 2 to 4 

Pumpkin :> to 10 

RiidiBh 4 to 5 

Hlinb.nb 2 to 4 

Rue 2 to 3 

llota U.iu;i ■'■ to .'i 

tins- 2 to 3 

SiilMf. 2 to 4 

Savorv 3 to 4 

Sea Kale 3 to 4 

Spinaell 3 to .'> 

Snnash 5 to Hi 

S«eet Maiioiaiu 2 to 3 

I'lni,,,- 2 to 3 

r..|u;it,. 3 to r, 

'[ ,ii,ji|> 3 to ."> 

U.,iji,«..nl 2 to 3 



Some gardeners prefer old seeds of cucum- 
bers, melons, squashes, etc , to new, on account 
of tlieir running less to vines, and producing 
larger crops of fruit; but on this point we can 
not speak with certainty. The vitality of seeds 
is easily tested, and they ought never to be 
sown in any considerable quantity without it. 
"When divested of their covering, such as will 
germinate will sink in lukewarm water, while 
such as have lost their vitality will float on 
the surface. 

Time Required for Seeds to Ger- 
minate.— .\ccording to LoaDON, the length 
of time necessary for the following seeds to 
germinate, may be thus stated — subject, of 
course, to many variations by different degrees 
of heat, moisture, and general condition of the 
soil: Wheat, one day; beans, mustard, and 
spinach, th'ree days; lettuce, four; beets, cres.s, 
cucumber, melon, and radish, five; barley, 
seven; pursline, nine; cabbage, ten; parsley, 
forty; almond, chestnut, peach, one year; fil- 
bert, hawthorn, and rose, two years. 

Quantity of Garden Seeds to 
Plant.— The following table may be found 
useful for reference: 

Asparagus. — One ounce produces one thou- 
sand plants; requires a seed-bed of about 
twelve feet. 

Asparagus Roots. — One thousand plants, bed 
four feet wide and two hundred and twenty 
five feet long. 

Peans.— One quart plants, from one hundred 
to one hundred and fifty feet of row, or one 
hundred and fifty to two hundred hills. 



Beets. — One ounce plants, one hundred and 
fifty feet of row. 

Broccnli. — One ounce gives two thousand five 
hundred or three thousand plants, requiring 
forty square feet of ground. 

Brussels Sprouts. — Same a,s broccoli. 

Cabbage. — Early .sorts same as broccoli ; the 
later sorts require sixty feet of ground. 

Cauliflower. — The same as late cabbage. 

Carrot. — One ounce to one hundred and fifty 
feet of row. 

Celery. — One ounce gives six thousand or 
seven thousand plants, requiring eighty feet of 
ground. 

Cress. — One ounce sows a bed sixteen feet 
quare. 

Cucumber. — One ounce for one hundred and 
fifty hills. 

Egg- Plant. — One ounce gives two thousand 
plan ts. 

Endive. — One ounce gives three thousand five 
hundred plants, requiringeighty feet of ground. 

Kale. — Same as broccoli. 

Leek. — One ounce gives two thousand plants, 
requiring sixty feet of ground. 

Lettuce. — One ounce gives seven tliousand 
plants, retpiiring seed-bed of one hundred and 
twenty feet. 

Melon. — One ounce for one hundred and 
twenty hills. 

Nasturtium. — One ounce sows twenty-five feet 
of row. 

Onion. — One ounce of seed sows two hundred 
feet of row. 

Okra. — One ounce sows two hundred feet of 
row. 

Parsley— One ounce sews two hundred feet 
of row. 

Parsnip. — One ounce sows two hundred and 
fifty feet of row. 

Peppers. — One ounce gives two thousand five 
hundred plants. 

Peas. — One quart of smaller sorts .sows one 
hundred and twenty feet of row ; of larger, two 
hundred feet of row. 

Radish. — One ounce to one hundred feet. 

Salsify. — One ounce to one hundred and fifty 
feet of row. 

Spijmch.— One ounce to two hundred feet of 
row. 

Squash. — One ounce to seventy-five hills. 
Tomato. — One ounce gives twenty-five hun- 
dred plants, requiring seed-bed of eighty feet. 

Turnip. — One ounce to two thousand feet. 
1 Water-Melon.— One ounce to fifty hills. 



II 



I 



I 



QUALITIES OF FINE VEGETABLES — ARTICHOKE. 



177 



Qualities of Fine Veg-cf ables.— In 

the Ijlood-beel wc always look for a deep color, 
smooth, handsome form, small top, and sweet> 
tender flesh. In the orange carrot, small topi 
smooth root, and deep orange color. In the 
cabbage, short stump, large, compact head, with 
but few loose leaves. In the cucumber, straight, 
handsome form, and dark green color. In the 
lettuce,- large close head, pleasant flavor, with 
the quality of standing the heat, without soon 
running to seed. In sweet corn, long ears, 
very shriveled grains, filled over the end of the 
cob. In the caotelope melon, rough skin, 
thick, firm flesh, and high flavor. In the water- 
melon, thin rind, abundant and well-flavored 
juice, and briglit-red core. In the onion, thick 
round shape, small neck, deep color, mild fla- 
vor, and good-keeping quality. In the parsnip, 
small top, long, smooth root, rich flavor. In 
the pea, low growth, full pods, large and tender 
peas, rich flavor. In the scarlet radish, deep 
color, small top, clear root, and quick, free 
frowth. In the squash, medium size, dry, fine- 
grained, deep-colored flesh. In turnips, hand- 
some form, small tops and tap root, sweet, 
crisp flesh. 

In describing the vegetables and herbs of the 
garden, preferable kinds, and their projier 
modes of culture, botanical terms and mere 
theorizing will be deemed out of place, and 
will be omitted, as far as possible; and practi- 
cal facts and suggestions will be considered 
alone worthy of attention. 

Articliolie. — This is a hardy perennial. 
There are two kinds, and each kind has several 
varieties. The .lerusalem artichoke, the kind 
best known in tliis country, has a stem si.x or 
eight feet high, growing and flowering very 
much like the common sunflower — of which it 
is really a species. It is cultivated for its roots 
or tubers. The other artichoke, having some- 
thing of the appearance of a gigantic thistle, 
grows four or five feet high, with numerous 
brunches, and leaves of remarkable size, fre- 
quently measuring three or four feet in length, 
and producing heads on the stalk which, are 
Used as an article of food among the English, 
French, and Italians. 

The Jerusalem artichoke thrives best in a 
rich, mellow soil — if the soil be trenched fifteen 
or eighteen inches deep, it will much improve 
the roots. It is propagated by planting small 
tubers or offsets — large tubers may be cut into 
several pieces, 'giving an eye to each, as with 
the potato; and plant ordinarily in April, or 
12 



early in May, in rows three feet apart, and the 
tubers dropped a foot apart in the rows, and 
covered three or four inches deep. They will 
need hoeing, from time to time. Some garden- 
ers, toward the close of Summer, cut the stems 
off" about their middle, to admit more freely the 
air and light, and in other respects it ra.iy be 
beneficial to the tubers. These stems make 
good fodder. They may be dug early In the 
Fall, as wanted ; but for Winter's use, not until 
the stems are withered, and preserved in sand 
in the cellar, or buried in a dry spot. It is fre- 
quently left in the ground undug till Spring. 
Pains should be taken, in diggings to cut or 
break the tubers as little as possible; for the 
smallest piece will vegetate, and appear in the 
next .season. 

The roots or tubers are the parts tised for 
food — as pickles, and also cooked, mashed, and 
dressed as turnips, and after a little use they 
are generally well relished. They make good 
food for cattle, sheep, and hogs ; the latter be- 
ing often permitted to dig for themselves, and 
they thus pulverize the soil, which destroys 
grubs, and fits it for the ensuing crop, as 
enough seed is always left in the ground for 
the ne.xt crop; and thus a succession of arti- 
choke crops on the same land is produced with- 
out furllier seeding. There are four varieties 
of the Jerusalem artichoke — the common white, 
not fit for cooking, except for baking or roast- 
ing, but making a very ciisp, well-flavored 
pickle; the yellow skinned, the purple skinned, 
and the red-skinned varieties — which are finer 
flavored and more agreeable for cooking pur- 
po.se.s. They are suited to persons in delicate 
health, when debarred from the use of most 
other vegetables. This vegetable has about the 
same amount of water in its organic composi- 
tion as the potato; but instead of the large 
amount of starch, there is nearly the same 
quantity of sugar and nitrogen. As a field 
crop, for stock food, its yield is very large, and 
very profitable — an Ohio farmer has placed its 
production as high as seventeen hundred bush- 
els per acre, which is perhaps overestimated. 

The head-producing artichoke requires a 
light, rich, and rather moist soil, well trenched 
and well composted. It is propagated either 
by seed, or slips, or suckers; If by slips or 
suckers, they should be taken from well-estab- 
lished plants, in May, when they have grown 
five or six inches in height, and transplanted 
four or five inches deep, in rows four feet apart, 
separated two feet in the rows. If the weather 
is dry, water freely until the young plants are 



178 



THE GARDEN- 



well established; hoe freqiientlj- ; in August or 
September the beads will be fit for use. The 
plants need a Winter protection of straw, or 
Btable-litter. The first year's growth produces 
but few heads. If raised from seed, of which 
there are ei;;ht hundred and fifty in an ounce, 
they Aould be sown an inch deep, in drills a 
foot apart, in April, and transplanted when 
the plants are three inches high, in rows as 
above directed. By great care, they may be 
made to bear for three or four years. The 
lieads should be cut as fast as they are fit for 
nse, whether wanted or not, as permitting them 
to flower greatly weakens the plants, and the 
stems on which they grow should also be re- 
moved. For pickling purposes, the head 
should be cut when about two inches in diam- 
eter ; for other uses, when they have nearly at- 
tained their full size, but before the scales of 
the calyx begin to open. For what is called 
" bottoms," they should be cut at the largest size, 
and just as the scales begin to show signs of 
opening — an indication that the flower is ahout 
forming — for after blossoming, the head is com- 
paratively useless. 

For cooking and table u.ses, the lowest parts 
of the leaves, or scales of the calyx, are u.sed ; 
and also the fleshy receptacles of the flower, 
freed from the bristles and seed-down, which 
are unfit for use. The French blanch the cen- 
tral leaf-stock, and eat it like cardoons. The 
flower-head is boiled, and served with butter. 
The bottoms, which are the top of the recep- 
tacles, are fried in paste, and enter largeh' into 
fricassees and ragouts. They are sometimes 
pickled, and often used as a salad, dipped in 
oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper. What is called 
artichoke chard, is the tender leaf-slalks 
blanched, and cooked like cardoons. 

There are several varieties of the head-pro- 
ducing artichoke — dark-red spined, early pur- 
ple, green globe, green provence, laon, large 
flat Brittany, purpli,-h reil, and green or com- 
mon ; the latter being both hardy and prolific, 
is esteemed one of the best sorts for cultivation. 

Asparagrus. — This delicious vegetable is 
one of the earliest products of the garden, and 
every family should have a bed, which should 
be made as soon as the soil and season are fa- 
vorable. The giant asparagus is an excellent 
variety ; but Conover's colossal asparagus is 
represented as a great ijnprovement, both in 
size and quality, upon any variety known. It 
comes into bearing earlier, and its sprouts aver- 
age from two to four inches in circumference. 



To Raise Plants from the Seed. — Get your 
seed, the giant or colossal variety if you can; 
early in the Spring, .soak it in quite warm 
water, for a few hours; then mixing a few 
radish seed, sow in a properly prepared bed, 
about as deep as you would onion-seed. As 
the asparagus-.seed germinate slowly, and the 
radish quickly, you can tell by the latter where 
the rows are so as to keep the ground free fronl 
weeds. You need have no fears of pulling up 
the asparagus for grass or weeds, for when it 
sprouts it is easily delected, as it looks "just 
like asparagus." The first season tlie roots will 
make a growth as large as a fair-sized straw- 
berry plant. 

2'he Anparagu.t Bed. — This can not be made 
too rich. The method usually pursued in mak- 
ing an asparagus bed has been to throw out the 
soil the size of the bed desired, to the depth 
of eighteen inches or two feet, and then fill up 
with all manner of composts and strong ma- 
nures, with alternating layers of good natural 
soil ; but unless the .soil is satidy, there is dan- 
ger of the bed holding water, and eventually 
drowning out the plants. To avoid thi.s, have 
a tile or covered drain from the bottom of youi 
lied to carry olf the surplus water, with a good 
outfall — then the more manure and rich com- 
posts, the stronger the jilants will grow. 

Another mode of preparing the bed: Dig a 
trench fifteen inches deep on one side — a light, 
sandy soil is best — ttirowing the dirt all to 
the outside ; place a liberal quantity ol any 
kind of strong manure in the bottom. Com- 
mence another trench immediately along side; 
throw the top soil from this on the manure 
in the first, then the sub.soil on that, and repeat 
until all is trenched. Fill up the last trench 
with the din from the first, and the whole is 
level. 

Mark off the plat for rows two feet apart, 
and at each mark dig a trench one spade wide 
and six inches deep, and place the roots — those 
a year old are preferable — fifteen inches apart 
in the bottom, and cover with two inches of 
dirt. This will leave a ridge between the rows 
which is to be leveled down around the plants 
as they grow up, and as often as weeds begin to 
show. This may be done with a hoe, a little at 
a time, or all leveled at one or two operations — 
when the whole is done and the ground well 
settled, the plants will be but little more than 
four inches below the surface; they should 
never be le.* than that. 

After the tops are killed by frost- — never be- 
fore — cut them off" and cover the bed with ma- 



ASPARAGUS — BEANS. 



179 



nure, eiglit to twelve inclies deep. Put on in 
the Fall quite a lieavy sowing of salt, and fork 
it in ; and in the Spring scatter brine between 
the rows. In the Spring fork it over, using 
care not to hit the crowns, and rake smooth 
Cut for three weeks the next year after plant 
ing, and each succeeding year cut si.\ weeks 
A mistake is often made by leaving it with- 
out cutting for a year or two for fear of 
exhausting the young roots; the heavy seed- 
ing which is the consequence, injure.? them 
much more. 

.Vnother experifnced cultivator recommends 
the choice of a dry, well-drained sjiot for the 
permanent bed, opened to the sun, and if shel- 
tered on the north side, all the better. Suppose 
the plat is to be four feet wide and sixteen long — 
a good size for a small family — mark itofTwith 
stakes at the corners. Remove the top earth 
to the depth of a spade, and lay it at nne side 
of the bed. Wheel in coarse manure, to cover 
the bottom, and spade it in. Having trodden 
this down moderately, to prevent much settling 
afterward, throw back the top soil, and spade 
three inches more of fine old manure into this. 
Work the whole intimately together. If con- 
venient, two or three inches more of rich, sandy 
loam may be spread over the plat, to receive 
the roots, though this is not essential. The 
bed, when finished, should be several inches 
higher than the walk. Three rows of plants, 
lengthwise of the bed, and eighteen Indies 
asunder, each way, is a suitable distance. The 
common mistake is to set the roots too near to- 
gether, making them crowd one another, and 
speedily exhausting the soil. Cover the crowns 
about four inches deep with good soil. No 
cuttings should be taken the first year, and 
never until the plants are three years old from 
the seed. Keep the beds clear of weeds 
throughout the Summer, and in the Fall re- 
move the tops, spreading over the crowns about 
from three to six inches of manure. The coarse 
parts are to be raked off in the Spring, and the 
finer carefully forked in. Many deem asparagus 
beds benefited by annual coats of salt, just enough 
to cover the ground like white frost; while 
others stoutly contend that salt toughens the as- 
paragus. Soap-suds, and other kitchen slops, 
may be applied occasionally with profit. A 
bed properly made and cared for, will produce 
well for many years — some say thirty ; and if 
four feet wide by twenty-five feet long, should 
furuish three or four good dishes per week for 
an ordinary family during its season. Before 



Winter .sets in, cover the Ded with about five 
or six inches of manure. 

The Gardener's Monthly strongly recommends 
the planting of asparagus beds in August. The 
bed is prepared the same as for any other sea- 
.son, and, after cutting ofl' the green tops of the 
young seedlings, the roots are set precisely as 
in Spring planting. They push new roots at 
once, and make eyes so strong, that even from 
one year old seedlings, some asparagus — but 
not, of course, very strong — has been cut the 
following Spring; and where two year old 
roots have been used, a full crop has been cut 
in the same time — a ."esult no one expects from 
Spring planting. It will be best, in such cases, 
to cover the beds, after they have once become 
frozen, with some kind of litter, not to keep out 
tVost, but to prevent thawing and freezing until 
the natural Spring season comes — otherwise the 
plants may be thrown out by the frost, and 
killed. After the tops are dead in the Fall, it 
is advisable to burn a quantity of straw over 
the bed, to destroy the seeds of the asparagus 
and foul weeds. 

How to Cut it. — Some people very much in- 
jure their plants by the manner of cutting. 
The proper method of cutting is to scrape a 
little of the earth away from each shoot, and 
then run a sharp-pointed, long-bladed knife so 
as to cut ofl' slantingly below the surface of the 
ground, taking care not to wound the younger 
buds, in the diflerent stages of their growth. 
The cutting should never extend beyond the 
middle of June, or first of July. 

IIoiw to Grow It Tender. — X French gardener 
cuts off the bottom of a wine bottle and places 
the buttle over a shoot of asparagus, which 
grows quite up to the cork, and though blanched, 
I i.s as tender as the short, green ends we find 
upon the white, uneatable stalks in common 
use. The bottles are given a strong coating of 
whitewash, which excludes most of the light. 
It would also keep off the asparagus beetles. 
.\sparagus plants of enormous size, exhibited 
in the windows of eating houses in Paris, are 
produced by placing an inverted bottle over 
the plant as soon as it rises a short height from 
the ground, under which it speedily attains its 
igantic proportions. 

Beans. — Of the many kind.s of beans enu- 
merated for garden culture, a very few are all 
that are really needed. All kinds do best on 
rather a light, warm, dry soil, and should not be 
planted till the ground is well-warmed in the 



180 



THE garden: 



Spring — the last of April to the middle, of 
May, in northern latitudes, and earlier in the 
south— the slightest frost after they are up is 
pretty sure death to tlieni. 

Of the dwarf or bush beans, the Early Ra- 
chel, the Early Mohawk, Dwarf Wax or But- 
ter Bean, Early Six Weeks, Early Valentine, 
Early China, Yellow Six Weeks, Union, Bob 
Roy, Late Valentine or Refugee, Royal White 
Kidney, Black Valentine, and a Tliousand to 
One, are all excellent varieties, and worthy 
of cultivation. The Mohawk and Early Chi- 
na are probably the hardiest— the Valentine 
sorts the tenderest. Plant in rows two feet 
apart, in hills fifteen inches apart — or in 
drills, dropping the beans three or four inch- 
es apart, and covering them with an inch 
of fine soil. When planted in hills, they 
should be thinned to four stalks in a hill ; the 
dirt frequently stirred, and the weeds kept 
down. A few rows of each sort planted every 
two weeks into July, will furnish a succession 
for the table from June till the middle of Octo- 
ber. As beans do not occupy much ground, 
they can frequently be planted between rows 
of corn. 

The best pole or running beans are the Large 
White Lima, the Large Green Lima, the Small 
Lima of Carolina, the London Horticultural, 
the Mottled Cranberry, and the Dutch Case 
Knife. Running beans are generally less 
hardy than the dwarf varieties. Plant in rich 
soil, in hills three and a half or four feet apart 
each way, and a little later than the bush bean, 
to avoid the danger of the seed rotting, cover- 
ing from one to two inches deep. The Limas 
and Case Knife especially should be stuck in 
the ground, eyes down, as the broad lobes can 
not well turn in the soil to reach the surface. 
The common method is to train them on poles 
rising eight or nine feet above the surface. But 
training them upon strings or a trellis has been 
very successfully adopted, as represented in 
the cut : 




The wire is stretched from post to post, two 
cords extending from each hill np to the wire. 
This gives more exposure, and adds to the at- 
tractiveness of the garden. When the plants 
reach the top of the brush, poles, or trellis, 
pinch off the ends, which will cause greater 
fruitfulness below. 



Another mode of avoiding the use of poles, 
suggested by the Horticulturist, is, to place ap- 
ple tree or other brush along the ground, where 
the beans are planted, for the vines to run 
upon — producnig as large a yield as if poled, 
with less inconvenience, and with these advan- 
tages ; shading the ground, thus keeping the 
earth moist, and at an even temperature, and 
avoiding the injurious effects of strong winds. 

Selecting Seed Beans. — One thing in preserving 
seed beans should be more generally attended 
to than it is — saving the earliest. Among those 
beans which run or climb, there are many 
found at the bottom of the stalk which ripen 
long before those at the top. These should be 
selected and saved for seed. It is astonishing 
what a dlH'erence a little care in this respect 
will make in the course of a few years in the 
ripening of the crop. 

To Increase their Size. — A solution of the sul- 
phate of iron — copperas water — applied to the 
young plants, will cause them to grow nearly 
double their size, and impart to them a much 
more savory taste. A similar result may be 
produced by using water in which old nails 
have been permitted to rust. 

Beets. — Tlie proper soil for the beet is a 
deeply cultivated, light, well-enriched, sandy 
loam. Where such a soil is wanting, more 
pains must be taken to trench thoroughly, and 
compost and manure liberally. For early use 
the seed should be sown as early as the frost is 
out of the ground, and the soil can be worked; 
for Autumn use, about the middle or 20th of 
May ; and for the Winter supply, from the 1st 
to the middle of June. For the early supply, 
it is best to soak the seed in warm water, or in 
rich decayed vegetable matter, well dampened, 
and kept near tlie fire for a day or two before 
sowing; when two inches in height they should 
be thinned to five or six inches apart, extract- 
ing the weaker, and transplanting to supply 
vacant places. The drills should be fourteen 
inches apart across the bed. The Early Flat 
Bassano is generally considered the earliest 
variety, being from seven to ten days ahead of 
the Early Blood Turnip-rooted Beet. The 
Early Blood or Turnip-rooted is a good vari- 
ety of excellent quality. The London B:i""l 
is a new kind, highly commended for deli- 
cate flavor and brilliant color. The Wliite 
Beet is esteemed mainly for its stalks, or the 
midrib of its leaves, which being divested of 
the leafy part improves the flavor of soups; or 
if peeled and stewed, it can be served like 



BROCCOLI — BRUSSELS SPROUTS — CABBAGE — CARROTS. 



181 



asparagus. Tlie Long Blood is the best for 
general Winter and Spring use, often growing, 
under favorable conditions, four or five inches 
thick, and twelve or fourteen long. These re- 
quire more space — drills eighteen inches apart ; 
and the plants should be thinned to eight or 
nine inches. To preserve the roots in fine con- 
dition for Winter, take them up carefully be- 
fore hard frosts, and cover them with earth in 
a cool cellar. 

Broccoli. — This is of the cabbage tribe, 
and over eighty varieties of it are enumerated. 
The Purple Cape being the best adapted to 
our climate, is the variety generally cultivated. 
The Walcheren variety, comparatively new and 
much resembling the cauliflower, is creauiy- 
wliite and delicious. The seed should be sown 
about the middle of May, and the plants put 
out the latter part of July, to flower in Octo- 
ber. If put out earlier, and the beads form 
dwring hot weather, they soon shoot up and 
blossom, thus rendering them unfit for the table. 
When a small quantiy only is required lor 
private use, it is best to raise the plants in pots. 
They can then be put out without retarding 
their growth, and the gardener is not subjected 
to the inconvenience of covering to protect them 
from the sun while taking root, or delay while 
waiting for cloudy weather; and by putting 
them out at proper intervals, a supply in an 
ordinary sea.son, can be obtained during Octo- 
ber and November. Being an excellent substi- 
tute fur cauliflower, and more likely to succeed, 
it c;in be grown more freely, and rarely fails of 
producing an abundant supply. In this climate, 
the Flowering Broccoli is more uncertain; and 
though it may be well to attempt a few for 
variety, it is not sale to depend upon it for the 
main .supply. Like cauliflowers, the varieties 
of this sjjecies of brassica require rich soil, and 
in other respects, similar treatment. Broccoli 
and onions can be raised on the same ground, 
by putting out the plants as if the ground was 
unoccupied, and before they spread to any great 
extent, the onions are ready to be taken ofl'. 

Brussels Sprouts, or Thousand 
Oeaded Cabbage. — There are but two 
varieties of this vegetable, which much resem- 
bles the Kale. Thej' are the Dwarf, and the 
Tall or Giant Brussels sprouts — the former, 
which is somewhat earlier, and more tender 
and succulent, attains a height of eighteen 
inches or two feet; and the latter which is 
more hardy, and on acccount of its greater 



length of stalk, producing many more heads, 
reaches nearly four feet in height. The stem 
is clustered around with minatnre heads of 
cabbage, very tender and delicate, which are 
boiled and served like cabbages or cauli- 
flowers. It is raised from seed, in hot-beds, 
and transplanted or sown in open ground-beds 
in April or May, and cultivated the same as 
the cabbage tribe — though it should not he 
grown near any other sort of cabbage. In 
September the early plantings will be fit for 
use; while the later ones will afl^urd a succes- 
sion for Autumn, or to be kept in the cellar for 
Winter use. This vegetable is quite hardy, 
anil deserves more general cultivation. 

Cabbage. — As the culture of this plant 
has been fully described as a field product, lit- 
tle need be added in relation to its garden cul- 
tivation. The Early Sugar Loaf, the Early 
Dwarf York, Little Pi.\ie, and Winningstadt, 
are recommended for early use; the Large Ber- 
gen, Green Globe Savoy, Drumhead, and Mar- 
blehead varieties, for the Winter supply. The 
early kinds should be sown in a hot-bed in 
March or the first part of April, in the North- 
ern Stales ; though some sow in September, and 
transplant to a cold frame the last of October, 
covering with boards during severe weather. 
Some varieties, like those of Marblebead, do 
best when sown in hills where they are to re- 
main. As cabbages do not head as well during 
the heat of Summer, the first crop is got in 
early, while the main or later crop is not sown 
until the middle ol June. The late, large 
growing sorts should be two by two and a half 
leet apart. The Red cabbage is desirable for 
pickling. 

Carrots- -like cabbages — have been treated 
as a field crop. " T-he carrot," says an eminent 
physician, "is a most wholesome culinary root; 
it strengthens and nourishes the body, and is 
very beneficial for consumptive persons." Two 
kinds are enough lor family use; the Early 
French Short Horn, a sweet, tender, early sort, 
of small size, and the Long Orange for the mala 
Winter crop. The Early Horn will frequently 
give a good yield .sown in July, after early peas 
or onions; but for early use, should be sown in 
a warm, rich, deeply-worked fine loamy soil, 
the first to the middle of April, Let the rows 
he one foot apart, scatter plenty of seed, cover 
one-half inch deep with fine soil, and thin to 
four inches at the second hoeing. The Long 
Orange grows largest a/id does best in rows fit- 



182 



THE GARDEN : 



teen inches apart, thinned to five inches. There 
is little danger of making the soil too rich, or 
working it too deep for this tap-rooted crop. 
Keep well hoed, especially while small. The 
main crop may be sown from the middle of 
April to the first of June — better early in 
May. 

Cardoon. — This vegetable in general ap- 
pearance and character, resembles the head- 
producing artichoke, attaining its full size the 
second year in a height of five or six feet. It 
is raised from seed; and as the plant is nsed 
the first year of its growth, and is liable to 
Winter injury, it should be sown annually, al- 
though really a perennial. It should be sown 
as early in the Spring as the weather becomes 
warm and settled, in drills three feet apart, an 
inch and a half in depth, and afterward tliinned 
to twelve inches apart in the drills. It does 
not bear transplanting. Keep it free from 
weeds; and as it requires much moisture, it 
should be frequently watered, if the weather is 
very dry. 

In September, the plants having attained 
their growth, are ready for use. The stems and 
midribs are thoroughly blanched, which is done 
in a dry day, when the plants are free from 
dampness. The leaves of each plant, says 
Burr, are carefully and lightly tied together 
with strong matting ; keeping the whole upright 
and the ribs of the leaves closely together. 
The plant is then bound with twisted hay-bands, 
or bands of straw, about an inch and a half in 
diameter, beginning at the root and continuing 
the winding until two-thirds or three-fourths 
of the height is covered. If there is no heavy 
frost, the leaves will blanch quickly and finely 
without further pains; but, if frosty weather 
occurs, it will be necessary to earth up about 
the plants, as is practiced witli celery, but care 
should be taken not to raise the earth higher 
than the hay-bands. Another method of 
blanching is simply to tie the leaves together 
with matting, and then to earth up the plants 
like celery, beginning early in September, and 
adding gradually from week to week till suf- 
ficiently covered. The banding process, how- 
ever, is the superior one. Slill another mode, 
convenient and economical, is to earth up a 
little about the base of the plant, tie the leaves 
together with thread or matting, and then en- 
velop the whole quite to the top with a quan- 
tity of long, clean wheat or rye straw, placed 
up and down the plant, and tied together with 
Btrong cord or strong matting. The leaves will 



thus blanch without being earthed up, and 
speedily become white. 

Until the occurrence of severe weather, the 
table may be supplied directly from the garden; 
but, before the approach of Winter, the plants 
should be transferred, roots and leaves, to the 
cellar, where laying them down in rows, they 
should be packed in sand, in layers. They 
thus keep well, and become more perfectly 
blanched. 

In France, the flowers are gathered, and dried 
in the shade; and, when so preserved, are used 
as a substitute for rennet, to coagulate milk. 

Cauliflower. — -There are several varie- 
ties of this delicious vegetable generally culti- 
vated in this country — the Erfurt Dwarf, the ear- 
liest variety grown. Early Paris, Large Early 
White, the late White, Large Asiatic, and the 
Purple. Burr enumerates fifteen different 
kinds. The cauliflower is somewhat ditlicult to 
grow; and the chief impediment iu producing 
early heads is, that the plants are not sufficiently 
forward before the approach of hot weather, 
which stints their growth, and prevents their 
flowering or heading. In order to avoid failure, 
they should be sown in September, in a rich bed; 
pot and protect the plants carefully through 
the Winter, and set them out in May. Or, sow 
the seed in a hot-bed in March, the same as 
early cabbages, and transplant them at the 
proper season. Some sow early beds in the 
open ground, and have very fair success. For 
the late crop, sow the seed in a cool, moist 
place, on the north siile of a building or tight 
fence, and the plants will not be troubled with 
the little black beetle, so destructive to every 
variety of the cabbage tribe when young. Seed 
may be sown as late as the first to the tenth of 
May, for the Fall crop, setting out the plants 
the last of June. They need the same culture 
as the cabbage; frequent waterings will facili- 
tate the heading. 

Cauliflowers raised by open culture are gen- 
erally fit for use in October. Such as have not 
fully perfected their heads, may, just as the 
ground is closing, be trausphinled closely to- 
gether in a hox of earth, and put into a light 
cellar, where they will usually form good heads 
before Spring ; or they may be taken up by the 
roots, and snspended, with their heads down- 
ward, in a light cellar, or other place secure 
from frost, where the heads will increase in 
.size, and in a few weeks become suitable for use. 

Tlie Dutch are famous for the size and deli- 
cacy of their cauliflowers. Their mode of cul- 



CELERV — CULTURE OF, ETC. 



183 



ture is as follows: In the Autumn they dig 
deep some ground that has not been manured ; 
at the beginning of May they sow the large 
English cauliflower upon a bed of manure, and 
cover it with straw mats at night. When the 
young plants are three or four inches high, they 
harrow the ground that had been prepared the 
Autumn before, and with a wooden dibble 
eigliteen inches long, they make holes about 
ten inches deep, at proper distance apart, and 
enlarge them by working the dibble round until 
the hole at the top is about three inches in di- 
ameter. They immedialely till these holes 
with water, and repeat this tliree times the 
same day. In the evening they fill them with 
sheep's dung, leaving only room enough for the 
young plant, which they carefully remove from 
the bed of manure and place in the hole with 
a little earth. Directly afterward they give 
them a good watering, and as soon as the sun 
begins to dry them, they water tliera again. 
When the head is forming, they pluck off some 
of the lower leaves of the plant, and use theui 
to cover the head. 

Celery. — This very agreeable esculent is 
yearly growing more and more in favor. BuRB 
enumerates thirty-seven varieties — the White 
Solid, and the Red Solid, or Manchester Red, as 
it is sometimes called, are those more generally 
cultivated. Tuknek's Incomparable Dwarf 
White, is commended as one of the very best va- 
rieties, growing stout, crisp, and of exceedingly 
fine nutty flavor ; and Sealey's Leviathan, 
while, very large and solid, is unsurpassed in 
flavor; while Laing's Mammoth Ked is also 
large, possesses a fine flavor, and an excellent 
keeper. Seed should be sown for an early crop 
as early as may be in March in a gentle hot-bed, 
and the plants transplanted, during a wet day 
if possible, in rich, light soil, four inches apart, 
in the latter partof April orearly in May. This 
is simply for temporary growth, and they will 
need care and watering. For the later supply, 
seed sown in the last half of June will furnish 
plants for setting out the last of July. 

These earlier plants will require transferring 
to the trenches about the first or the middle of 
July. The trenches, or rows, should be from 
three to five feet apart, to afford earth to bank 
up with. Fifteen to twenty inches in depth 
and one foot wide, forms a good trench, throw- 
ing the earth out between the rows. Fill in 
eight or ten inches of well-rotted manure — hog 
manure is highly commended — and the thrown 
out earth, equal portions, and in this set tl 



plants, six or eight inches apart, watering and 
shading if in hot, dry weather. Keep well 
hoed, and work in a little of the surface soil 
occasionally, leaving most of it to be returned 
early in October, when the stalks are carefully 
ithered up in the hand and tied with soft 
strings, or straw, and the finely-pulverized soil 
returned carefully about them, avoiding bruises, 
and not allowing the earth to get in the center 
of the plants, or be washed into them by rains. 
Some persons wrap each plant with a newspa- 
per to prevent the earth from getting into the 
center. Leave banked earth in a cone form to 
turn water. A second earthing may be given 
late in October, and they will be finely blanched 
in a few weeks. Earthing up is sometimes, but 
improperly, done each fortnight during the 
growing season. Stalks should be grown in 
the air, and then blanched. 

To keep celery good all Winter, select a dry 
piece of ground, and open a trench a foot wide, 
and deep enough to take the celery standing 
upright, leaving the tops standing a foot below 
the surface. Shovel out clean, and put in the 
celery, roots and all, as thick as it will conveni- 
ently stand together without crowding, press- 
ing the soil close up to the heads at the side. 
Get some short pieces of board to lay across 
the trench to rest other boards on lengthwise, 
which will entirely close them in. Then cover 
with plenty of leaves and straw ; or soil alone 
may answer, and without any other covering it 
will keep perfectly fresh till Spring. In get- 
ting out a portion at any time, cover the dirt 
when replaced with long manure. Enough 
should be taken out each time to last a month, 
and it may be kept in sand, in boxes, standing 
upright, in the cellar. 

The new plan of sowing celery by JoHK 
Roberts, of London, with socket tiles — half 
cylinders joined — is attracting nmch attention, 
and is represented by the following cut : 




A, represents two rows of celery in the trench 
before the sockets are used, with the horizontal 
tube placed between them for the purpose of 
watering. 



184 



TUE GARDEN : 



B, shows two similar rows with the sockets 
placed round each head of celery prior to earth- 
ing against them. 

C, shows the celery earthed up, as it appears 
in Autumn, previous to liarvesting, or covering 
up for Winter use. 

Corn. — There are several varieties of gar- 
den corn, and at least one good kind of sweet 
corn should 6nd a place in every vegetable 
garden. Among the desirable varieties of 
garden corn, we may mention the Early Min- 
nesota, Adams' Early White, Black Sweet, 
Burr's Improved Sweet, Darling's Early, Early 
Jefi'erson, Golden Sweet, Old Colony, and Stow- 
ell's Evergreen Sweet, together with some of 
the good pop-corn varieties. In northern lati- 
tudes, plant early sorts the last of April, or 
very near the first of May, and later sorts the 
middle of May, first and middle of June, to 
keep up a succession, covering one inch in 
rows three feet apart. It will come to maturity 
planted up to the tenth of July. In its season, 
the kitchen may properly make large and fre- 
quent drafts upon the green corn, boiling the 
ears, making puddings and succotash, and dry- 
ing a goodly quantity for Winter. 

Clve, or Clllvc. — This variety of the 
onion family is a hardy perennial bulb, whicli 
once planted, grows in any soil, and for a num- 
ber of years, being quite frost proof. Plant a 
lew inches apart and two inches deep. The 
fine young leaves come out very early and con- 
stitute one of the best of salads, 

Chufa, or Earth Almond.— This 

perennial plant is sometimes called the Edible 
Cypress, or Nut Kuah. It is propagated by 
planting tubers in April or May, two inches 
deep, in drills two feet asunder, and six inches 
apart in the drills. At the extremities of the 
long and fibrous roots are numerous oblong, 
jointed, pale-brown tubers, of the size of a fil- 
bert ; the flesh of which is of a yellowi-^h color, 
tender, of a pleasant sweet flavor, somewhat 
similar to that of the almond. They keep a 
long period, and are eaten either raw or roasted. 
In Spain, Cuba, and other hot countries, they 
are employed in preparing orgeat, a species of 
drink, made by mashing the chufa to a flour, 
and mixing it with water, imparting to it the 
color and richness of milk. 

Citron. — The citron-melon is almost solid 
and tasteless, and is mucli used for preserves. 



It is little more than a vehicle for the exhibi- 
tion of sugar and various flavorings, but the 
result is a favorite confection lor the table. lis 
culture is the same as that of the water-melon 
and cucumber. 

Cress and 'Water-Cress.— Cres.s, or 
pepper-gras.s, is a very early, delicate, and pun- 
gent salad. It may be grown fit for use in a 
hot-bed in forty-eight hours. Sow thickly and 
broadcast on rich, light ground, covering very 
lightly, and press in smooth with a spade. If 
very dry, give occasional but light watering. 
Ready for u.se when one inch high, and best 
when once cut, but may be grown to several 
inches, and cut repeatedly. Water-cress is also 
a very early and healthful salad, found growing 
in springs or streams of pure water. It may be 
propagated by throwing a few plants upon any 
such stream or spring. It may also be culti- 
vated in low, wet soils, where it will be sure of 
plenty of water. Dig deep, set the plants six 
inches apart, and water them well. 

Cucumbers. — There are many varieties 
of this running plant, but the Early Ru.ssian, 
Early Cluster, Early Frame, Early Short White 
Prickly, Long English Frame, Long Prickly 
Green, and the Manchester Prize, are all good 
and sufficient for ordinary gardens. They do 
best on a rich soil. A few early plants raised 
in the hot-bed, and transplanted, would be de- 
sirable. Dig large, broad holes, and fill them 
with hog manure, stamping it down closely, 
and making it as compact as possible. Draw 
on one inch of soil, drop your seeds early in 
May, or even later, and cover ,one-half of an 
inch deep. Over this covering spread half an 
inch of the finest old black manure, mixed 
with a liberal quantity of charcoal and house 
ashes. For later uses, and for pickles, plant as 
may be desirable, not later than the middle of 
July. The hills should be about six feet apart. 
After going through with the attacks of bugs, 
and sometimes the cut-worm, thin to two or 
three strong plants a hill; and it is advisable 
to clip from the vines, with the shears, many of 
the surplus leaves, which interfere with each 
other. No cucumbers should be permitted to 
ripen so long as a fresh supply for the table is 
desirable. 

While the ordinary mode is to plant in hills, 
the same ground will yield much better, by 
having the vines at equal distances from each 
other, than if two or three are left together in 
the same hill, since the roots have more room 



EGG-PLANT^ — FLAA'ORING AND MEDICINAL HERBS. 



ISo 



to grow, and they find a greater amount of 
noniisliment when thus isolated. The fruit 
will also be more solid and of better quality. 
It should be remembered that air and light are 
essential to the growth and maturity of the 
fjnit ; and it is better to occasionally cut out a 
tlirifly plant, than that the ground be too 
(IcMisely covered. Just vines enough to thinly 
cover the ground will produce better than 
double this number. 

Cucumbers are often finely grown by plant- 
ing ill a tub or half barrel, partly filled with 
nKinuie, putting bi-k inches of dirt ou top, in 
which to plant the .seed, and setting it near the 
kitchen to receive the slops thrown out. The 
barrel should have several augur holes in the 
bottom, to allow the water to jiass out. 

For Pickle Culture. — Plow and prepare the 
ground with as much care as for a preniiu u 
crop (if corn, the latter part of June — enrich- 
ing each hill with a shovelful of well-decom- 
pose<l manure. In about six weeks from 
planting, provided the vines do middling well, 
you may begin to pick your pickles; tliey will 
require picking everj' other day during the 
season, which often lasts till frost. None but 
careful persons should be employed in picking, 
for treading on and tearing the vines is very 
destructive; use a sharp knife or scissors to 
sever the pickle from the vines; leave the stems 
one-fourth to one-half an inch in length. From 
two to four persons will be required for each 
acre, as the picking is slow, back-aching work, 
and requires care. All sizes are picked clean 
tof^ether, and afterward assorted into two or 
three sorts or sizes, rejecting as worthless all 
nubbins, yellow bellies, etc. The smaller ones 
are suitable for bottling, the larger for putting 
down in tubs or barrels, and the largest as cu- 
cumbers for market, etc. The produce of nn 
acre to pickles varies, like all other crops, 
reaching sometimes as high as twenty-five 
thousand dozen. 

Eg-g'-Plailt.— This plant, quite generally 
cultivated, is allied to the tomato, and is simi- 
larly used. It possesses less flavor, but the 
fruit grows to a much larger size. For early 
use, plants should be raised in the hot-house, or 
in pots in the kitchen, and not transplanted to 
the garden till the weather is sufficiently warm, 
as the young plants are tender and liable to get 
chilled, from which they recover but slowly. 
In favorable seasons the egg-plant may be 
raised from seed sown in the open ground in 
May, and transplanted into good soil in a warm 



and sheltered situation, in rows, two feet apart 
either way. There are several varieties culti- 
vated, the principal of which are — the Ameri 
can Large Purple, producing fruit often measur- 
ing seven inches in diameter, and weighing four 
or five pounds, Long Purple, Large Kound 
Purple, New York Improved Purple, by iimny 
esteemed the best. White egg-plant, ('hincse 
Long White, Gaudaloupe Striped, and Scarlet- 
fruited egg plant. 

Endive. — This is a hardy annual, attaining a 
height of from four to six feet, the leaves only 
used, when blanched to diminish their natural 
bitterness, for .■\utumn, AVinter, and Spring 
salads. It is raised from the .seed, in any 
good, mellow-garden soil, «nd may be sown 
where the plants are to remain, or in drills for 
transplanting. There are several sorts of 
two general varieties — one the Batavian va- 
riety with broad leaves, tlie other the curled- 
leaf variety. The curled-leaf kinds should 
be in drills, twelve or fifteen inches apart; 
and the others require three or four inches 
more space. 

There are several modes of blanching the 
endive. It is sometimes done by earthing, as 
practiced with celery, or cardoons; and some- 
times common flower-pots are inverted over 
the plants, rendering them white, crisp, and 
mild-flavored. But the more common method 
is, when the roots have nearly attained their 
full size, they are taken when entirely dry, 
gathered together into a conical form or point 
at the top. and tied together with matting, or 
any other soft, fibrous material; by which 
means the large outer leaves are made to 
blanch the more tender ones toward the heart 
of the pliint. 

For Winter use, after having been tied up 
in the conical form as directed, and stripped 
of all their dead or yellow leaves, take them 
up with the soil adhering to each, and put only 
their roots into light earth in a cellar, not suf- 
fering them to touch each other, but pouring a 
little water around the roots after they are 
placed ill the earth. 

Flavoring and Medicinal Herbs. 

The following embrace the more roniiiion and 
important of the flavoring and medicinal licibs, 
which are found to be more or less neeiled in 
all families. A light, dry soil is the most ap- 
propriate for growing the greater part of them, 
but if such as lavender, rosemary, me, sage, 
wormwood, and a few others, are planted in 
a rich, moist soil, much of their aromatic 



186 



THE GARDEN: 



qualities evaporates, and they are rendered 
less fitted for withstanding the severities of 
Winter. 

Angelica. — A biennial, propagated from the 
seed, sown in a moist soil, and when trans- 
planted to a similar situation, the plants should 
be about three feet apart. If not allowed to 
run to seed, they will thrive many years. The 
Btalks are used as a sweetmeat, when candied 
by confectioners, and the seeds and roots are 
greatly extolled by the Laplanders for coughs 
and chest disorders. 

Anise-Seed. — An annual, propagated by sow- 
ing the seed in light, dry soil, thinning the 
plants to six inches apart. The seeds, which 
ripen in August or September, have a warm, ar- 
omatic flavor, and are especially useful in flatu- 
lent colics, and obstructions of the biea.-t, in- 
creasing the secretion of milk, and for strength- 
ening the tone of the stomach. 

Asparagus. — The green root excites the secre- 
tion and discharge of urine, in a decoction of 
one or two ounces of root to a quart of water; 
and the unripe berries, made into a syrup, have 
been used advantageously for heart disease. 
The seeds have been found a very good substi- 
tute for coffee. 

Balm. — -A perennial, propagated by separa- 
ting the roots in Spring or Autumn, and plant- 
ing in beds eight or ten inches apart. Balm 
was formerly much used for nervous di.sea.ses; 
and an infusion of the herb, or "balm tea," is 
still a popular domestic medicine, forming a 
harmless and efficacious warm drink in pro- 
ducing perspiration, and a grateful drink in 
fevers, either by itself or acidulated with 
lemons. 

Benne Plant. — An annual, cultivated in the 
Southern States, and rai.sed in gardens as far 
north as Philadelphia, though it does not 
usually ripen its seeds there. The leaves 
abound in mucilage, which they readily im- 
part to water. Given as a drink, it is con- 
sidered very serviceable in bowel complaints 
of children, also for catarrh- and urinary dis- 
eases. 

Caraway. — This biennial aromatic plant is 
cultivated chiefly for its seed. Sow in Spring 
or in Autumn, soon after the seed is ripe, and 
thin to the distance of a foot apart each way ; 
in July it is fit for cutting; thrash it upon a 
cloth. The seed is used in cakes, confection- 
ery, and medicine; the tender leaves in Spring 
are sometimes boiled in soups. C'araw.iy is a 
pleasant stomachic and carminative, and is 
occasionallv used in flatulent colic. An infu- 



sion may be formed by adding two drachms of 
the seeds to a pint of boiling water. 

Camomile. — A hardy perennial plant, and 
easily propagated by parting the roots, and 
setting them, early in the Spring, in row.s a 
foot apart. It produces an abundance of flow- 
ers from June to September, which are gath- 
ered and dried. The flowers possess tonic 
properties — used in powders of half a drachm 
to a drachm a dose, three or four times a day, 
and a watery infusion of them is frequently 
used for the purpose of exciting vomiting, or 
aiding the operation of emetics. A decoction 
is often used to assuage pain, and the flowers 
are applied externally as a fomentation in 
cases of inflammatio]i or irritation. 

Chervil,— \n annual plant, with leaves re- 
sembling those of the double parsley; and 
sown in rows, like parsley from April to Sep- 
tember. It is used for salads and in .soups. 

Comfrey. — A useful perennial plant, the root 
only of which is used, posse.ssing nuicilage 
in great abundance. It was formerly much 
used for internal wounds, and is still employed 
for throat, lung, catarrh, and intestinal diseases, 
and for emollient poultices and salves. As an 
inward medicine, it is best taken in a decoction 
or syrup. 

Coriander. — This hardy annual is usually 
sown in the Spring, thinning the plants to six 
or eight inches, and maturing in Augu.st, when 
the seed is gathered. The seed is much nsed 
in cakes and confectioneries, as well as in com- 
bination with other medicines to disguise theii 
taste, or to correct their griping qualities. 

Dill — The seed ol this hardy perennial 
should be sown In beils, or drills, or broadcast, 
thinning the plants to six Inches apart. The 
seeds have a moderately warm, pungent taste, 
and aromatic but not very pleasant smell. The 
-seeds and leaves are used lor imparting a flavor 
to pickles, and occasionally in soups and sauces. 

Elecampane. — This very useful pereiniial de- 
lights in a moist, .shady situation. It can be 
propagated by dividing the root in the Au- 
tumn. The roots are thick, carrot-shajied, and 
aromatic; and when dried, ground, and made 
into a tea, it is cunsidercd excellent tor a cold ; 
and sweetened with honey. Is a hooping-cough 
remedy; it is both a tonic and an expectorant, 
and is externally applied lor disorders of the 
skin. 

Fennel. — This perennial plant is generally 
propagated Irom the seed, sometimes from off- 
sets. They should be tliinne<l, or transplanted 
to fifteen inches asunder. The tender stalks 



FLAVORING AND MEDICINAL HERBS. 



187 



are used in salads ; tlie seeds liave a pleasant 
anise-like taste and odor, and are nscd as an 
aromatic ; the leaves, boiled, enter into many 
fish sauces ; and, raw, are garnishers for sev- 
eral dishes. The finochio variety, grown in 
rows, may be earthed up to the height of five 
or six inches, which blanches the .stalks in ten 
days to a fortnight, when they are eaten with 
oil, vinegar, and pepper, as a cold salad, and 
tliey are likewise sometimes put into soups. It 
is frequently employed in an infusion as an in- 
jection for the e.xpulsion of wind from infants. 
Garlic. — Tliis bulbous plant of the onion 
tribe, is jiropagated by planting the cloves or 
bulbs in drills six or eight inches apart, and 
four inches from plant to plant. If put out in 
October or November, the roots will be much 
larger than if deferred till Spring. About the 
end of July the bulbs become full grown, anil 

• should be gathered, dried, and lied up in bun- 
dles, and hung up in a shed or room for future 
use. The French employ it in sauces and 
salads. Medicinally, it is a powerful stimu- 
lant, quickening the circulation, exciting the 
nervous system, promoting expectoration in 
debility of the lungs, causing perspiration and 
urine; bruised and applied to the feet, it acts 
very beneficially in disorders of the head; a 
clove of the garlic, or a few drops of the juice, 
introduced into the ear, often prove cflicacious 
in atonic deafness- It is also used in cases of 
chronic catarrh; moderately employed, it is 
beneficial in enfeebled digestion and flatulence. 
It is frequently used, bruised and steeped in 
spirits, as a liniment in infantile convulsions, 
and other spasmodic or nervous affections in 
children, and in eruptions of the skin. It is 
among the most valuable medicinal productions 
of the garden. A dose is from half a drachm 
to a drachm, or even two drachms, of the fresh 
bulb; that of the juice is half a fluid drachm. 
It may be taken raw, cut up ; or formed into 
a pill ; or the juice may be administered mixed 
with sugar ; or made into a syrup. 

Huarhound. — Is readily grown from seed, or 

.by division of the roots ; its roots being peren- 
nial, producing numerous annual stems. It is 
a valuable tonic, and in large do.ses, laxative, 
and may be so given as to increase the secre- 
tions of the skin, and occasionally those of the 
kidneys. It is employed chiefly in catarrh, 
and often chronic atieclions of the lungs, at- 
tended with cough and copious expectoration. 
It has been also employed in humoral asthma, 
consumption and liver affections. The juice 
of this herb, with sugar, is esteemed good for 



cold.s. The strength of hoarhound is dimin- 
ished by drying, and eventually lost by keep- 
ing. It may be given in an infusion of an 
ounce of the herb to a pint of boiling water, in 
wine-glassful doses; or in powdered doses of 
thirty grains to the drachm. 

Hops, — As the hop as a field crop has al- 
ready been fully treated, it only need be added, 
that a few roots of this hardy and valuable 
perennial should generally find a place in the 
garden, or over some trellis or arbor. They 
require to be gathered before the frost touches 
them. Besides their use in making yeast and 
beer, they are scalded and applied in flannel as 
a poultice or fomentation, constituting an ex- 
cellent anodyne; and in the form of hop tea 
ihey are one of the best of tonics. 

Horse- Radish. — This warm, pungent plant is 
easily grown from cuttings or roots, in any 
deep, rich .soil. It is best after standing out all 
Winter. It is a very agreeable condiment with 
meats, and is regarded as a healthy excitant of 
appetite Medicinally, it promotes the secre- 
tions, especially those of the urine, and invig- 
orates the digestion; it is used in cases of the 
drop.sy, attended with enfeebled digestion and 
general debility, and internally and externally 
in palsy and chronic rheumatism. It is much 
esteemed in cases of .scurvy, and applied exter- 
nally it produces an outward irritation. In 
cases of hoarseness, a syrup of horse-radish 
and sugar, slowly sw.allowed, one or two tea- 
poonfuls at a lime, is very useful. 

Hyssop. — This perennial plant is easily pro- 
pagated by .sowing the seeds in a light mold, 
iir by slips and root-partings. Its use is recom- 
mended in asthmas, coughs, and lung dis- 
orders; and an infusion of it has long been a 
popular febrifuge. 

Lavender. — This hardy perennial plant ia 
raised from seed or cuttings — thinned in rows 
two feet apart. The flowers are a stimulant 
and tonic, often employed as a perfume, and 
.some times used as a conserve. 

Leek. — A hardy biennial bulbous plant, pro- 
pagated from the seed, sown in drills sixteen 
inches apart. The whole plant is used in soups 
and stews, but the blanched stem is most es- 
teemed. It is gently stimulant as a medicine, 
with a peculiar direction to the kidneys; the ex- 
pressed juice, mixed with syrup, may be given 
in a fluid drachm to a dose. 

Lemon Balm. — This plant is raised like sum- 
mer savory, and is used for making tea for 
coughs and colds, as a sudorific. 

Marigold.— The leaves of this well-known 



188 



THE fiARUEN: 



garden plant, wliicli is raised like sage or sum- 
mer savory, arp ]a;atliered and dried for use in 
soups; made into tea for measl)?s, and an ex- 
tract is sometimes used in cancerous and other 
ulcers. 

Sfii,4ard. — Tlie White or Yellow Mustard is 
raised, l).v frequent sowing, and is used as a 
small salad and for greens. It is, medicinally, 
a Ionic and an aperient, cleansing the stoni;icli 
and bciwels, and bracing the system at the same 
tiiuc. 

Niinlarlium — Sow in good soil in drills, an 
inch deep, and three feet apart, and brush them 
like peas; or raise them beside a fence or trellis 
upon whicli they may climb; or, they will do 
very well, if planted in hills four feet asunder 
each way, even without brushing. The plant 
is esteemed useful in scrobutic affections, and 
visceral obstructions — giving the expressed 
juice in doses of one or two ounces. But the 
herb is more frequently used in the form of a 
salad; while the flower-buds and the green 
seeds, with their tendril-like stem, make pickles 
which are often preferred to capers. 

0km. — This annual plant, abounding in a 
ropy nuicus, is readily cultivated, and the pods 
give a delicious flavor to soup, and are good 
stewed as a vegetable, and served with bnller. 
The green pods also make a good pickle. 
Plucked when perfectly tender, they can be 
dried for Winter use. It is said that the ripe 
seeds, which are as large as a small pea, when 
roasted and prepared like coffee, are a good 
substitute for it; though it ia doubtful if they 
are as good for that purpose as the seeds of 
asparagus. 

It is said on high authority, that there is no 
plant grown in the garden that affords cheaper 
food than okra. It should not be planted till 
the ground becomes warm in the Spring, and 
should be treated like Indian corn in all its 
cultivation, as it grows well in soil suitable for 
corn. It is sometimes sown in drills three feet 
apart, and improvea by manure and tillage. 
The large kind grows five or six feet high; but 
the dwarf variety, which does not grow more 
than two or three feet high, is very prolific of 
branches and pods, and is preferable ty the 
larger kind. It is highly recommendeded lor 
more extensive cultivation by those who know 
and appreciate its value. 

I'arsiey. — Sow in drills twelve inches apart, 
in rich, light soil, thinning the plants to three 
inches. There are the curled and plain varie- 
ties—the foruier, the more beautiful, but less 
vigorous in its growth. The roots mav be taken 



up, and sloiod in the cellar for W'fnter; and 
sometimes it very well withstands the Winter 
if left where it grew, and covered with litter or 
evergreen brush. It is said to be aperient and 
and diuretic, and is used, in connection with 
other medicines, in <lropsy, and kidney affec- 
tions; but it is chiefly grown for garnishing, 
and soups. 

Pennyi'OJjaJ — Is grown by dividing the routs 
in the Spring, and |>lanling in rows or drills in 
a strong, moist soil. It is a gently stimulant 
aromatic, and may be given in flatulent colic 
and sick stomach ; when administered as a 
warm ertusion, it promotes perspiration. It is 
much used in exciting the menstrual flux when 
the system is predisposed to the effort; alight 
draught of the tea is given at bed-time, in cases 
of recent suppression of the menses, the feet 
having been previously bathed in warm water. 

Peppermint. — The cultivated variety, not the 
wild native plant, is propagated by dividing 
the roots in the vSpring, preferring a soft, rich, 
moist soil. The stalks are gathered when in 
full flower; in some regions it is profitably cul- 
tivated for the manufacture of the oil of pep- 
permint, so largely used by confectioners. It 
is also extensively used for medicinal purposes, 
in flatulent colics, hysteric affection.s, and 
retchings, in which it acts as a cordial. An- 
other variety, usually denominated mint, is 
raised by dividing the roots and planting theiu 
in drills, the tender young stems and leaves 
being used in convivial drinks, of the julep 
family. 

Peppers. — The seed should be sown first in a 
hot-bed, or in pots, and transplanted in May 
or June, in good soil, twelve inches apart, and 
eighteen inches from row to row. They should 
be grown plentifully, for seasoning all soups 
and stews, for jiickles, and for medicinal pur- 
poses. They are far healthier than imported 
pepper. The Long Cayenne, and Cherry Pep- 
per, are dwarf sorts — the former very pungent. 
The Squash Pepper is rather mild and very 
productive, and its tomato-shaped pods are 
nice to pickle green. The Sweet Mountain va- 
riety is nnich larger; and the Sweet Spanish i.s 
the mildest of all for eating green as a salad, 
:ind for pickling purposes. It is a powerful 
stimulant, used in cases of enfeebled and lan- 
guid stomach, sometimes in dyspepsia and gout, 
in palsy and lethargic afl'ections; in malignant 
sore throat and scarlet fever, as a gargle; and, 
in a more diluted state, for milder cases of 
scarlatina, with inflamed or ulcerated throat. 
Cayenne pepper is also applied externally for 



KOHL KABI, OR TURNIP CABBAGE. 



189 



local rheumatism, and in other cases where a 
surface stimulant is necessary. 

Rosemary. — Propagate by cuttings or rooted 
slips, in poor, light, limy soil, in rows eight or 
ten inches apart ; or sow seed early in the 
Spring, in drills, an inch deep and six inches 
apart. This is a fragrant, woody plant, used as 
domestic perfume, and is reckoned one of the 
most powerful of those herbs wliich stimulate 
the nervous system, and for various affections 
proceeding from debility. It is generally given 
in the form of an infusion. 

Rue. — This hardy shrub is grown in a man- 
ner similar to rosemary. Its properties are 
stimulant, astringent, and narcotic, and it is 
used in colic, hysterics, or weat constitutions 
suffering from retarded or obstructed secre- 
tions ; but it is a plant that should never be 
used unadvisedly. An infusion of the tops, 
given in liquor, in the morning, after fasting, 
is a most effectual remedy in expelling worms. 

Saffron. — Plant the bulbs in rows, six or eight 
inches apart, and three inches asunder in the 
rows. The flowers are gathered in September, 
and dried. In small doses, it mildly excites 
the difl'erent functions, and exhilarates; in 
large doses, it produces headache, delirium, 
and other alarming symptoms, and might prove 
fatal. In domestic practice, saffron tea is used 
in eruptive diseases, to promote the eruption. 

Sage. — This useful perennial is propagated 
by seed, or slips, or cuttings; it is deemed best 
to sow seed every year, and not keep the roots 
over two years. As a tea it is used to produce 
perspiration; and is employed in cookery of 
various descriptions. 

Scuny Grass. — This hardy biennial plant is 
propagated from seed, pr by parting the roots 
in a light, moist soil. It has been considered 
one of the most effectual of all scurvy reiiiedies 
when eaten with water-cress or other salads. 

Soi-rel. — This plant indicates a poor, sour soil ; 
but the plant itself is sometimes used in salads, 
oeciisionally boiled as a sauce, and it may be 
cooked similarly to spinach. It is also re- 
garded as an effectual remedy against scurvy. 

Summer Savoi-y. — The Summer variety, an 
annual, is sown early in Spring, in drills a foot 
apart; tbe Winter variety, a perennial, is prop- 
agated by seed, cuttings, ordivisions. Both are 
raucli used for culinary and medicinal pur- 
poses; to lessen viscid humors, di.spel flatu- 
lency, and increase the appetite. It should 
be cut for drying soon after it begins to blos- 
som. The dry leaves are said to be offensive 
to fleas. 



Sweet Basii. — This fragrant little garden plant 
is cultivated for culinary purposes. The seeds 
are sometimes used in tlie form of an infusion, 
in kidney and urinal affections. 

Sweet Marjoram. — This being a somewhat 
tender plant, should be started in the hot-bed, 
and transplanted; or sown somewhat late iu 
the open garden. It is a tonic and gently ex- 
citant; but is used more as a condiment in 
cookery than as a medicine. In domestic prac- 
tice, its infusion is often employed to hasten 
the tardy eruption in measles, and other erup- 
tive diseases. 

Tansy. — This perennial is easily propagated 
from the seed, or by parting the roots. It is 
tonic and stomachic, and its seeds are said to 
be most effectual as a vermifuge. 

Thyme. Propagated by seeds, cuttings, or 
divisions, and is more employed in cooking 
than in medicine. An oil is distilled from 
it, often used as a mild irritant in chronic 
rheumatism, sprains, etc. and is an ingredient 
under the name of oil of origanum, in opo- 
deldoc. 

Wormwood. — This is a hardy perennial, raised 
from seeds or slips. It is valuable as a tonic 
and as a vermifuge, and very powerfully resists 
putrefaction. Its leaves, bruised, and wet with 
vinegar, are esteemed a valuable application 
for sprains and bruises. 

To Preserve Herbs. — All kinds of herbs 
should be gathered on a dry day, about the 
time of blossoming. Tie them in bundles and 
suspend them in a dry, airy place, with the 
blossoms downward. When perfectly dry, 
wrap the medicinal ones closely in strong paper 
and keep them from the air. Pick oft" the 
1-eaves of those whic^h are to be used in cook- 
ing, pound and sift them fine, and keep the 
powder in labeled bottles, corked uptight. 

Kolil Rabi, or Turnip Cabbage. 

This is a garden vegetable, intermediate be- 
tween the cabbage and the turnip, producing 
on the stalk a large turnip-shaped fleslily bulb. 
Like the cabbage and the turnip, it seeds the 
second year. The young plants are raised and 
transplantings are made very much as in the 
case of cabbages, only they will bear being 
nearer together; or fora general crop they may 
be sown in drills, in May or June. The bulbs 
are fit for use when they attain the size of an 
early Dutch turnip ; and, when cooked, are 
eaten with sauce or with meat, as turnips usu- 
ally are. They are, while young and tender, 
sweeter and more nutritious than the cabbage 



190 



THE garden: 



or while tinnip, and are thought to keep better 
than the turnip. 

liCttuce.— Tills is one of the best of all 
the salad plants, and always raised from the 
seed. Tliey are generally divided into two 
classes — tlie cabbage and Cos lednces — the 
former of which are found to be much supe- 
rios lo tlie latter in size, crispness, and flavor. 
The smaller variety may be earliest produced ; 
and, by starting them in a hot-bed, it will be 
fit for the table two weeks earlier than if raised 
in the open garden. It may be sown in Sep- 
tember, and covered during the Winter. Of 
the cabbage varieties, may be enumerated the 
Malta Drumhead or Ice cabbage. Brown Dutch, 
Brown Milesian or Marseilles cabbage, Brown 
Winter cabbage. Early or Summer Cape, Early 
Simpson, Early White Spring or Black-seeded 
Gotle, Green Curled, White Silesia, and Ver- 
sailles. There are .several of the Cos varieties, 
among which are Carter's Giant White Cos, 
the Paris Cos, the Green Paris Cos, Essex 
Chauipion, the Brown Cos, the Artichoke- 
leaved, and the Red Winler Cos. For Sum- 
mer use sow the cabbage varieties in a cool, 
moist place, as the north .side of a fence. The 
hirge kinds should be eight or ten inches apart. 
Lettuce in its raw slate is emollient, soporific, 
cooling, and, to some extent, laxaiive and 
aperient. 

Melons. — The.se require a rich soil and 
good culture, very similar to that of tlie cucum- 
ber, save that the water-melon, which runs a 
greater distance, should have the hills six or 
eight feet apart. Good manure — hog manure 
is excellent — worked deeply and thoroughly 
into the ground before planting, will greatly 
facilitate their growth. Take a barrel with 
both heads out, set on the surface of the ground, 
and fill in as much manure as you please — it 
will do no harm to fill it full, or nearly full ; 
then raise a mound of earth around it, and 
plant the seeds on the side of the mound. If 
too much rain falls, cover the barrel, but in dry 
weather turn water upon tlie mound, and it 
will soak out among the roots without baking 
the surface. A little old hay or straw should 
be placed on the top of the barrel, to prevent the 
drying effects of the sun and air. These melon 
plants are liable to become hybridized by bees 
and insects, if grown together; hence it is best 
to plant each sort as much by itself as possible. 

Among the water-melons, the Black Spanish, 
Mountain Sweet, Mountain Sprout, and Long 



Green are desirable sorts. Bayaud Tayi-OR 
says be has produced a hybrid melon by cross- 
ing the Persian with the Mountain Sweet. 
"The result," he says, "is a water-melon 
which, I think, can not be surpassed for size, 
delicious crispness of flesh, and sweetness of 
flavor. Tlie largest three of those melons were 
ill diameter 20 by 13, 17 by 14, and IS by 14 
inches ; the heaviest weighed forty pound.s. I 
found tlieiii invariably solid and sweet, with a 
nia.-^s of crimson flesh, four or five inches in di- 
ameter in the center, and the narrowest po.ssi- 
hle rind. As they ripen in September — a tort- 
night to three weeks later than our Aiiieiican 
varieties— I think, if care is taken to prevent 
turther hybridizing, they will become a valua- 
ble acijuisilion. I have never, in any part of 
the world, found a water-melon equal to the 
specimens of this new variety which I have 
raised this Summer. I have named it the iiiw- 
slan-American vtelon." 

The old yellow musk-inelon has given place 
to the better green .sorts, among wbicli are the 
Early Christina, Netted Citron, Skillinan's and 
Allen's Netted, Nutmeg, Prolific Nutmeg, Per- 
sian, Pine-apple, and Japanese — all good varie- 
ties. The White Japanese musk-meloii has 
been pronounced the sweetest thin-skinned mel- 
on yet introduced into our country. 

The method of raising musk-melons by 
JouN Dingwall, of Albany, strongly com- 
mends itself to the good sense of all : Manure 
is the fiist consideration. I use none but horse 
manure; having had it laid up to ferment, I 
I turn it over several times until the strong 
heat has passed off". I then dig my holes twelve 
inches square, eight or ten inches deep. I 
then fill up with nianuie to the level of the 
surface of the ground. On this I put two inches 
of soil. 1 then take a four-inch flower-pot; set 
this in the center ; then draw the remainder of 
the Soil around the pot, pressing it rather firmly 
around it, until I have tlie soil about four 
inches deep ; then, giving the pot a twist 
round, withdraw it. This leaves a hole four 
inches deep by four wide. In this I drop five 
or six seeds, and cover to the depth of three- 
quarters of an inch. Over this I place a light 
of six-by-eight glass, pressing it lightly to fit 
close. I then give no more attention till the 
plants are touching the glass. I then go through 
them, taking a small lump of eartli or small 
stone, raise up one end of the glass and place 
this under it ; this admits of a circulation of 
ir over the plants and hardens them oS. In 
about three days more I remove the glass eu- 



ONIONS — OXALIS — PAK CHOI — PARSNIP. 



191 



tinly. By this time they will be in the rough I 
lenf. I thin out to ihiee plants in a hill. I 
draw a little fine soil around then], up as high 
as the .'seed-leaf, and the work is done. The 
advantages of this sy.stein are, the protection of 
the young tender |ilants from cold winds and 
rains, and last, though not least, it is the only 
efiectual way of protection that I liave found 
for that arch enemy of all this class of plants, 
the striped-yellow bug. Cucumhers, water- 
melons, and squashes can be raised in the 
same way." 

To increa.se ^the melon crop, pinch off the 
leader a few inches from the hill, leaving only 
the laterals to grow. 

Onions. — Onions are raised from three 
kinds of seed or bulbs, viz.: the ordinary black 
seed, the top onion, where each small bulb 
grows to a birge one, and the potato onion, 
where the bulb cracks or splits open as it grows 
and forms two to lour bulbs in a cluster. The 
soil for onions sho\ild be made very fine and 
rich, worked deep, and if lime, ashes, or salt 
be freely incorporated with the soil, the mag- 
gots will be less troublesome. Rake the 
ground to remove stones, lumps of dirt, etc., 
and sow about the middle of April in drills 
one foot apart, covering one-half inch and thin 
to four inches. The Early Ked and White 
Globe are among the best sorts; while the Dan- 
vers Yellow, Large Yellow, and Silver Skinned 
are excellent varieties. The potato and top 
onions may be set out at the same time in rows 
one foot apart and four inches distnnt, just cov- 
ering the crown. They will be fit for pulling 
in July, and may be entirely removed in Au- 
gust for late turnips or cabbages. In common 
with other vegetables, they should be kept free 
from weeds. The top and potato sorts may be 
grown where the maggot destroys those raised 
from the .seed. Hot water poured along the 
row from the spout of a tea-kettle is the best 
remedy for the worms when at work. 

A gardener in central New York gives the 
following method of preparing onion-seeds for 
planting, to give them an early start: "About 
the first of April I put my seed into blood-warm 
water, set it where it will not freeze, and let it 
remain from twelve to fifteen days. I am care- 
ful to have the water always cover all the seed. 
In two or three days one can tell if the seed be 
good by the strong onion smell it will emit in 
case it is all right. I drain the water off from 
the seed, and stir among it some plaster, keep- 
ing it, however, a little moist and warm. At 



the end of three days the seed will have 
thrown out sprouts half an inch long. I then 
plant it, covering about half an inch deep 
with earth, and in six days one can see the 

rows." 

Oxalls, or Tuberous-Rooted 
Wood Sorrel. — There are two varieties, 
me tlie White-rooted, the tubers of whirh 
hould be started in a hot-bed, and transplanled 
to the open ground in May, in a dry, fertile 
soil, in a warm situation ; in hills two ami a 
half feet apart; or in drills two and a half feet 
apart, and the plants or tubers at a distance of 
fifteen inches. The oxalis is cultivated in all 
respects like potatoes, producing small tubers 
which form lale in the season. The yield is 
comparatively light. They are used the same 
as potatoes, the flesh, yellow, dry, and mealy, 
having the potato flavor, with a very .slight 
acidity. The tender, succulent stalks and leaves 
are used as a salad. 

The other variety, Deppe's oxalis, is a peren- 
nial plant, propagated from the seed or bulbs, 
six inches apart, in rows one foot asunder. As 
the frost approaches, they should be taken up, 
the roots divested of their numerous bulbs, and 
stored away in a cool, dry place, secure from 
frost. The bulbs should be kept dry, or in sand, 
till wanted for planting. The young leaves of 
the oxalis are dressed like sorrel in soup, or as 
a vegetable; having a fresh, agreeable acid, es- 
pecially in Spring. The flowers make an ex- 
cellent salad ; while the roots are gently boiled, 
in salt and water, after cleansing and pajtly 
peeling; and eaten like asparagus in the Flem- 
ish fashion, with melted butter and the yolk 
of eggs. 

Pak Cliol, or Chinese Cab- 
bag^e. — This annual plant of the cabbage fam- 
ily, and a similar one, Pe-tsai, are raised from 
the seed, sown in rows, the former thinned to 
twelve, the latter to eighteen inches apart. 
Used like cabbage; the leaves of the former, 
when boiled, are much more tender, and of a 
more agreeable flavor ; the latter is sweet, mild- 
flavored, and easy of digestion. 

Parsnips. — They require a deep, rich soil 
in which to perfect themselves, (irown in a 
muck swamp, they attain a length of two feet or 
more. Cover the seeds half an inch, sowing from 
the middle of April to the middle of May, in 
drills eighteen inches apart, and thin to six inch- 
es in the drill. They are improved by freezing in 



192 



THE GARDEN : 



the soil ; hence after digging what are wanted 
for the Winter, leave the rest in the ground till 
Spring Xhey contain a considerable portion 
of sugar ; and as food they possess more nour- 
ishment than either carrots or turnips. An 
excellent marmalade is made from them, and 
wine also, to some extent. The Sugar or Hol- 
low Crown is the best sort for cultivation. 

Pea-Kut. — The African pea-nut, and the 
Wilmington, or Carolina pea-nut, are largely 
cultivated in the Carolinas, the Gulf States, and 
California, but do not succeed in the Northern 
States. They are sown in drills, in deeply- 
plowed well-cultivated ground ; and earthed 
up from time to time until they blossom. The 
lower blossoms, which alone produce the nuts, 
after the decay of the petals, insinuate their 
ovaries, into the earth several inches, where 
the nuts are perfected. 

Peas. — Peas are in such great variety, it is 
difficult to make a selection. Two, or at most, 
three sorts are sufficient for ordinary farmers. 
Carter's First Crop, the earliest and most 
productive, the Daniel O'Rourke, or Prince 
Albert, will answer a good purpose for the 
first early ones; after which we want nothing 
better, if indeed, better peas can be found, thiin 
the Champion of England and Tall Sugar. If 
not convenient to stake or bush, sow BiSllOP.'s 
Dwarf, Tom Thumb, Dwarf Sugar, or Straw- 
berry ; but the tall varieties well repay bushing. 
Enduring considerable cold, the early peas 
should be put in by the first of April — in some 
seasons by the middle of March. It is a good 
plan to place a board edgewise on the north 
side of the rows. The late sorts may be sown 
the middle of April, May, and June to keep 
up a continuous supply, though when covered 
deep in dry, light soil, or afterward banked up 
some inches, they will continue to yield pods 
for a long time. Some sow broadcast, but we 
want everything in rows or drills that they may 
the more readily be kept free from weeds. Sow 
on deeply-worked but not over-manured ground, 
scooping out the width of a hoe six inches deep, 
the rows three feet apart for dwarfish sorts, and 
four feet for tall kinds. Scatter in quite thickly 
the dwarfs about one inch apart in each direc- 
tion, and the Chimpions two inches. This is 
much thicker than usually advised, but a tria! 
will show its advantage in an increased yield 
Cover with two inches of the soil and insert 
the brush. Continue to return the earth as the 



ridged up against the vines. They will he less 
liable to mildew and bear longer for having the 
roots so far below the surface. 

Saving Seed. — Peas for seed should be picked 
as soon a-s they attain full size, before the pods 
begin to turn, and dried in the pod. Peas 
dried in this manner will bring peas the next 
season from ten days to two weeks earlier than 
if allowed to ripen on the stalk, and the same 
rule applies to beans, corn, and almost all 
garden vegetables. 

Potatoes. — A few early potatoes of the 
earlier and better sorts, should be planted in the 
garden, to be handy for the kitchen. Plant in 
rows two and a half feet apart, drilling in 
halves, or, if large potatoes, quarters, one foot 
apart, and cover with three inches of soil. 
Unless the ground is rich scatter some manure 

n the furrow, or otherwise opened drill. Plant 
from first to middle of April. 

Sweet Potatoes may be raised successfully by 
setting out the plants obtained from a grower. 
To prevent a long straggling growth spread rows 
of manure, three fuet apart, and turn furrows 
or throw earth over it with a spade, forming 
ridges six inches high of fine soil. Set the 
plants fifteen inches apart along these ridges, 
and keep well hoed, earthing up in the early 

tages of their growth. Lift the vines a few 
times when they Incline to root. Set the plants 
from the 10th to 20th of May. The slips for 
setting out may readily he obtained by plant- 
ing the tubers in a hot-bed from the 10th to 
the loth of April. Dig down and carefully 
break off the shoots close to the potato, re- 
placing the earth for a second crop of sprouts. 
Transplant in wet weather if possible. 

Radishes.— A rich, light, dry, and sandy 
loam is the best soil for the early crop; a deep 
moist soil for the later crops. Sow them each 
fortnight from the earliest opportunity in the 
Spring until .August. There are several kinds, 
the Early Black, Scarlet Short Top, Early 
Salmon, Olive Shaped, and the White and 
Turnip varieties. Tbe Black Spanish is a 
Winter radish, in turnip form; sown in Au- 
gust or September, dug in October, and stored 
away in the cellar for Winter use. It will 
keep good until the ensuing April. 

Radishes may be grown in Winter by so.ak- 
ing the seed in water twenty-four hours and 
then hanging them in a bag in the sun a day 
or two until they germinate. Then sow in a 



i 



peas grow until the ground is level or even! half barrel filled with rich earth, place in the 



RHUBARB — SALSIFY — SKIRRET — SPINACH. 



193 



cellar and place another half barrel over them. 
Water occasionally with lukewarm water. 

Rhubarb or Pie-Plant. — All sort.s 
may be raised either from the seed, or by 
dividing the roots, .splitting them vertically, 
and giving to each piece from one to three eyes 
and a bud on the crown. Plant in deep, rich, 
liyht, moist soil, with plenty of well-rotted 
manure worked in ; and in rows five feet by 
three, for the larger varieties, and three feet by 
two for the smaller ones. The ground around 
the roots ought tft be carefully and deeply dug, 
without unduly mutilating them. After a few 
years, when the stalks begin to dwindle in size, 
they should be dug up, and replanted as at 
first. Some never allow the flower-stalks to 
produce flowers; and others cut them over as 
soon as they have done flowering, to prevent 
the plants from being exhausted by the produc- 
tion of seeds. The former seems the preferable 
method, as the flower-stalks of plants can not. 
like the leaves, be considered as preparing a 
reserve of nourishment for the roots. 

The mammoth varieties are deemed more 
coarse, and lience less desirable for cooking 
purposes, than the smaller kinds, though yield- 
ing more wine; but truth extorts the confession, 
that rhubarb wine, if not actually deleterious, 
is far less palatable than the wines produced 
from curi-ants, berries, and grapes. The To- 
bolsk is the earliest variety, small and excel- 
lent; the Washington, Myatt's Victoria, and 
the vScotch, are among the best for productive- 
ness and flavor. 

A correspondent of the Indiana Farmer ex- 
presses the opinion, based upon experiment, 
that the use of ashes as the manure for the pie- 
plant, produces a more delicious plant than 
any other mode of culture; not being as sour, 
but containing just enough acidity to make it 
pleasant. The reason given for this is, that 
the acid peculiar to the rhubarb is neutralized, 
in part, by the alkali of the ashes. 

Taking the Stalks. — Remove a little earth, 
and, bending down the leaf you would remove, 
slip it off from the crown without breaking, or 
using the knife. The stalks are fit to use, when 
the leaf is half expanded; but a larger produce 
is obtained by letting them remain till in full 
expansion, as is practiced by the market gar- 
deners. The stalks are tied in bundles of a 
dozen and upward, and thus exposed for sale. 

Salsify, or Oyster-Plant.— This 

hardy biennial vegetable, like pie-plant, is | 

13 



more highly esteemed the better it is Known, 
and it certainly affords a very good Yegetable 
substitute for the real bivalve. It succeeds 
best from early sowing, as the seeds best vege- 
tate when the earth is moist. Sow from the 
middle of April to the middle of May, in 
deeply-worked, rich soil, in rows a foot apart, 
cultivating them the same as parsnips or car- 
rots. About the beginning of October the 
roots will be ready for use; but they are best 
in the Spring, after standing in the ground 
during the Winter, with or without a covering; 
but a lew should be buried in the earth, or 
covered with sand in the cellar, for use while 
the ground is frozen. The black variety is 
most prized by the Germans. 

The roots are prepared for the table by va- 
rious methods. They are often stewed, and 
made into soup; sometimes parboiled, sliced, 
and fried in batter; they also form an admira- 
ble garnish for boiled fowls or turkeys; and 
when simply boiled like beets or turnips, the 
flavor is sweet and delicate. The young flower- 
stalks, if cut in the Spring of the second year 
and dressed like asparagus, resemble it in taste 
and make an excellent disli. The roots sliced 
and served with vinegar, salt, and pepper, are 
eaten as salad. For persons of consumptive 
tendency, tliis vegetable is highly recom- 
mended. 

Skirret. — This hardy perennial, the Crum- 
niock of the Scotch, is cultivated for its groups 
or bunches of roots joined together at the 
crown or neck of tiie plant. These roots are 
oblong, fleshy, and very sugary, measuring six 
or eight inches in length, and nearly an inch 
in diameter. The plant is raised from seed.s, 
in light, mellow soil, in drills a foot aparr, 
thinned to five or six inches, or propagated by 
slips or suckers. The roots need to be dug 
and stored in the cellar, in sand, for Winter; 
and when cooked and served as salsify, they 
are regarded as the sweetest and whitest of es- 
culent roots, aflbrding a considerable portion 
of nourishment. Their cultivation in regions 
where the sweet potato can not be successfully 
grown, would prove exceedingly desirable. 
There is but one variety, and it is fit for use in 
the Autumn. 

Splnacll. — This furnishes the very best, 
as well as earliest Spring greens. It endures 
the Winter with a slight covering of straw, or 
other litter, and on this account the early crop 
is sown from the first to the middle of Septem- 



194 



THE GARDEN : 



bcr, in riiws ten ni- twelve inclies apart, half an 
inch deep, thinning to four inches in the row 
before Winter sets in. The surplus plants may 
be used late in the Fall, and the remainder 
may be uncovered and used during the Winter, 
if desirable. A thin covering of straw is better 
than a thick one, which smothers the plants. 
Uncover as soon as hard freezings are over in 
the Spring, and when of sufficient size pick off 
the leaves, and others will soon appear to keep 
up the supply. For Summer use, it may be 
.sown at intervals of a fortnight, from the mid- 
dle of March until the middle of July. The 
round-seeded variety is best for Spring sow- 
ing; its thicker leaves are preferable; but the 
prickly kind is recommended for standing the 
AVinter best. 

Squashes. — The Early Bush, or Patty 
Pan, from its dwarf liabit and productiveness, 
is p-eferred for the early supply; while the 
Hubbard, the Autumnal or Boston Marrow, 
the Acorn or Turban, the Canada Crookneck, 
the Cocoa-nut, the Sweet Potato, the Vegeta- 
ble Marrow, and the Yokohama, are excellent 
Winter varieties. The early kinds require to 
be planted as early in the Spring as the weather 
will admit, in hills four feet each way, and the 
running kinds six to eight feet apart; and all 
kinds need a warm, rich soil, and the faster 
they grow the .surer they are to outstrip their 
enemies. They do best on new land, and two 
or three plants are enough in a hill; all flat- 
shaped seeds should be planted in a vertical 
position, and to cover loosely, greatly facili- 
tates their coming up. 

The culture of Winter squashes is attracting 
more and more attention. They should be got 
in as early as possible, and a rapid growth 
encouraged. The mealy, delicately-flavored 
Hubbard ; the sweet, fine-grained, salmon-yel- 
low Sweet Potato; the rich, excellent Autumnal 
Marrow; the sweet, rich, orange-colored Yo- 
kohama, so excellent for pies, and other Winter 
varieties, furnish a superior table vegetable. 

Squashes occupy a great deal of ground when 
suffered to run and have their own way; they 
do better with their leaders clipped ofl", letting 
the laterals grow, and thus increasing their 
yield. Where a per.son has but little room 
and wishes to economize, a trellis for them to 
run upon is recommended, and is said to ope 
rate very successfully. Stakes or small posts 
are set up, two feet apart each way, and the 
seed planted in the center. When the vines 
begin to run, they are trained upon slats nailed 



to the posts, ami by throwing boanls across 
the slats the fruit is supported, and will ripen 
much earlier than when allowed to lie on the 
ground half covered with leaves. Squashes 
trained in this way, can be confined to little 
space, and bear as profusely as when the vines 
run over the ground. 

Before the frost comes the squashes should 
be picked and removed to some dry, cool 
place; handling them tenderly, without bruis- 
ing, and not heaping them up in piles. They 
preserve best in a dry atmosphere, with a uni- 
form temperature but little above the freezing 
point. 

Tomatoes. — Too much pains can not be 
taken to get the best varieties, and secure the 
best cultivation of tliis invaluable vegetable. 
The Keyes' Early Prolific, the 'Eaily Snmoth 
Red, Orangefield, and Alger, are highly com- 
mended for their early ripening and desirable 
qualities; they appear to be from two to three 
weeks efiriier than the common varieties. The 
Early York, Maup.ay's Superior, Cedar Hill 
Early, Mammoth Chihuahua, Large Yellow, 
and Fejee are excellent kinds? — the Fejee for a 
late variety. 

Mrs. E. D. Kendall, of Maryland, com- 
mends the following mode of securing early 
tomatoes: A good large turnip is far better 
than any hot-bed for propagating early toma- 
toes. Cut oft" the top, and scoop out to a shell 
three-quarters of an inch thick. Fill the cavity 
with rich mold, plant half a dozen seeds, and 
place the turnip in a box of loam. Keep in a 
warm room, by a south window, if possible, and 
sprinkle with tepid water every day until tliere 
is no hinger any danger from frost, then remove 
the turnip to the out-door bed, and thin out all 
but one plant. Should the turnip shell put out 
shoots, pinch them off, and the shell will soon 
rot, affording a fertilizer to the tomato plant 
that will send it ahead wonderfully. A dozen 
or two of turnips thus tomatoized will afford an 
abundant supply of early tomatoes for an ordi- 
nary family. 

Those who have green-houses or hot-beds 
will need no other facilities. But those who 
have only a stand of parlor plants, and keep 
up a constant fire, can start a few tomatoes with 
very little trouble. Take a half dozen four or 
five inch pots, and plant two or three seeds in 
eacli, in rich garden loam. The pots can stand 
witli the other house plants, and receive the 
same watering and attention. When the plants 
are well started, pull up all but the most vigor- 



TOMATOES. 



195 



ous one in each pot. Stir the earth frequently 
around them, and they will grow rapidly, and 
fill the whole pot with a mass of fine roots, by 
the last of May, when they will probably be in 
blossom. If they have rich soil and a good ex- 
posure on the south side of a wall or fence, 
lliey will suffer little check in the transplant- 
ing, and you will get tomatoes much earlier 
than from seed planted in the open ground in 
April. They should be set in finely-worked 
soil, four or five feet apart, or in rows the same 
distance from each other. They should be 
trimmed from time to time, by pinching or 
cutting out the secondary shoots above the 
fruit, leaving enough for fruiting, but the vine 
should not be defoliated, as the leaves are the 
life of the plant, as lungs are to animals. The 
tomato is impatient of wet, and if good and 
early fruit is expected, too much moisture must 
not be allowed. Indeed, they will flourish in 
the driest soil, when once established. 

The experience and suggestions of Hon. D. 
A. CoMPTON, communicated to the Southern 
Fanner, are worthy of attention. Farmers, 
says Mr. C'OMPTON, should start their plants in 
small squares of inverted sod in a slight hot- 
bed. Such plants are moved in perfect safety — 
are more stocky in habit, and in every way bet- 
•ter than plant.s grown thickly in soil. Early 
tomatos are most readily grown on deep sandy 
Boil ; but as all farmer's gardens are not sandy, 
the following method will be found highly ad- 
vantageous by those whose soil is a heavy loam, 
approaching clay : Make steep, conical hills, a 
foot or more in height, and two and one-half 
feet diameter at the base ; in the tops of these 
set the plants. Water thoroughly and imme- 
diately cover the surface of the hills slightly 
with dry earth, to prevent the ground from bak- 
ing. The roots will soon spread through every 
part of the mounds, and being so exposed to 
the rays of the sun will grow amazingly. Do 
not be afraid the heat will burn them up — the 
tomato came from a hot country and will en- 
dure heat and drought that would be fatal to 
northern plants. Should the drought be ex- 
cessive, and the vines droop somewhat, dust 
them with plaster. This will attract moisture 
enough at night to support them during the 
day, besides furnishing them with ammonia. 
Hoe and plaster frequently. "When the toma- 
toes are the size of crab-apples, pull off the 
smallest, and also pinch off the tops of the 
plants. Let the vines fall and remain directly 
on the ground, that the fruit may have the full 
benefit of the heat of the sun and ground. By 



this method ripe tomatoes may be liad full 
three weeks earlier than by fiat culture in the 
common way- 
It doei! not pay to let the tomato vine trail 
on the ground. It delights in the sunshine and 
air. The fruit decays, and does not ripen upon 
the earth. A single tomato plant, in New .Jer- 
sey, properly trailed, obtained a height of nine 
feet four inches, covering a space of thirty-one 
feet in circumference, and producing from fif- 
teen hundred to two thousand tomatoes. Brush, 
cut fine, and placed under the plants before they 
loj) over, is a clean, cheap, and excellent sup- 
port. The vines may be tied to a single stake, 
if pains are taken to pinch off the side branches, 
and lead up a central shoot, which is the French 
method, and is said to be successful. Trellises 
of various forms wiil suggest themselves to 
every tomato grower. Knock a flour barrel to 
pieces, take one of the hoops and two of the 
staves, sharpen one end of them, and nail the 
other ends to the opposite side of the hoop, set 
in over the plants, and drive it into the ground. 
The vines will hang over the edge of the hoop, 
free from the ground. Set the staves in the 
next hill at right angles with those in the first, 
and let the hoops just come together, and tie 
tliem with a string in such a way as to support 
each other. A pile of stones laid around the 
plant would be .excellent, for it would keep the 
fruit from rotting, would subserve many of the 
purjjoses of mulching, and also radiate a good 
deal of heat to the plant ; the tomato is a na- 
tive of torrid climes and requires heat. The 
stone pile would admit of the plant taking a 
natural growth. Grass, straw, or boards will 
answer — at any rate, put something under the 
vines to preserve the fruit. A small shrub, 
having many limbs, may be stuck into the 
ground by the side of a plant, and it will af- 
ford a good support. 

The utility of trimming tomato vines is thus 
strongly urged by an expei ienced gardener : 
Keep your vines trimmed to not more than 
three or four strands. A little attention will 
enable you to do this in a way that will throw 
the strength of the plant into the fruit. Fruit- 
bearing branches never put out immediately 
over a leaf. When the tomato is in blo.ssoin, 
this can be readily observed. The branches 
which put out directly over the leaf or strands 
of vines, should be pinched out with the thumb 
or finger, except three or four you wish to train 
up, you can have the fruit greatly improved in 
both quality and quantity. 

The French method of raising tomatoes is 



196 



THE garden: 



worthy of a passing notice : As soon as a cluster 
of flowers is visible, the stem is topped down to 
the cluster, so that the flowers terminate the 
stem. The effect is, that the sap is immediately 
impelled into the two buds next below the clus- 
ter, which soon push strongly and produce 
another cluster of flowers each. When these 
are visible, the branch to which they belong is 
also topped down to their level ; and this is 
done five times successively. By this means, 
the plants become stout dwarf bushes not above 
eighieen inches high. In order to prevent 
ihcir falling over, sticUs or strings are .stretched 
horizontally along the rows, so as to keep the 
plants erect. In addition to this, all the laterals 
that have no flowers, and after the fiftli topping, 
all laterals whatsoever, are nipped ofl'. In this 
way the ripe sap is directed into the fruit, 
which acquires a beauty, size, and excellence 
unattained by other means. 

The popular belief, in the language of Pro- 
fessor Kafinesqhe, of France, that the tomato 
" is everywhere deemed a very healthful vege- 
table, and an invaluable article of food," is well 
sustained by facts and experience. The distin- 
guished Dr. EoBLEY DuNGLisoN says : " It may 
he looked upon as one of the most wholesome 
and valuable esculents that belong to the vege- 
table kingdom." Dr. Bennett ascribes to it 
many ijuportant medical properties, acting as a 
laxative upon the liver and other organs, prov- 
ing beneficial in cases of diarrhea, and an al- 
most sovereign remedy for dyspepsia and indi- 
gestion. The tomato, .says Hall's Journal of 
Health, is one of the most healtht'ul as well as 
the most universally liked of all vegetables; 
its healthful qualities do not depend on the 
mode of pieparation for the table ; it may be 
eaten thrice a day, cold or hot, cooked or raw, 
alone or with -salt, or pepper or vinegar, or all 
together, to a like advantage and to the utmost 
that can be taken with an appetite. Its health- 
ful quality arises from its slight acidity, in this, 
making it as valuable perhaps as berries, cher- 
ries, currants, and similar articles; it is also 
highly nutritious, but its chief virtue consists 
in its tendency to keep the bowels free, owing 
to the seeds which it contains, they acting as 
mechanical irritants to the inner coating of the 
bowels, causing them to throw out a larger 
amount of fluid matter than would otherwise 
have been done, to the effect of keeping the 
mucous surfaces lubricated and securing a 
greater solubility of the intestinal contents, 
precisely on the principle that figs and white 
mustard seeds are so frequently efficient in 



removing constipation in certain forms of 
disease. 

Saving Tomato Seed. — Lay the seeds and pulp 
upon a dry cloth, spread them with a knife, 
and then lay another cloth over, and roll all up 
tight, to free the water; then unroll and scrape 
oft' the seeds into a pan of water, and wash 
out with the hand all the pulp that is left after 
rolling, and lay the seeds in the dry cloth for 
a few minutes; then place them on a paper, 
and in the course of a day they are clean and 
dry. ,\nother mode is to spread the pulp, con- 
taining the seed, thinly upon a newspaper, 
without washing, and allow it to dry there. 
Roll up the paper for preservation, and in the 
Spring cut it up into slips, and plant seeds, 
paper and all, in a hot-bed, seed-pots, or 
.scooped turnips. 

Turnips. — The turnip is accounted a 
healthful vegetable, though in weak stomachs 
it is apt to produce flatulency and prove diffi- 
cult of digestion; while the syrup of turnip, 
after being extracted by baking and mixed 
with honey, is a favorite domestic medicine 
used in coughs, hoarseness, and other asthmatic 
disorders. The Eaf ly White Dutch or Strap- 
leafed, is a very early kind; and the Early 
Red Top Dutch or Strap-lealed Red Top, and 
the Early Yellow Dutch, are desirable varie- 
ties — the latter is quite firm, sweet, round in 
form, and a good keeper. Sow in drills two 
feet apart, covering one-fourth of an inch, from 
the middle of April to the middle of May for 
early, and from the middle of July to the mid- 
dle of August for late Fall crops. Thin to 
eight or ten inches, pulling out the surplus 
roots for use when half grown. Tlie turnip 
delights ill a light, rich soil. 

'H^atering' Oardeii Plants. — Vines 
especially, in a season of drought, need water- 
ing. The principle of capillary attraction ap- ' 
plied to moistening the earth around cucumber 
and other vines, has been practiced with much 
success. A vessel containing water is placed 
near the plants, from which is extended a piece 
of old cloth to the roots of the plant. Thus 
water is conveyed from the vessel to the plant 
.slowly, keeping the ground constantly in a good 
degree of moisture. One vessel, with its differ- 
ent cloth lubes, thus answers for several hills. 
This method is preferable to pouring on water, 

hich, to some e-xtent, flows off' and hardens 
the ground, sometimes injuring the vines more 
than if they had received no water at all. 



CULTURE OP FLOWERS. 



197 



Anntliei- method, perliaps equally good, is 
higlily commended by those who h;ive practiced 
it. Set a barrel with botli heads out in the 
ground half waj', and partly filled with manure. 
Aronnd the outside of the barrel, in properly 
jirepared soil, the cucumber or other vine-seeds 
are planted. ,\11 watering is done through 
the barrel and the manure. The water thus 
re.iches the roots from beneath, and keeps the 
soil moist and rich. By either method here 
mentioned, the vines are more thrifty than 
those treated in the ordinary way. 



THE FLOWER GAEDEN. 

" I wish," exclaimed the late Rev. Dr. J. O. 
Chofles, "that we could create a general 
passion for gardening and horticulture. We 
want more beauty about our houses. The 
scenes of our childhood are the memories of 
our future years. Let our dwellings be beau- 
tified with plants and flowers. Flowers are, in 
the language of a late cultivator, " the play- 
things of childhood, and the ornaments of the 
grave; they rai.se smiling looks to man, and 
grateful ones to God.' " 

"A garden," says Douglas Jereold, "is a 
beautiful book, writ by the finger of God; 
every flower and every leaf is a letter. You 
have only to read them — and he is a dunce who 
can not do that— and join them, and then 
go on reading and reading, and you will find 
yourself carried away from the earth to the 
>kics by the beautiful .story you are going 
through. You do not know what beautiful 
thiiughts — for they are nothing short — grow out 
of the ground, and seem to talk to man. And 
then there are some flowers that always seem 
to nie likeover-dutiful'children; tend them ever 
so little, and they ccme up and flourish, and 
show, as I may say, tlieir bright and happy 
faces toward you." 

A writer in the Farmers^ Magazine says that 
the pleasures arising from the culture of flow- 
ers are harmless and pure; a streak, a tint, a 
shade, becomes a triumph, which, though often 
attained by chance, is secured only by morning 
care, by evening caution, and the vigilance of 
days. It is an employment which, in its vari- 
ous grades, excludes neither the opulent nor 
the indigent ; teems with boundless variety, 
and afiurds an unceasing excitement to emula- 
tion, without contention or ill-will. 

"Who can forget," asks a thoughtful writer. 



" the vine [ilahted by his mother's own hand 
when he was a little child? Its tendrils now 
cling to the topmost branches of a tall tree in 
the front yard ; and he never revisits the scene 
of his childhood without gratifying some of the 
holiest emotions of his nature, by sitting under 
its shelter, and recalling the earliest and hap- 
piest associations of his life. And there, too, 
clinging about the columns of the porch, is the 
coral honeysuckle, shading the evening window 
with its rich and delicate clusters of flowers; 
and at every footstep along the border are the 
many-hued flowers set there by a sister. 

" It has been said by travelers that they could 
distinguish a pure-minded and intelligent fam- 
ily from the appearance of the house and 
grounds in this particular. The difference was 
striking — tlie house of the more intelligent was 
surrounded with flowers — the windows dis- 
played them — vines were twined with care and 
taste over the dwelling. Another presents a 
different spectacle; the weeds and briars are 
allowed to hold their dominion; in short, Sol- 
omon's picture of the garden of the .sluggard 
is exactly verified. 

"The cultivation and study of flowers ap- 
pears better suited to woman than to man. 
They resemble her in their fragility, beauty, 
and perishable nature. The mimosa may be 
likened to a pure-minded and delicate woman, 
who shrinks even from the breath of contami- 
nation ; and who, if assailed loo rudely by the 
finger of scorn and reproach, will wither and 
die from the shock." 

Flowers are, of course, extensively used at 
weddings, but, according to the florists, they 
are employed more liberally at funerals. Five 
hundred dollars are not unfrequently expended 
in crosses and wreaths for these solemn occa- 
sions. As weddings and funerals require 
white flowers chiefly, they cause these to be 
more rare and of higher price than colored 
ones. Some of our churches, of late years, 
have employed flowers extensively on occasion.s 
of religious festivals. Their culture is a 
healthful recreation — healthful both to the 
body and mind. The maiden, the invalid, the 
child, the care-worn man, feel, as they bend 
over their flower.s, that they have sonieihing lo 
engage their attention — something lo protect — 
something to cherish. The delicate, sensitive 
plant, the gorgeous pa-ssion-flower, the puie 
lily, the brilliant rose, the beautiful tulip, all 
are objects of wonder, splendor, and loveline.^s. 
The heart is improved, and the coarser featuns 
of human character softened It is innocent 



198 



THE GARDEN : 



and pleasant. The time thus spent will cause 
no sigh of sorrow — no tears of regret. 

If music has charms to soothe the savage, 
flowers have influence to ssbdue the ravings of 
the maniac. Some of the severest cases of in- 
sanity in men brought to the Michigan Insane 
Asylum in irons, and manifesting the most vio- 
lent symptoms, have been suddenly calmed 
down to a condition bordering on sanity, by the 
simple presentation of a bouquet of flowers. 

The following plan of a flower-garden, taken 
from the Country Gentleman, evinces taste, and 
is susceptible of such changes as circumstances 
may suggest: 




The best style for a flower garden, both for 
beauty and economy, is to extend a gravel 
walk, by a constant and varying curve around 
a small, closely-shaven piece of lawn, cutting 
the flower beds in circles, ellipses, or arabesque 
forms, as shown in the figure — a being the 
dwelling, and b the summer-house or seat ; the 
white portion is the grass, which should be 
mowed at least once a week, and never allowed 
to grow more than two inches higli. Such a 
flower garden as this may be kept in perfect 
order at one-fifth the expense of one with the 
whole surface cultivated. The size may be 
varied indefinitely. 

Preparation of Flower Beds. — L. L. Fair- 
child, of Wisconsin, an experienced cultiva- 
tor of flowers, gives these directions: Mellow 
up the soil to the depth of the spade and throw 
it on one side: Then spade down again the 
depth of the blade, making it very fine and 
mellow. Return the surface soil. This gives 
a depth of eighteen inches or over. If the soil 
is not rich it should be made so by the addition 
of finely pulverized, well rotted manure. Leaf 
mold from the woods and fence corners answer 
a good purpose. If the soil is he.avy it should 
be m.ade light by the addition of sand and de- 



cayed vegetable matter. Be sure and have 
your beds finely pulverized, and soil sufficiently 
lively so that it will not become hard baked. 
The after culture needed will be sufficient to 
keep the beds entirely free from weeds and the 
surface from hardening. On beds made as des- 
cribed, you may sow your seeds with the assur- 
ance of satisfactory results. 

Sowing the Seeds, — In order to be successful in 
raising flowers from seed, it will be necessary 
to bear in mind that the smaller the seed the 
le.ss deeply it .should be covered with earth. 
Some seeds are so small tluit they require only 
to be sprinkled over the ground and gently 
pressed into the soil, and should the weather 
prove very dry, a tliin layer of damp moss 
ought to be placed over them till they germi- 
nate, when cure must be taken to have it re- 
moved. There are few seeds that require siicli 
extreme attention. 

Small seeds, as Petunia, Portulaca, etc., .sow 
about one-eighth of an inch in depth; fliose 
of larger size, as Mignonette, Sweet Alyssum, 
etc., about one-fourth of an inch in depth; still 
larger, as Balsam, Morning Glorj-, etc., three- 
fourths of an inch in depth; and seeds of the 
largest size, as Lupines, Nasturtium, etc., fully 
one inch in depth. They must be covered 
with finely pulverized soil, or leaf-mold, 
slightly pressed down, and should be kept 
moderately moist by shading or slight sprink- 
lings of water, until they make their appear- 
ance. When about one inch in height the 
plants must be thinne<l out from one to two 
inches apart, to prevent crowding. Tall va- 
rieties should be neatly slaked to prevent in- 
jury from wind or rain. 

The time for sowing is regulated by latitude 
— April and early May for the Middle and 
Northern States, anil some six weeks earlier for 
the latitude of South Carolina and the Gulf 
States. 

Transplanting and Watering. — In their trans- 
plantation, great care should be taken not to 
place the plants in a soil greatly different 
from that whence they were removed. Many 
are very negligent concerning this. They re- 
move a plant from a loose soil and sunny spot 
to a place where the ground is hard and damp, 
and then wonder why the plant droops and 
dies. Plants possess a wonderful power of ac- 
commodation, and, by prt)ceeding gradually, 
almost their very nature may be changed; but 
one should no more expect that a plant trans- 
ferred from a sheltered nook to an exposed sit- 
uation should flourish, than that the animals 



CULTURE OF FLOWERS, ETC. 



199 



of Africa should dwell in Lapland. Plants 
Rhoiild ."seldom be showered by the watering- 
pot, but their supply should be afforded them 
by irrigation and dampunder-soil. Drenching 
is decidedly hurtful, for though it may cool the 
earth, and apparently revive the plant, yet, tlie 
rapid evaporation that takes place from the 
leaves will generally cause the plant to lan- 
guish. Plants, moreover, should be watered 
very regularly, for nothing will sooner de.stroy 
them than to soak them for one day, and then 
neglect them for a week. 

Shaded Flowei^s Last Longest. — The Gardener's 
Journtd, an English periodical, recommends 
shading flowers while blooming, in order to 
continue them in blossom a much longer time 
than otherwise. "The practice of shading 
plants," says this journal, "from the direct 
rays of the sun, receives an illustration on a 
broad scale, in the exhibition of American 
flowers in Regent's Park, London, the result of 
which is that the plants, which, in the open air 
exposed to the sun, would last in perfection two 
or three days only, continue here, shut out as 
they are from the sun, and exposed to a damp, 
cool, and still atmosphere, no less than a 
month, and some of them still longer. This, 
then, is the result of shading plants while in 
flower. In all cases where it is possible, the 
shade ought to be movable, so as to be taken 
down at pleasure." If shading in the cloudy 
and damp climate of England be of service in 
prolonging the blooming season of. flowers, it 
must prove much more so in the bright and 
sunny region of America. 

The Coloring of Flowers. — A German bota- 
nist has given us these interesting facts, as ob- 
served in his own country : The number of 
flowers invariably increases from December to 
July. White flowers are the most numerous 
during the whole period of the year when 
plants are seen in blossom; after these come 
the yellow, then the orange, the blue, the vio- 
let, the green, and lastly, the indigo flowers, 
which are the most uncommon. The law, ac- 
cording to which the increase of flowerin 
takes place, shows itself to be closely connected 
with the mean temperature; but from time to 
time anomalies are exhibited, which the change 
of temperature alone can not explain — such as 
the rapid decrease of the number of flowering 
plants from the end of July to that of Augu.st. 
From the month of January, when all the 
flowers are white, to the vernal equinox, the 
relative number of white flowers rapidly de- 
creases; after that period the proportion in- 



creases till the middle of May, and then insensi- 
bly diminishes till the time when the frosts 
arrest all vegetation. If we set aside the very 
small number of yellow flowers which appear 
in February and March, we see that the pro- 
portion of flowers of that color increases from 
the beginning of April to the end of .June; 
tlien it remains stationary till the middle of 
August, after which it increases again till the 
frosts come. The proportional number of red 
flowers gradually diminishes from February 
till the end of April; then recovers the ascend- 
ing scale till the end of August, after which it 
decreases till October; it then rises again till 
November, when most of the cultivated flowers 
are of that color. The green or greenish flow- 
ers diminish from March till the end of May, 
and after this the proportion is about uniformly 
maintained till Winter. Blue flowers increa.se 
to the middle of April ; then decrease to the 
Summer solstice; then ascend to the number 
reached in April, after which they rapidly de- 
crease, and totally cease on the arrival of the 
frosts. The other colors are not regular enough 
to admit of the giving of a rule for .them. It 
is seen that each color rises twice and decreases 
twice. Whenever the white flowers increase, 
the yellow decrease, and vice versa. The red 
and green always correspond, as do the blue 
and violet flowers. These laws apply to spe- 
cies, not to individuals. The same botanist 
tinds, that the number of plants opening their 
corolla during the night is very small, com- 
pared with that of those blo.ssoming during the 
day, being only about twelve per cent. 

•Arrangement of Flowers. — The Cavendish So- 
ciety of England recommend that blue flowers 
be placed next to orange, and the violet next 
to the yellow; while red and pink flowers are 
never seen to greater advantage than when sur- 
rounded by verdure and by white flowers; and 
the latter may also be advantageously dispersed 
among groups of blue and orange, and violet 
and yellow flowers. Plants whose flowers are 
to produce a contrast should be of the same 
size, and in many ea-ses the color of the sand 
or gravel walks, or beds of a garden, should be 
made to conduce to the general effect. 

To Change the Color of Flmcers.—K the stem 
of a white rose be placed in a solution of yellnw 
prussiate of pota.sh for four or five hours, and 
then placed in a solution of sulphate of injn, 
the color will be changed to a delicate prim- 
rose, while the fragrance remains unchanged. 

Effect of Charcoal on Flov)ers. — "About a year 
ago," says a writer in the Paris Horticultural 



200 



THE garden: 



Review, " I made a bargain for a rose-bush of 
magnificent growth and full of buds. I waited 
for them to blow, and expected roses worthy 
of such a plant, and of the great praise be- 
stowed on it by the vendor. At length, when 
it bloomed, all my hopes were blasted. The 
flowers were of a faded color, and I discovered 
th.it I had only a middling multillora, stale- 
colored enough. I therefore resolved to sacri- 
fice it to some experiment which I had in view. 
My attention had been captivated with the 
effects of charcoal, as stated in some English 
publication. I then covered the earth in a 
pot in which my rose-bush was, about half an 
inch deep with pulverized charcoal. Some 
days after, I was astonished to see the roses, 
which bloomed, of as fine and lively a rose 
color as I could wish. I determined to repeat 
the experiment, and therefore, when the rose- 
bush had done flowering, I took ofT the char- 
coal, and put fresh earth about the roots. You 
may conceive that I waited for the next Spring 
impatiently to .see the result of lliis experi- 
ment. When it bloomed, the roses were at 
first pale and discolored; but by applying the 
charcoal as before, the roses resumed their 
rcsy-red color. I tried the powdered charcoal 
likewise, In large quantities upon my petunias, 
and found that both the white and the violet 
flowers were equally sensible of its action. It 
always gave greater vigor to the red or violet 
colors of the flowers, and the white petunias 
became covered with irregular spots of a blue- 
ish or almost black tint. Many persons who 
admired them, thought they were new varieties 
from the seed. Yellow flowers are, as I have 
proved, insensible to the influence of charcoal." 

Annuals. — Annual flowers are such as 
either blossom and seed within the same year, 
or winter-kill by exposure; some of the hardy 
varieties of which, however, like the larkspur, 
candytuft, etc., may be made in a sense bien- 
nials, by sowing them late, and protecting and 
wintering the young plants for blossoming the 
following year; and some of them, as the 
mignonette, become perennial when propaga- 
ted from cuttings, and not permitted to ripen 
their seed. Very far from a complete list is 
herewith given of the annual or other varie- 
ties, as we prefer to notice such only as have 
been pretty well tested and accredited, and 
such as would give variety and beauty to the 
flower garden. The candytuft, dwarf morning 
glory, lupins, malope, poppies, and Venus' 
looking-glass, never do well transplanted, and 



hence should always be sown in the bed where 
they are to remain. Many fall in their culture 
of annuals simply because they suffer them to 
crowd and choke each other. They require 
thinning. The larger kinds, as balsams, do 
best when standing separately, and never less 
tli.an a foot apart. May-sown annuals of many 
kinds, with plenty of room, will continue to 
flower until frost comes, while if grown too 
thick, they soon exhaust the soil, cease flower- 
ing, and prematurely decay. 

Abi-onia Umbellata. — A beautiful annual, with 
long trailing stems, bearing clusters of elegant 
flowers, rosy lilac, with white center, highly 
and deliclously fragrant. 

Acroclinium. — One of the best of the everlast- 
ing flowers. Colors, white and rose. 

Acjcrahim, or Kever-Groming-Otd. — Flowers 
remarkable for their soft, rounded, fringe-like 
appearance, the plant hardy and ornamental, 
and suitable for beds or borders. 

Amaranthus Tricolor. — Its beautifully variega- 
ted foliage of red, green, and yellow, is much ad- 
mired. It is a tender annual. A new species, 
the Globe Amaranth, with its reddish orange 
flowers, is an important addition to this class 
of " immortals." 

Animated Oat. — Grown as an object of curi- 
osity ; when they have shed their .seeds, the 
strong heads are singularly sensitive to the 
changes of the atmosphere, and continually in 
motion; when wet, they seem to twist about 
and appear singularly animated. 

Arctotis. — Produces a brilliant yellow flower, 
opening to the sun, and closing at night. It 
has a succession of blossoms through the sea- 
son, which makes it a desirable border flower. 

Aster. — There are many varieties of this 
hardy annual, the China aster. The Peony- 
flowered aster, has a very full, double flower, 
nearly as large as a medium-sized dahlia, and 
much handsomer in the estimation of good 
judges of flowers; the German Globe Pyramid 
aster; the German Quilled aster; Frencli Globe 
aster, similar, to the German, but differing in 
their growth ; German Dwarf aster, eight or 
ten inches high, completely covered with flow- 
ers; Dwarf Bouquet aster, very beautiful, each 
plant forming a perfect bouquet. The aster is 
nearly as showy as the peony, and makes a fine 
Autumn flower. Plants should be eighteen 
inches apart. 

Balsam-, or Touch-me-not. — This half-hardy 
family is divided into early, late, dwarf, tall, 
camellia-flowering, of which there are about a 
dozen beautiful varieties of the latter alone, 



201 



Iatg;e, double, resembling rosea, or niediuni-sizetl 
c:iniollias — the colors very brilliant, scarlet, 
crimson, violet, purple, rose, white, anil various 
spotted, striped, and mottled kinds. The plants 
should be set ten or twelve inches apart, in 
rows three feet asunder; and the side branches 
may all be pinched oil, leaving only the center 
slioot, or three or four branches may be retained. 
It commences its flowering in July. 

Blue Pimpernel. — A dwarf trailing plant, witi 
lilue and pink flowers in July and August. It 
litis been termed the Poor Man's Barometer, as 
it closes its flowelfs when exposed to damp air, 
as do the chickweed, and many other plants, 
upon the approach of rain. 

Calandrinia Orandijlora- — A haU'-hardy an- 
nual, two feet high, with rosy-pnrple (lowers, in 
vast profusion, from June to October. 

California Gold Flower, or Poppy. — Grows two 
feet liigli. blooming from June to September, 
of a brilliant .shining yellow, producing a great 
degree of splendor when the full sun shines 
upon it, giving it a perfect blaze of color and 
attractiveness. 

Calliiipsis, or Coreopsis. — This annual is hardy 
and showy, and is known as the elegant coreop- 
sis. There are a number of beautiful varieties, 
and all highly ornamental, bearing a profusion 
of flowers of rich brilliant crimson, and other 
colors. 

Candytufl. — There are several varieties of this 
beautiful, hardy, free-bloouiing annual — the so- 
called crimson ones are not really crim.son, but 
of a ))urplish color; other varieties are of a 
pure white, flesh-color, lilac, and ro.se appear- 
ance. The Fall-sown seeds flower early ; while 
those sown in April flower from July till fryst 
appears. Thin out the plants in the bed to 
about four or five inches apart. 

Crysanlhemum. — One of the luindsomest of 
Autumnal flowers ; the dwarf varieties are 
hardy, and the colors brilliant and varied. 
For Autumn blooming, there is nothing to sup- 
ply their place. Plants are easily obtained 
from cuttings, or by root divisions, set about 
ten inches apart ; an old stool of the last year 
furnishing a large supply. If placed in the 
garden, they require a warm and sheltered sit- 
uation; in large-sized flower pots they produce 
a decorative efl'ect in the drawing room or con- 
servatory. 

Clarkia Elegans.- — .A. hardy, showy annual, 
bearing a profusion of flowers of delicate colors; 
they do not stand the heat of our American 
Summers very well, but frequently flower mag- 
nificently during the Autumn months, even 



after pretty hard iVcpsls. The plants should be 
set some ten inches apart ; they attaiii the height 
of a foot. 

Cleome. — A very pretty, free-flowering, half- 
hardy annual, with curiously constructed flow- 
ers ; easily raised fi-om seed, in open ground, 
blooming from July to September; plants eight 
to ten inches aiiart ; grows about eighteen Inch- 
es high. 

Clintonia Elegans. — A tender annual, of rich 
blue flowers, and delicate foliage, blooming 
freely in July and August; six inches high. 

Collinsia. — The two-colored, and large flower- 
ing varieties, hardy, with white and light pur- 
ple flower.s, numerous and pretty during Sum- 
mer, not very sliowy ; one foot high. 
■ Cockscomb. — A tender annual^ the scarlet and 
crimson varieties are very brilliant. The plants 
should be started in a hot-bed, or they can not 
be raised in perfection. The dwarf kinds are 
be.st, and all are suited for potting. 

Ecerlasting Flower. — A family of beautiful 
plants, whose flowers, if gathered when first 
open, and carefully dried, preserve their color 
and shape, for mantel bouquets and ornaments, 
for a long time. The Rhodanthe, Gomphrena, 
Helichrysum, Helipleruiu Sanfordii, and Ze- 
ranthemum, are among the finest of the ever- 
lasting varieties — a single plant of the Rho- 
danthe having produced hundreds of flowers, 
remaining in blossom three months. 

Fading Beauty, or Morning Bride.- — .\n an- 
nual plant, from Spring-sown seed, producing 
handsome flowers, which last but a few hours 

Quia. — There are three hardy and pretty va- 
rieties, the blue, tri-color, and large blue. The 
flowers are delicate, .some of them white; when 
single, not very showy ; grows from one to two 
feet high. 

Ice Plant. — A well-known annual, to be sown 
early in pots; the plant has the appearance of 
being covered with ice. Is very ornamental in 
vases and gardens. 



Jacobia, or Senecio Elegans. — Of several kinds 
and various colors, producing a beautiful ap- 
pearance. 

Jot's Tears. — .\ kind of ornamental grass, at- 
taining a height of two or three feet, producing 
a shining, pearly fruit, which, wheji suspended 
on its slender pedicles, is supposed to resemble 
a falling tear. The flowers are destitute of 
beauty. 

Larkspur. — -A. well known, beautiful and 
hardy flowering plant, of no fragrance, but 



202 



THE GARDEN 



making a pretty appearance. It is raised from 
the seed, or by dividing the roots; if from seed 
they shoiiUl be sown in the Autumn, or very 
early in the Spring, where they are to remain. 
The prevailing colors are blue, white, and pink 
— the flowers borne on long spikes. Tlie 
Kocket Larkspur varieties are superb. The 
dwarf sorts are admired for their beautiful and 
varied mass of flowers, and should stand some 
five or six inches apart; the larger varieties 
requiring three times as much space. 

Love- Lies- Bleeding. — A hardy variety of the 
Amaranth family, with blood-red flowers, which 
hang in pendant spikes, and, at a little dis- 
tance, supposed to resemble streams of blood; 
flowering in July and August, and growing 
from three to four feet high. 

Lupim. — There are many varieties; should 
be planted an inch deep in April or early May, 
grow from one to three feet high, with their 
delicate foli.^ge, large blue, yellow, and wliite 
flowers, from July to September — very con- 
spicuous and showy. Do not transplant well. 

Mulope. — A very line and showy half-hardy 
annual. Sow in hot-bed, or as early as may 
be in the open ground ; plants grow two feet 
high, and should be about eighteen inches 
apart; flowers resemble tho.se of the hollyhock. 
The Grandiflora variety has large purple flow- 
ers; the Alba, pure white. 

Marigold. — -There are many varieties of this 
half-hardy and very showy annual, which flow- 
ers from early Summer until frost. The Afri- 
can is the tallest, generally reaching two feet; 
the Striped French is ricli, and perfect beyond 
comparison; the vSignata Pumila forms a dense 
mass, round as a ball, with flowers single, 
bright yellow, marked with orange. 

Mignonette. — This fragrant, hardy little an- 
nual is everywhere a favorite, blooming and 
sending forth its sweetness from June till the 
close of the season. Deserves a place in every 
collection of flowers. 

Mimosa, or Sensitive Plant. — Sow seed in open 
ground in May, in rich soil. This singular 
plant is most irritable in the greatest heat, and 
closes its leaves at the slightest touch. 



Mourning Bride. — This is a very showy half- 
hardy annual, the blossoms varying in their 
colors from almost black to white, and making 
fine table bouquets and ornaments. The Double 
Dwarf Scabious variety is new and attractive 
Sow in May; it blooms in latter part of June. 

Nemesia. — A pretty, free blooming half-hardy 



annual, producing numerous curious and deli- 
cate flowers. Should be planted in masses, 
four inches apart; grows about eight inches 
in height. 

Petunia. — A favorite and hardy annual, the 
improved varieties of which are splendid. Sow 
early, in hot-bed or open ground. One of the 
most effective flower bods is one made wholly 
of petunias. Make the bed, say six feet long 
and four feet wide, and oval in shape. Let it 
be three inches higher in the center than at the 
edges. Sow seeds of the crimson and white 
equally mixed together. The plants should be 
thinned out to six inches apart. Tliey will 
make a brilliant show all Summer. 

Phlox:. — There are many varieties, and nearly 
as many tints and colors— some of extremely 
delicate coloring, while others are brilliant, 
constant, d;izzling. The Phlo.K Drummondii is 
the favorite variety. The plants require good 
rich soil, and to be set a foot apart — if too 
crowded, they will mildew; will grow fully 
eighteen inches in height, but have not strength, 
without supjjort, to stand entirely erect. 

Puppy, — .\ showy, hardy annual, single and 
double, with white, red, and mixed colors. 
Some of its varieties are perennial. The double 
varieties are extremely brilliant, and attain a 
height of about two feet. The single Opium 
Poi)py is large, white, and very attractive. 

Portulaca. — Perfectly hardy, producing a 
profusion of salver-shaped, crimson, ]uirple, 
yellow, white, and striped flowers. Sandy soil, 
and a warm situation, lurnish the best condi- 
tions. Massed in beds on the lawn, or made to 
adorn mixed borders, the portulaca shows to 
great advantage. It bears transplanting well, 
and the plants should be six inches asunder. 
The Double Kose-Uowered is a charming 
variety. 

Prinuose. — There are several species and va- 
rieties of this well-known hardy annual; all 
are easy of cultivation, producing rich purple 
flowers in July and August. 

Prince's Feather. — .\. hardy plant of the Am- 
aranthus family ; attains a height of fimr or 
five feet, with numerous heads of purplish 
crimson flowers, well adapted for black or 
mixed borders. 

Scarlet Tassel Flower, — A pretty, half-liardy 
annual, sometimes called Venus, or Flora's 
Paint Brush, with small, scarlet and orange 
tassel-shaped flowers, exceedingly useful ibr 
cutting. Plants should be six or eight inches 
apart. 
I Sensitive Plant. — Same as Mimosa. 



BIENNIAL AND PERENNIAL FLOWERS. 



203 



Uportia Calif ornic.a.—X very showy, liarily, 
annual, with yellow floweis. 

Splendid Guzania. — One of the newly intro- 
duced, and one of flie most showy bedding 
plants; the blossoms, with various tints, from 
three to lour inches in diameter, resembling' 
rich, golden orange chrysanthemums. 

Stock, Slockgilly, Gilliflower, or Ten - Weeks. — 
The annual variety, which is half-hardy, is usu- 
ally called Ten- Weeks, propagated from seed 
only, producing a showy and fragrant flower 
from June to November. The German sorts 
are much esteemed for the great variety of 
their color and size. Soil deep and rich ; 
plants twelve inches apart. 

Sweet Alyssum. — A hardy, fiee-floweiing an- 
nual, blooming tlie whole Summer, suitable 
for beds, and edgings; plants should be .set five 
or sis inches apart. Very fragrant; flowers 
pure while. 

T'tviitt"' Lookiitg-r/lusf, or Campanida. — There 
arc several varieties of neat, hardy, free-flower- 
ing annuals, producing a long succession of 
blue flowers of some beauty ; massed in beds, 
or in borders a loot apart. The form of the 
corolla resembles a little rdund, elegant mirror 
— hence the name. Some of the varieties are 
showy perennials. 

Verbena. — A half-hardj' annual, flowering 
from seed sown in May in the open ground, or 
propagated from cutiings of the young shoots, 
placed in sandy soil, which will root in a few 
weeks. There are many varieties of this lovely 
family of perpetual flowering plants, embrac- 
ing every shade ot' color, from the richest scar- 
let to the purest white — and several of them 
are exquisitively scented. T!ie brilliancy and 
great variety of the colors of the verbena, and 
its adaptedness to our liot Summer sun, and its 
long continued season of bloom, render it the 
most valuable of all bedding plants; but to 
succeed well, in-doors or out, it must be fully 
exposed to the sun, and will not thrive wilhcnit 
it. It requires but very little water in Winter, 
and should be kept in a dry airy place till time 
for repotting in the Spring; and started in 
puts, verbenas will bloom from May to No- 
vember. Sown in masses, they are very orna- 
mental in the lawn. If the aphis or green fly 
appears, tobacco fumigation is the remedy 

Wliitlavia. — A hardy and elegant new annual 
from California, producing very beautiful dark 
blue bells, in continued succession from June 
to October. A light sandy loam ; transplants 
well, and endures the driest season. 

Zinnia Elegans. — The new double-flowered 



variety, as double as the Dahlia, thrives well 
in our clinnite, and is easily transplanted from 
the hot-bed, which should be done early, 
twenty inches apart each way; grow over two 
feet high. A very showy plant, with many- 
colored flowers. 

Biennial and Perennial Flow- 
ers. — A few of the more important must suf- 
fice: 

Alysmm, Rock or Golden. — Raised from seeds 
or slips; dwarf habit; flowers of a brilliant 
golden yellow. 

Aster, or Star-Flower. — There are many vari- 
eties, mostly perennials, bearing a profusion of 
bine, purple, or white flowers ; one of the best 
I is the New England, growing three or four feet 
I high, with large purple flowers, and the Multi- 
flora is also a very fine variety. Tlioy luay be 
removed, even when in blossom, provided the 
pla^it is cut down to the ground. 

Candytuft, or Ibeiis. — This is the only species 
of perennial candytuft, yielding a profusion of 
pure white flowers in June and July. Propa- 
gated by layers or cuttiugs. 

Canlerbary Bell. — A species of the Bel 1-flower, 
hardy, free-bloomer, and of great beauty, single 
and double varieties — white, blue, lilac, and 
mixed colors. Being a biennial, it will be ne- 
cessary to sow seed every year. The plants 
should be set in August or September where 
they are to bloom the following year. The 
Pyramidalis is a large variety, three feet high. 

Columbine. — A showy, beautiful, and hardy 
perennial, with curious, various-colored, and 
striking flower.s, some quite double, blooming 
early in the Summer. 

Chrysanthemum, Chinese. — A hardy perennial, 
very desirable for late bloom, and pretty withal, 
grown by dividing the roots; stands the Win- 
ter without covering, but best cultivated in pots 
where it can receive protection when in bloom 
in severe weather in Autumn. There are two 
varieties — one scarcely a foot high, the other 
two feet, some double, and both of various 
colors. 

Daisy. — This small, delicate, perennial plant 
produaes attractive flowers, even through the 
Winter, if potted and kept in the house. There 
are several varieties, all hardy, yet needing 
Winter protection. Propagated by dividing the 
roots. 

Dielyira, Shumy. — This is regarded as one of 
the finest perennials in cultivation; grown by 
dividing the roots, and so hardy as to require 
no Winter protection. The stalks are liierally 



204 



THE GARDEN : 



pf-niimil with brigm, rose-iiink, licart-sliaped 
iliiwers. 

Dwarf- Fringed Agroitemma. — Tlie name sig- 
nifies "the crown of the fiehi," indicating the 
striking and showy character of tlie flowers, 
somewhat resembling the pink, but usually 
growing on taller plants. Hardy, and should 
be set six inches apart. 

Funjlove. — A showy and liardy perennial, 
a(l:i|il(il to a border, with its beautiful spikes 
of iiurple thimble-shaped flowers. Raised from 
the seed, or by dividing the roots. 

Galllurdia, rainted. — A handsome, half-hardy 
plant, naturally a perennial, but will produce 
its flowers the first year from tlie seed, if 
started early. Needs Winter protection. Has 
large, beautiful, crimson and orange flowers in 
August. Set eight or ten inches apart. 

Garden Angelica. — Raised from the seed; 
bold and showy when in flower. 

Gaura. — A fine perennial, blooming from the 
seed the second year; and the first year even, 
if sown early. Very handsome for bouquets, 
and has the merit of long continued flowering. 

Gentian. — .\ luindsome, upright, barrel- 
shaped perennial, with an exceedingly fine 
pale blue flower, with delicately fringed edges. 
Propagated from seed ; shady or moist situa- 
tion best. 

Geranium. — There are many varieties of this 
much admired plant ; propagated by cuttings. 
The Scarlet Geraniums, with their brilliant 
colors, are highly ornamental This is one 
of the choice flowers of the American garden. 

Heliotrope. — There are several species of this 
plant, only the Peruviannm and Intermedia are 
universal favorites, and particularly worthy of 
cultivation for their light and dark lilac flowers 
with their exquisite fragrance. Increased by 
cuttings. 

Hollyhock. — This fine biennial has been much 
improved of late years, and the double vari- 
eties present an attractive appearance in situa- 
tions suitable for tall flowers. Obtained from 
seed, or by dividing the roots. 

Humea Elegans. — The young plants should 
be started under glass ; a beautiful biennial, 
growing about four feet high. 

Indigo Plant. — This is one of the most beau- 
tiful of native herbaceous plants, taking care of 
itself when once planted; grows two feet high. 

Ipoviopxin. — An elegant free-growing, half- 
hardy liiennial, with long spikes of rich orange 
and scarlet flowers; grows three to four feet 
liigh ; difficult to Winter, doing best in a dry 
place, without too much protection. 



Iris, or Fleur-de-lis. — Many of this extensive 
family are bulbous-rooted; .some otherwise, and 
all are more or less elegant, delicate, and vari- 
gated. Hardy ; propagated by dividing the 
roots. 

Larkxpur. — The perennial larkspur, with its 
dazzling blue flower, is one of the finest and 
most desirable of the hardy herbaceous plants. 

Lilg. — The family of Lilies are all splen- 
did. The Lily of the Valley, an elegant, deli- 
cate, sweet-scented plant, has been for ages a 
favorite flower, succeeding best in the shade. 
The White Lily grows three or four feet high. 

Monkshood. — Tliere are several varieties of 
this hardy and handsome perennial, sometimes 
called Turk's Cap; with long spikes of showy 
flowers, resembling in form an old cavalry hat. 
Propagated by dividing the roots; grows about 
two feet in height. 

Pansy, or Violet. — This is properjy a bien- 
nial, one of the earliest of Spring flowers, sin- 
gle and double, of dwarf habits ; propagated 
by cuttings or divisions of the root. It re- 
quires a shady situation and Winter protection. 
Its tri-colored flowers are rich and brilliant, 
blooming early and long. 

Phlox. — There are many perennial varieties, 
improved within the past few years, now very 
superb; among them the Beppo, the Speculum, 
Suaveolens, Grandiflora, and Virgilia, with 
their various colors often delicately blended in 
the same flower. 

Pinks. — This splendid genus of hardy per- 
ennials has many varieties ; propagated from 
seed or division of roots ; plants from six to 
twelve inches apart, according to size and kind. 
The Chinese has been greatly improved ; the 
Japan, or Heddewigii, or Double Diadem, is 
among the richest — rose, purple, and marbled 
in color; the Flore- pleno, very large magnifi- 
cent double flowers ; the Carnation, the most 
sjilcndid, and delightfully fragrant of all the 
Pink i'amily, rivaling the rose; the Picotee, 
more delicate in its coloring than the Carna- 
tion; and the Sweet William, with its double 
varieties of exceedingly beautiful and various- 
colored flowers. It is safe to give pinks Win- 
ter protection norih of forty degrees of latitude. 

Poppy. — -A showy, hardy perennial, with 
large, bright single and double flowers. Seed 
may be sown in the open ground. 

Primrose. — A class of very early and pretty 
dwarf flowers, including the Cow.slip and Poly- 
anthus; needing Winter protection; propagated 
by dividing the plant when done flowering for 
the season. 



f 



BULBOUS FLOWERS. 



205 



Roclcd. — A hue, early Spring-floweiing plant, 
very frngrant, excellent for bouquets ; grows 
freely, about eigliteen incbes in beigbt; bardy; 
tbe double varieties, wbite and purple, are 
really superb Very fragrant, flowering in 
long spikes in May and June. 

SrKip-Dragmi. — Tbere are many varieties, 
mostly biennials or perennials ; raised from seed 
or division of roots, with various colors, white, 
yellow, purple, rosy, red, crimson, mottled 3tc. 
Tbe flower bears a resemblance to tbe snout or 
nose of some animal; and by applying the 
thumb and finger to tbe side of the corolla it 
opens and shuts as with a snap or spring. 

Tn'tnnia Uoarea. — A noble perennial, requir- 
ing Winter protection. 

Zauschneria Californica. — An elegant lierba- 
ceous perennial ; grows in bunches, producing a 
brilliant scarlet, trumpet-shaped flower; hardy, 
willi a little protection, in light sandy soil. 

Bulbous Flowers. — Bulbous and tu- 
beroiKS-rooted flowers, among the most magnifi- 
cent of all of Flora's beauties, are generally 
easy of cultivation. A light loam, rather 
sandy, deeply and tboroughly worked and en- 
riched, is best adaiited for their culture. As a 
general rule, when tbe tops have quite died 
down, and belbre very hard frosts, the bulbs 
nuiy be taken up and separated; they are easily 
preserved wrapped in paper, and covered in dry 
sand, or dry saw-dust, and kept in the cellar dur- 
ing Winter, and must not be planted till frost 
is over in the Spring. Tbe really hardy vari- 
eties should be planted in the Fall. 

AmaryHis, or Jacobean Lily. — Of great beau- 
ty, bright, showy, crimson ; plant in May, barely 
covering the bulbs. Kach plant produces but 
two or three large flowers. ■ 

Anemone, or Wind Flower — Plant in early 
Fall six inches apart each w.ay, placing the 
roots the right side up, with two inches of 
rich soil over them ; they need cold-frame or 
other Winter protection. A very pretty little 
flower. 

Oinnn. — A handsome half-hardy plant, pro- 
ducing a showy eflfect the second year from the 
seed; plant in Spring. 

Crocus. — Very hardy, and very early in flow 
ering, with its various colors of yellow, deep 
and light blue, white with stripes of variegated 
beauty. May remain in the ground all Winter 
if covered with litter. 

Dahlia. — Capricious but beautiful ; propagated 
by seeds, cuttings, or divisions of the root, 
which is easily destroyed by frost. Plant first 



in pots, and transplant in open ground in May. 
A yellow loamy soil, with very little manure, 
seems best fitted for it. There are many varie- 
ties, gorgeous in color, sporting into every tint 
except blue. 

Dicentra Spectabilis, or Bleeding Heart. — A 
hardy, beautiful, and graceful tuberous-rooted 
plant, with curious pinkish flowers. Propagate 
by dividing the roots ; cover with litter during 
tbe Winter. 

Four O'Clocks, or Marvel of Peru. — Tuber- 
ous-rooted like the Dahlia, and propagated 
similarly by seed or roots. It is a very attrac- 
tive flower, of white, purple, yellow, and red- 
striped colors, admirably adapted for borders. 

Gladiolus. — At the head of the list of beauti- 
ful Summer bulbs tbe Gladiolus takes undis- 
puted rank. There are over one hundi'ed vari- 
eties, with tall spikes of flowers, brilliant scar- 
let, crimson, creamy wbite, striped, and spotted 
colors. Set in rows in the Spring, a foot apart, 
six or eight inches asunder, in tolerably dry 
soil ; at difTerent times till the middle of .Tune, 
to keep up a long succession of flowers. 

Hyncinth. — Tbere are more than a lhousan<I 
varieties of this gorgeous single and double 
flowering plant, cultivated in Holland, of al- 
most every shade of color. Plant tbe bulbs 
eight inches apart, and cover four inches deep ; 
they should be covered with litter in Winter. 

Ji-is, or Fleur-de-lis. — Manj' of this plant are 
bulbous-rooted, among them the Persian, es- 
teemed for the beauty and fragrance of its 
flowers. Plant in October, about two and a 
half incbes deep, and some eight inches apart. 
Will not stand Winter exposure without pro- 
tection. 

Lily. — Tbere are many varieties of (bis splen- 
did genus of plants, double and single, white, 
purple, gold-striped, yellow, orange, and scar- 
let. The Japan lily, with its hardy roots and 
or.imson-spotted flowers, is scarcely equaled for 
delicacy and beaut)-; and though hardy it .suc- 
ceeds best when the ground is well-covered 
with forest leaves during tbe Winter. Tbe 
Tiger lily, the single Candidum, the Clialce- 
donicura, the Concolor, and the Martagon, are 
all hardy kinds, and very beautiful. Tbey 
should be planted from three to four inches 
deep, according to the size of tbe bulb, and 
need not be taken up oftener than once in every 
three or four years. 

Narcissus, or Daffodil. — The Two-flowered 
narcissus, or Primrose Peerless, and tbe Jon- 
quil, the Poet's narcissus, are among the vari- 
eties, bardy and ornamental. Plant three 



206 



THE garden: 



inches deep, and cover with litter for Winter 
protection. 

Peony. — Many varieties, and all beautiful, 
very hardy, and generally standing "the Winter 
even if protection is neglected. The Chinese 
varieties are celebrated for their large size, del- 
icate coloring, and fragrance. Propagate by 
dividing the roots — if in the Spring, very 
early. 

Ranunculus. — Our climate is not favorable to 
the culture of this splendid flowering plant. 
It needs green-house management in the 
Winter; yet it has been cultivated in the open 
air from tubers, well kept during the Winter, 
planted six inches apart each way and an inch 
and a half over the crown, in deep-trenched 
Boil, in a cool, moist situation. 

Snow Drop, or Galanthii.<i. — A hardy plant, 
with small bulbs, and the first to blossom in 
the Spring. Plant in clumps in the Fall, an 
inch and a half or two inclies deep, single and 
double varieties. 

San Flower, Double Perennial. — Tuberous- 
rooted, with numerous large double yellow 
blossoms, of the size and form of Dahlias. 
Propagate by planting pieces of its thick, 
fleshly root in the Spring; grows four or five 
feet high. Litter for Winter protection. 

2'iger Flower, or Tigrid'm. — Plant the bulbs in 
May, about two inches deep. The flowers, va- 
riegated and gorgeous, are destitute of fra- 
grance, and display their glories but for a few 
hours, when the sun destroys all vestiges of 
their beauty ; but the plant continues to pro- 
duce its blossoms for a number of weeks, 

Tuberose. — This beautiful wax-like, sweet- 
scented, double flower, has a tender tuberous 
root, and is naturally a green-honse plant, but 
will grow and flower in warm situations in the 
open air, and especially if first started early in 
pots. The top of the tuber should be near the 
surface of the soil. The original bulb will nipt 
flower the second time ; hence the small bulbs, 
or offshoots, must be saved for the next year's 
planting. 

Tulip. — The varieties are endless, single and 
double, early and late. Propagate by bulbs, 
planted about three and a half inches below 
the surface, six or eight inches apart, in a deep 
rich mold. The sorts used for borders may be 
set in groups of from three to five bulbs, and 
and covered with litter in Winter. 

Climbing Plants and Shrubs.— 

As the list of this class is extended, a very 
brief notice only can be given. For trellis- 



work in flower gardens, arbors, oulhouscs 
porches, pillars, walls, fences, and for the lawn, 
climbing plants and vines are highly orna- 
mental. 

Balloon Vine. — A half-hardy creeping an- 
nual ; seed sown early in May ; flowers white 
and green, without any claim to beauty. 

Bitter Sweet. — A hardy, beautiful, winding 
wild climber. 

Climbing Lophosper. — Properly a green-house 
perennial ; flowers funnel-shaped, two inches 
or more long, with purple or crimson colors. 

Climbing Staff. — A strong native woody vine, 
growing vigorously in moist situations and by 
the side of stone walls ; very ornamental wlien 
its deep scarlet fruit is ripened. 

Corydalis, or Fumitory. — An elegant, indige- 
nous, biennial climbing vine, propagated from 
seed sown in April, growing from fifteen to 
thirty feet in a season, with many pink-white 
flowers. 

Cypress Vine, or Ipomea. — A very tender an- 
nual; should be started in a hot-bed; unex- 
celled in elegance of foliage, gracefulness of 
habit, and loveliness of flowers. 

Everlasting Pea. — A large and beautiful per- 
ennial, propagated by sowing seeds, or dividing 
the roots, flowering profusely the second and 
succeeding year.s, with its light purple, pink, 
or while colors. 

Olyeine, or Oround A'nI. — A hardy, climbing 
shi-ub, with long, pendulous branches of blue 
flowers. 

Honeysuckle. — .K well-known climbing shrub, 
growing from fifteen to twenty feet high, 
producing a succession of flowers during the 
Summer and Autumn. The Yellow Trumpet 
honeysuckle — with blossoms the most delicate 
straw color, all the season — is not half so often 
seen as it deserves; the Cliinese honeysuckle, 
with deliciously scented, parti-colored blossoms 
and sub-evergreen foiliage, is particularly well 
suited to verandas with a northern aspect; the 
Dutchman's Pipe, with a magnificently large 
dark green foliage, is perfectly hardy, and the 
most picturesque of climbens, for situations' 
where a bold effect is desired. 

Ivy. — English, or Common Ivy, is easily 
propagated by layers, and is highlj' esteemed 
in England as an ornamental evergreen climber, 
for covering naked buildings or trees, or for 
training into fanciful shajjes. This is a 
very different vine from our native poisonous 
ivy. 

Jasmine. — A pretty, half-hardy, fragrant run- 
ner, requiring training, having no tendrils; 



CLIMBING PLANTS AND SHRUBS. 



207 



should be laid down for 'Winlei-, covered with 
litter, or banked over with earth. 

Loasa. — A curious genus, mostly annuals, 
running fifteen or twenty feet during the grow- 
ing sciison, and blooming in profusion during 
tlie Summer and Autumn. 

Lycium. — A climbing ornamental .shrub, eas- 
ily propagated from cuttings and suckers, pro- 
ducing handsome violet flowers from May to 
August. 

Madeira Vine. — And excellent climber, with 
smiill, sweet-scented flowers, making a fine 
windcjw-screen, and useful in basket-making. 

Maurandia. — An elegant green-house climb- 
ing perennial, with rich, purple flowers ; may 
be raised from seed started in the hot-house, 
and early transplanted to open ground. 

Mexican Climbing Cobce. — X green-house per- 
ennial plant, raised froiu cuttings, rather difli- 
cult to keep througli Winter, if started in hot- 
bed, flourishes very well in open air, and ha-s 
been known to grow two hundred feet in one 
season, in a conservatory. 

Morning Glory. — A free-blooming and beau- 
tiful class of hardy annual climbers. Seed 
may be sown in the open ground early in the 
Spring. There are many varieties, white, dark 
blue, ro.se, violet-striped, and tri-colored. 

^ft/rtle. — An evergreen running vine, includ- 
ing several species, bearing a pretty blue flower. 

Nasturtium. — A variety known as the Canary- 
Bird flower is a beautiful climber, with charm- 
ing little blossom.s, when lialf expanded having 
a fanciful likeness to little birds. 

P(.ts.iio7t Flouer. — A tender perennial vine, 
producing a showy succession of flowers, with 
something resembling a cross in the middle, 
surroinidtd by appendage:^ representing a glory. 
K:iised from cuttings; will not endure exposure 
to a Xortlierii Wintt-r. 

I'hlux. — The Drummondii variety, of many 
colors, and the finest of the phlox genus, is a 
creeping annual. 

Pipe Vine, or Birth-Wort. — A singular climb- 
ing plant, with brownish purple and somewhat 
pipe-shaped flowers, propagated from layers 
ami cuttings, and grows from fifteen to twenty 
feet high. 

Purple Hyacinth Bean. — .-V. fine, annual 
climber, growing from eight to fifteen feet in a 
season, flowering in clustered spikes, and treated 
like the common bean. 

Scarlet FluKerinrj Bean. — A popular climbing 
annual, with spikes of showy scarlet flowers, 
and one variety with white flowers. Plant the 



middle of May, :ind cultivate tne sa'ue as the 
common bean. 

Schizarithm.^An exquisitively beautiful class 
of half-hardy annuals, bearing a profusion of 
singularly bright-colored purple and yellow 
flowers; a tender plant, liable to injury by the 
sun or severe rains. Sow the seed in a hot- 
bed ; fine for green-house or out-donr deco- 
ration. 

Sweet Pea. — A fragrant annual, attaining five 
or si.x feet in height, with white, rose, scarlet, 
purple, black, and variegated flowers; each va- 
riety by itself in circles, about a foot in diam- 
eter, and three or four feet from any other plant. 

Thunbergia. — A handsome green-house per- 
ennial climber, with numerous buff-colored 
flowers, with dark throat; succeeds well sown 
in open ground the last of May. 

Trumpet Flower. — The scarlet variety is a 
magnificent climbing plant, producing large, 
trumpet-shaped, orange-scarlet flowers, of great 
beauty, from July to October. Propagate by 
layers, or root cuttings; should be laid down 
and well covered with mats or litter for Winter. 

Verbena. — It is a naturally pro.strate creep- 
ing plant, a hair-hanly annual; flowering frotn 
seed sown in the open ground in May, with 
dazzling scarlet and other tinted colors. If 
started in pots, it will bloom all Summer. 

Vinca, or Periwinkle.— Some of the varieties 
are hardy evergreen trailing plants, flowering 
early and late, generally of blue colors, and 
flourishing under the shade and drip of trees. 
A liJtle Winter protection is best. 

Virginia Creeper, or American Woodbine. — .\ 
beautiful and luxuriant hardy climber, easily 
propagated by layers and cuttings; often cover- 
ing walls of houses forty or fifty feet high ; 
flowers a reddish-green, succeeded by clusters 
of dark blue or nearly black berries. A rich, 
moist soil is nio^t suitable. 

Virgin's Bower, or Clematis. — A hardy, climb- 
ing, perennial shrub, free -flowering, rapid 
growth, very ornamental, and some varieties 
are higlily odoriferous. Siebold's variety, pro- 
ducing flowers three or four inches in diameter, 
is magnificent. Propagate by layers; it needs 
to be laid down and covered for Winter. 

Wall Flower. — A fine biennial, with its sin- 
gle, semi-double, and double flowers, varying 
from light yellow to orange, and reddisli brown 
to violet. It needs the green-house, or a light, 
dry cellar for Winter. 

Wistaria. — A very hardy, magnificent climb- 
ing shrubby, plant, with its superb masses of 



208 



THE GARDEN : 



variously oolored, i-iclily perfumed, and deli- 
cate flowers in May. Eaised from cuttings or 
layers. One of the very finest of climbing 
vines, and worthy of wide cultiv.ition. 

Hardy Flovverlng Shrubs and 
Ti'tes. — A selection of .some of tlic bt-st 
kinds is herewith given. In order to grow 
rapidly, shrubs should be kept well cultivated 
in mellow soil, which may be effected by plac- 
ing them in large circular or elliptical beds cut 
in gra.ss; and to prevent broken and confused 
outlines, shrubs of nearly the same size should 
be placed in proximity to each other; and 
those having some resemblance in general ap- 
pearance or natural affinity, will group better 
together than those which are entirely dissimi- 
lar. The center of a large bed should be oc- 
cupied by the taller shrubs, and those of the 
darkest and heaviest foliage; and if there are 
any which are planted for their showy or red 
berries, they will appear finest in Winter by 
placing them around the bed, with evergreens 
in the center or rear. 

The half-hardy shrubs require, before the 
setting in of Winter, to be bent down, and 
covered three or four inches deep with stable 
litter. 

African Tamarix. — .\n elegant and graceful 
shrub with delicate pink blossoms. Flowers 
in May. To be protected in Winter. 

Althea. — Raised from seed or cuttings, single 
and double varieties; a warm and sheltered 
situation is best, particularly for the double 
white variety ; and in a northern latitude re- 
quire, during the Winter, to be kept in a bo.x 
of dirt in the ceHar. 

Barberry. — Small yellow blossoms in Sum- 
mer, and brilliant berries in the Fall. 

Catalpa. — A beautiful tree, much admired 
for its foliage and showy flowers; it requires a 
warm and sheltered position. 

Cherry, Double Flowering. — Full of double, 
pure white flowers, like small white roses, 
covering the tree the early part of May. By 
proper training, it can be kept in the shrubby 
state. 

Corchorus, or Japan Globe Flower. — Very de- 
sirable, as it blossoms profusely from Spring 
to Autumn. Flowers are double, and of a 
bright yellow color. To be protected in Winter. 

Deutzia. — An elegant shrub, sufficiently hardy 
to endure our Winter, producing a jirofusion 
of highly fragrant white blossoms. Propa- 
gated by cuttings or layersj and protect in 
Winter. • 



Flowering Almond. — A favorite, early flower- 
ing shrub, with large white and pink varieties 
of flowers, re.sembling small roses. Baised 
from oflFshoots or layers. Hardiest when bud- 
ded on the plum — probably the wild plum is 
best. 

Flowering Currants. — There are several kinds 
of these beautiful and fragrant shrub.s — the Red 
Flowering, the Crimson Flowering, the Golden 
Flavored, the Fragrant currant, and the Dou- 
ble Crimson currant. They need Winter pro- 
tection. 

Fringe Tree. — A deciduous .shrub or small 
tree, beginning to flower when si.K or eight feet 
high ; its flowers white, in long bunches, with 
a fringe-like appearance. It is hardy. 

Honeysuckle. — An upright ornamental shrub, 
growing eight or ten feet high, with a profu- 
sion of pink flowers in June, succeeded by red 
berries ; another variety produces white flow- 
ers and yellow berries. Propagated by seeds, 
layers, or cuttings. 

Hydrangea. — A small shrub, bearing a large 
flower, first green, then gradually becoming 
rose-colored, and then green again. It re- 
quires to be kept in a green-house or light 
cellar in Winter. 

Laburnum, or Golden Chain. — An elegant 
shrub or low tree; raised from the seed; re- 
quires a warm and sheltered situation; pro- 
duces pendulous clusters of golden pea-shaped 
flowers. 

Lavender. — A most desirable dwarf shrub, 
growing three ieet high, delightfully fragrant, 
particularly its .spikes of blue flowers in July. 
Propagated by cuttings or slips. 

Lilac, Of Syringa. — The common purple and 
white lilacs, grown together, are beautiful, and 
the Persian lilac, with its bunches of delicate 
flowers frequently a foot long, white and pnrple 
varieties are even more graceful in their ap- 
pearance. Propagated by suckers. 

Magnolia. — A remarkably handsome shrub, 
and when carefully trained, it forms a beautiful 
little tree. It produces a pure white flower, 
two or three inches broad, as beautiful, and 
almost as fragrant as the White Lily. Propa- 
gated by layers, which require two years to 
root sufiiciently ; the shrub should be partially 
shaded from the sun. 

Oleander. — A noble evergreen shrub, of easy 
culture, and flowering freely during the greater 
part of the year; growing well in any rich, 
light soil, and young cuttings root easily if kept 
moist. It needs green-house or cellar protec- 
tion in Winter. 



I 



ROSE. 



209 



Pink Mazereon. — A small and hardy, sweet- 
scented shrub, raised from the seed, whose flow- 
ers, in beautiful clusters, come out hefore the 
leaves in the Spring, followed by berries, one 
variety a brilliant scarlet, another yellow. 
Wiien transplanted, it should be in Autumn. 

Red Bud. — A curious shrub, or low tree, cov- 
ered with bundles of rose-colored flowers be- 
fore the leaves begin to appear. Often seen in 
.Canada, the Nortiiern and New England States. 

Rose Acacia. — Produces a succession of lart'e 
clusters'of purple flowers. Hardv. 



Rose— Many persons, says the Western 
Rural, neglect the pruning of tlieir rose-bushes 
until the leaves have begun to e.xpand. This is 
a very erroneous practice, for much of the 
strength of the plant is expended in fruitless 
endeavors to revive a half-withered branch, or 
to restore such as have been shattered, yet al- 
lowed to hang on. Hardy roses sliould be se- 
verely pruned in order to secure a profusion of 
bloom of the best quality. Hybrid perpetualsj 
should be cut nearly to the ground, and mosses 
down at least one-half. 

The rose plant is a gross feeder, and requires 
abundance of manure to supply nourishment 
to its numerous brandies, leaves, and flowers. 
Well-rotted cow manure is the best adapted lo 
its wants. The soil which surrounds the stems 
should be removed in Spring before the leaves 
expand, in order that the pupa and larvs of 
injurious insects be exposed before their time 
and destroyed. The excavation made by re- 
moving the soil should be filled witli rich muck 
or well-rotted cow-manure. By this means a 
double advantage will be gained. 

The stems and branches should be washed 
with a solution of soda, a strong ley, or even 
Boap-suds, in order to remove the pupa; or lar- 
Tse of insects, which may be in clefts or crevi- 
ces of the bark. If this precaution was taken 
in proper time, we should not see so many fine 
roses destroyed by the rose-slug and other "pests. 
Bourbon and Bengal Roses, i»/on(Aty.— Flower- 
ing from June to October. These families con- 
tain some of our mosc valuable Autumn flower- 
ing roses, remarkable for their fine foliage, com- 
pact habit, brilliancy of color, and the profusion 
and long continuation of their flowering. They 
require protection during the Winter, or they 
may be taken up and placed in the cellar or cold 
frame until Spring. Acidalie, white, large, and 
fine; Anim.ated, rosy blush; Appoline, cupped 
carmine; Belle Isidore, crimson; Bourbon 
Queen, rich blush; Bosanquet, blush wliite; Don 
U 



Carlos, d.ark rose; Douglas, rich violet ; Dutch- 
ess Thuringe, French white ; Gloire de France, 
very fragrant crimson ; Gloire de Eosamenei 
brilliant crinlson ; Iiuperatrice Josephine, 
creamy white; Indica Alba, pure white; Mad- 
ame Lacharme, blush white ; Paul Joseph, vel- 
vet crimson; Princess Clementine, deep ro.sy 
purple; Queen, delicate bhish ; Reine de Fori- 
tenay, brilliant rose; Somlireil, French white; 
Souvenir de la Malmaison, creamy white, fine; 
Theresita, bright carmine ; Vanilla, dark rose.' 
Climbing JJoscs.— Among the hardy climbing 
roses, the Prairie varieties are well known 
and very desirable for their remarkable vigor, 
their habit of retaining the freshness of their 
foliage all the season, and their wealth of beau- 
tiful flowers; they are well adapted for train- 
ing to poles, planting in rows, and fe.stooning 
from one to another, also for screens or trellises'! 
Queen of the Prairies and Baltimore Belle are 
the best known ; all the varieiies are very 
howy. Banksia Lutea, double yellow; Bank- 
sia Alba, white; Bengalensis Scand?ns, large 
rosy white; Bour.saiilt Elegans, purple crim- 
son; Bour.sault Purpurea, purple; Boursault 
Blush, large blush ; Boursault Gracali.s, bright 
rose; Climbing Mo.ss, ro.xy crimson; Cot- 
tage Cluster, crimson, ch.inging to lose; Feli- 
cite Perpetuelle, blush white; Gem of the Prai- 
ries, light crimson, white blotched ;Grevilli.i, 
produdng immense dusters of various colons 
and shades, from white to crimson ; Laura Da- 
voust, white ; Multiflora, pink ; Multiflora Al- 
ba, blush white ; Prairie Queen, purple, veined 
white; Prairie, or Baltimore Belle, blush white; 
Prairie Superba, rich blush , Kussdliana, crim- 
son cottage rose ; Scarlet Greville, crimson scar- 
let; Seven Sisters, crimson, changing from all 
shades to white. 

Noisette, or Clusler-Flowering Monthly Roses.— 
A very beautilul climbing variety, flowering in 
large dusters tlie whole Summer and Autumn; 
the flowers large and fragrant. They must be 
kept in the house or cellar during the Winter. 
Alba, creamy white; AimeeVibert, pure white;' 
America, straw color, shaded purple; Bengal 
Lee, blush fragrant; Cdestina Forrester, orange 
yellow; Conque de Venus, white ro.se; Cceur 
Jaune, white, yellow center ; Chromotelle, large 
ydlow,fine; Fellenberg, crimson, superb; Glo- 
ire de Dijon, blush, white, bufl- center; Joan of 
Arc, pure white, straw center; Lamarque 
creamy wliite, fine; Madame Longchampsi 
large, pure white; Marshal A'iel, large, deep 
canary yellow; Ophire, yellow, fragrant; Oteri, 
orange, salmon-shaded; Sollalare, superb, dark 



210 



THE GARDEN : 



yellow; Wasli!np;ton, white, immense clusters; 
Vitellina, white. 

Hardy Oarden Bases. — Austrian Brier or Har- 
risonii, deep yellow; Coronation, purple crim- 
son ; Du Roi, perpetual, bright red ; Hybride 
Blanche, white ; Mnss, single, crimson, very 
mossy ; Moss, Common, rose ; Moss, Luxem- 
bourji, crimson ; Moss White, perpetual ; Paint- 
ed Damaslc, wliite ; Persian, double yellow ; 
Village Maid or La Belle Villageoise, rose, 
striped with lilac; York and Lancaster, red 
and white. 

Hybrid Perpetual Roses. — To this class belong 
some nf our most beautiful and splendid varie- 
ties, keeping up a succe.ssion of their elegantly 
formed arid highly fragrant flowers, through 
the whole of the Summer and Autumn. Many 
of the varieties are suitable for planting against 
pillars or walls where they flower freely. They 
thrive best in a rich soil. Aubenion, clear red, 
very fine; Arthur deSansal, double, deep crim- 
son, purple ; Black Prince, crimson maroon ; 
Cardinal Patrizzi, brilliant crimson; Countess 
de Cheabrilhmd, beautiful rose pink; Countess 
d' Orleans, dcjuble, delicate pale rose ; Dutchess 
of Norfolk, double, deep rich crimson ; Em- 
peror Napoleon, intense brilliant, shaded scar- 
let; General Castellane, large, double brilliant 
crimson ; Jules Margottin, bright deep crim- 
son , Lady Alice Peel, rosy carmine; La 
Keine, satin rose, superb ; Lord Raglan, 
double-cupped, brilliant crimson scarlet; Mad- 
ame Desire Giraud, pale flesli, crimson .striped ; 
Madame de Willermols, cup-shaped, extra fine; 
Madame LafTay, light crimson, very fragrant, 
superior; Madame Masson, double, deep pur- 
plish crimson; Madame Planlier, pure white; 
Madame Vidot, delicate, wa.\ pink ; Naomi, 
delicate blush, double flowers; Oderic Vilalle, 
delicate Rose, silvery shading; Ornament des 
Jardins, double, vivid crimson ; Pieonia, double, 
reddish crimson, extra fine; Prince Albert, 
very dark crimson, fine; Pius IX, crimson 
violet; Queen Victoria, pale flesh, pink tinted; 
Reine des Violets, dark violet; Sir John 
Franklin, double, brilliant crimson ; Souvenir 
de Count Cavour, rich glossy crimson. 

Tea Roses, Monthly. — Perpetual; general fa- 
vorites with all lovers of the rose. To those 
who cultivate roses in pots they are indispensa- 
ble ; celebrated for their peculiar fragrance. 
Rather more delicate than the Bourbon or Chi- 
na, and require more protection through the 
Winter. Alba, pure white; Apollo, carmine 
red; Archduchess Theresa, white; Camellia, 
pure white; Cels, blush, profuse bloomer- 



Charles Reyband, ro.sy salmon ; Comtess Albe- 
marle, straw color; Cortas, blush, mottled 
pink; Devoniensis, creamy yellow; Fleur de 
Cymes, globular white; Flon, buff; Isabella, 
Sprunt or Yellow Tea, canary yellow; Mad- 
ame Falcot, orange yellow ; Madame Maurin, 
pure white; Nina, large, pinkish violet; Pac- 
tole, canary yellow ; Safrano, orange yellow ; 
Sortte, French White; White Tea, white. 

Grafting Roses. — It should be remembered 
that all the hardy perpetual rose.s, which are 
somewhat difficult to propagate by cuttings, can 
be easily and rapidly increased by grafting on 
small pieces of roots. At any time when the 
ground is open, dig up the roots of the Manetti, 
or of the old Bour.sault roses; cut them in pieces 
of, say, four inches long. For grafts, use well- 
ripcued shoots of the past year's growth, cutting 
them into pieces, each having three to four 
buds; cut the lower end into a wedge or V 
form ; then having cut a piece of root, square 
across the top end, s|ilit it, and while with the 
knife in the split holding it open, insert the 
wedge-shaped graft, fitting as perfectly as you 
can on one side, bark to bark ; then withdraw 
the knife, and with narrow strips of cotton or 
linen cloth, dipped iu melted grafting wax, 
wrap carefully all over and around graft and 
root, in such a manner that the graft can not be 
displaced, nor moisture got within or next to 
the wound or cut ; pack away in moist, not wet,, 
sand, covering all the graft and root. In 
Spring, when the ground is in good working 
condilion, set out the graft leaving the upper 
bud just level with the ground, and further 
care is needed only to keep the ground from 
baking on top, or to keep the weeds down. 

Snow Ball. — Blooming very early and pro- 
fusely in Spring; flowers like snow balls. 

Snow Berry. — Small pink flowers, but it is 
chiefly prized on account of its beautiful clus- 
ters of white wax-like berries, which hang upon 
the shrub long into Winter. 

Spirar. — There are many varieties very hand- 
some, and flowering through Summer. Plant 
the Siberian or White and the Red Flowering. 

Strawberry Tree. — A handsome shrub, bearing 
in Autumn, an abundance of fruit, somewhat 
resembling the strawberry. The European \a 
preferred to the American. Grown by seed 
and by suckers. 

Syringa, or Mock Orange. — White flowers, 
very fragrant in early Spring. 

Tree Peony. — A small but showy shrub, blos- 
soms very large with varying purple shades 
Protect it in Winter. 



EVERGREENS AND SHADE TREES. 



211 



WcigeUa Rosea. — One of the handsomest and 
must showy shrubs that we have. A profuse 
bearer of rose-colored flowers in early Summer. 

Evergreens and Shade Trees. — 

In selecting forest trees for transplanting, it is 
desirable to get those with short trunks and 
low spreading branches, or what are generally 
called round-topped trees, which can only be 
found on the outskirts of the wood.s, or in sec- 
ond growth timber. A gentleman of Wiscon- 
sin, of large experience in transplanting shade 
trees, submits these practical suggestions on 
the subject: In the month of June, after the 
first and most plentiful supply of sap has gone 
upward, and the foli:ige is well put on, I select 
my trees — hard maple preferred — not of less 
size than four inches through near the ground, 
straight and smooth, no m;itter how tall, and 
tlien saw off the body of the tree about ten feet 
from the ground. Then I cut off a few of the 
largest lateral roots that lie near the surface, 
with an ax by a slanting blow so as not to 
bruise or otherwi.se disturb the root, about two 
feet from the trunk, and then I go quietly 
away to another, leaving the tree in its natural 
bed until the next November or the next Spring, 
if Fall transplanting is not approved of, when the 
tree will be found to have sent out new branches, 
some two feet long in the few months it has 
been allowed to remain, and a new and desira- 
ble tup already begun, as nature is ever active 
in repairing damages when it has the power to 
do so, as the tree has whose roots are undisturbed. 
Then I take it up carefully with as much earth 
and as many of the small roots as practicable, 
which may be done the more easily by having 
previously prepared it as .stated above. Then 
I make a good bed a little larger than the roots, 
BO as not to cramp them; fill in closely around 
the roots well mixed and light earth, mulch it 
with some sort of litter, such as leaves, sawdust, 
rotted chips, or almost anything to prevent too 
rapid evaporation of the moisture, and stake 
well, but not too stiffly, as I would have the tree 
learn to sustain itself as quickly as possible by 
a throwing down new roots, which it will do 
more readily than if wholly supported — then I 
have done my duty, and the tree is planted. 

Under this plan I can set out such trees a.i I 
like, form and fashion the tops to my liking, 
and can set trees six inches through, saving 
several years in their growth, and what is best, 
I will not lose one in fifty. It is no wonder 
that so many fail and get disgusted in tree 
planting when so many are lost, and when it 



takes so long to realize the benefit or beauty of 
the tree, as in the usual practice of setting out 
mere whip sticks, losing at least half, and wait- 
ing half a life-time for them to amount to any- 
thing desirable for shade. I prefer in this 
climate to set out trees in the Fall. I know 
that large ones are much more likely to live, 
and I know the above plan has proved success- 
ful with me. 

Deep trenching, twenty inches to two feet, has 
an important influence on the transplanted tree, 
both as respects its living and its growth and 
thrift. Below the ordinary surface soil there is 
a pan or hard crust, impervious to roots or 
moisture from either above or below; in dry 
weather, particularly, this hard pan becomes 
still more compact, so much so that a few 
weeks of severe drought will frequently prove 
fatal to trees. By deep trenching, this difficulty 
is obviated, and the ground fitted for the recep- 
tion and permanent prosperity of the tree. 
The top soil should be transferred to the bot- 
tom, if the subsoil is not naturally in good 
condition. 

Arbor Vila:. — -The American Arbor Vitse is 
of slow growth, attaining a height of fifty feet, 
forming a handsome pyramidal evergreen, and 
thriving in almost any situation. It is hardy, 
bears clipping, and is well suited for wind 
screens and ornamental hedges. The Chinese 
variety has proved hardy, having a more lively 
green foliage than the other. 

Balm of Ollead is a beautiful deciduous shade 
tree, of rapid growth, emitting from its young 
leaves a resinous matter of great fragrance. 
Propagated froiu slips. 

Balsam Fir. — A hardy, symmetrical ever- 
green, of persistent color, and handsome in its 
youth. 

Box Tree. — A fine ornamental evergreen, with 
silver or golden striped varieties, much larger 
thim the garden box. May be trimmed to any 
desired shape. Increased by layers. 

Cedar of Lebanon — A fine evergreen, but of 
slow growth ; worthy of cultivation from its 
sacred associations. Its seeds are borne in fine 
large cones. 

Dogwood, the common variety and the Red 
Osier; both pretty, and easily obtained from 
the woods — the red for the beauty of its crim- 
son-colored wood in Winter. 

Blaek Walnut. — A fine tree, of rapid growth, 
wide-spreading top, and at eight or ten years 
of age begins to bear walnuts. It is valuable 
for timber. It is difficult to transplant black 
walnuts; but easy to raise them from the nuts. 



212 



TUE GARDEN : 



by planting thera soon after they fall from the 
trees. 

Butternut. — Pretty much the same may be 
said of this as of the Black Walnut, producing 
a riclier nut, and both are perpetual bearers ; 
and it may be added that Shell-bark Hickories 
may be raised in the same way, bearing when 
aho§t sixteen years old. The Chestnut is more 
thrifty, and bears younger, but requires a warm 
loamy or .sandy locality. 

Elm. — One of the noblest of American shade 
trees, especially for bordering walks and road- 
sides. Greatly distinguished for its grace and 
beauty. It grows slowly, but as a shade tree is 
unsurpassed. 

Golden Chain. — .\ small tree, of pretty foli- 
age, of rather a weeping habil, bearing large 
hanging bunches of gohlen yellow flowers. 

Hawthorn, Double Scarlet, a very delicate and 
pretty scarlet-flowering thorn; increased by 
grafting on the common hawthorn. 

Hemlock, or Hemlock Spruce Fir. — One of the 
most beautiful of .\merican evergreens, in the 
lawn or pleasure-Rround, whether as a single 
pyramid of darkest green, or as a group. Very 
hardy. 

Holly. — Both the European and American 
varieties form beautiful trees for ornamenting 
grounds, as single specimens or in evergreen 
hedges, with its bright green leaves and its at- 
tractive scarlet berries in Winter. 

Horse Chestnut. — A very fine ornamental 
tree, of beautiful symmetry, blooming freely. 
The celebrated Buckeye variety of Ohio and 
Kentucky is a rather smaller and more compact 
growing kind, 

Kalmia, or Laurel. — The beautiful wild laurel 
of our woods should be transferred to our 
lawns; its unfading greenness and its blossom- 
tuft formed of union of tlie countless star-like 
flower-buds, render it a tree of peculiar beauty 
and interest. 

Larch. — This European tree makes a fine 
shade, is a very rapid grower, and is valuable 
for the durability of its timber. 

Linden, or Basswood. — A beautiful but neg- 
lected .shade tree, growing rapidly, producing 
large leaves, and a profusion of blossoms very 
grateful to bees. 

Locust. — .K common tree, of rapid growth, 
thin leaves, and fragrant blossoms. 

Mahnnia, a showy, holly-leaved shrub, of 
three or four feet high, especially gay in its Au- 
tumnal appearance. 

Maple. — A popular shade tree, of slow 
growth, late in putting out its leaves, but very 



graceful in its trunk and dense and .symmetrical 
top of green; its Autumn foliage deep orange 
and red. 

Mountain Ash. — ,V hardy, graceful tree for 
the yard and lawn, bearing numerous white 
blo.ssoms, from which large bunches of brilliant 
orange-scarlet berries are produced in Autumn. 

Noivay Maple. — One of the finest of all de- 
ciduous shade trees ; round-headed, with deep 
green foliage, changing by frost into variegated 
hues, and far superior to the popular Silver 
maple. 

Myrtle, an evergreen shrub, cultivated with 
success in the Southern States, hut too tender 
for the Northern and Jliddle States. 

Paulownia. — A fine, rapid growing shade tree, 
with heart-shaped leaves sometimes measuring 
two feet across; producing, when not winter- 
killed, a fine light blue, and very fragrant 
flower. Increased by offshoots, l.iyers, and 
root cuttings. 

Pepperidge. A common tree, ornamental in 
its Summer growth, and when the fro.st gives 
its leaves a Vermillion tinge in the Fall. 

Pine. — The Austrian pine being perfectly 
hardy, is a great acquisition to our ciimate; and 
the Scotch pine is hardy and beautiful. There 
are several varieties of our native jiines, gen- 
erally lofty and pyramidal, producing nccdle- 
like leaves; the White pine being universally 
hardy, and one of the most beautiful trees for 
ornamental planting. The Hemlock Spruce 
Fir has'already been noticed. The European 
Silver Fir is much handsomer than our native 
species, tender when young, but hardy when 
well established. 

Pride of India. — ^A .splendid flowering shade 
tree of the South, with clusters of fragrant lilac 
flowers. Unsuited to Northern latitudes. 

Red Cedar. — One of the Juniper varieties, 
one of our most valuable evergreen trees, grow- 
ing from forty to fifty feet high, and valuable 
for purposes of .shelter. In pruning the lowest 
branches should always be left the longest. 

Rhododendron. — A wild swamp shrub, usually 
evergreen, characterized, by the great beauty 
of its flowers; requiring a sandy, pealy soil, 
and some shade and moisture. The Kose Boy 
is one of this family. Increased by Layers or 
seeds. 

Sassafras. — A sweet and and aromatic tree, 
increa.sed by offshoots, layers, or root cuttings. 

Shadberry, or Canadian Amelanchier. — This is 
a thrifty, tall, upright tree, quite ornamental; 
sometimes, in favorable situations, attaining a 
height of thirty or forty feet, with a diameter 



THE LAWN, ETC. 



213 



often or twelve inches. While it grows in the 
maritime parts of the Southern States, it is 
more particularly spread over the Northern 
portions of our continent up to Hudson's Bay, 
and from New Foundland to Oregon. It does 
well in the Northwest, blooming earlier than 
other trees, bearing clusters of sweet, delicious 
fruit, ripening early in June. The birds love 
it as they do berries or eherrie.". 

Spruce. — Among the noblest of the evergreen 
trees. The beauty of the Hemlock .spruce has 
been mentioned ; the Black, Ked, and Ameri- 
can Wliite .spruce are fine pyramidal ever- 
greens, but less attractive and desir.able than 
the Norway spruce, which has succeeded ad- 
mirably in this country. 

Tulip Poplar. — Sometimes called White and 
Yellow poplar, and Whitewood tree, one of 
the handsomest of trees when covered with 
green and orange blossoms. The Aspen is a 
fine variety. The Lombardy poplar, well 
known, is less esteemed, except, perhaps, for 
protective belts. 

Weeping Ash. — A curious and pretty tree, 
readily increased by side grafting upon the 
common varieties. 

Weeping Cypress. — Has a large, expanded 
head,' with pendulous branchlets, closely cov- 
ered with leaves. Beautiful and hardy. 

Weeping Willows. — There are several vari- 
eties, and quite ornamental, the Weeping wil- 
low, the Golden Twigged, and the Golden 
Flowering willow. Increased by cuttings or 
layers. 

Yew. — The English and Irish yews are sm;dl 
bushes or trees of great beauty, on account of 
their dark green foliage, and their bright .scar- 
let berries. The Canada yew, or trailing shrub, 
pos.se.s.ses no desirable qualities. 

The liatfn. — In town but little space can 
be appropriated to the lawn, but in the country 
at least from half an acre to an acre, or even 
more, should be set apart for the decoration of 
the homestead. Nothing can give greater satis- 
faction to a family of refined taste than to have 
their home surroundings decorated with the 
beauties and green glories which Nature so 
bountifully supplies us. The species and vari- 
eties of trees, shrubs, roses, and vines, are now 
60 numerous, that a choice selection can' be 
made to suit every clime, soil, and exposure, 
and to bloom and fruit all the growing season. 
See them tastefully arranged and gorgeously 
dre.ssed with foliage of various colors, and I 
decked with blooms far tran.sccuding the most 



costly jewelry in brilliancy, and peiluming the 
air with their fragrance. In windy days tliey 
gracefully bow, prance, and whirl around like 
sprightly youth in the dance, and the melody 
of the breeze serves them for music. How 
beautiful the picture and how great the enjoy- 
ment to those who can appreciate it. It makes 
a cot a palace, and home a paradise; the owner 
a king, and his wile a queen ; it impartsa digniiy 
to the manly graces of sons, and luster to the 
beauties and virtues of daugliters. The pass- 
ing wayfarer is delighted with the scene, and 
sets it down in his mind as the abode of the 
great and good in heart, and the virtuous and 
wise in actions. 

After planting climbing vines to clothe the 
veranda, and a few deciduous trees around the 
hou.se for shade in Summer, all the other tree.s, 
shrubs, and roses, should be so arranged over 
the lawn that all will be seen at one view. Set 
the more dwarf nearest the house, the taller 
farther ofl', and they will appear to rise in 
graceful folds as they recede from the eye, and 
the contrast of size, form, and Solor of the vari- 
ous individuals will show to greater advan- 
tage, and that will give additional graces to 
their charm. 

Evergreens form a jfromiueut attraction scat- 
tered through the lawn. Nothing makes a 
more beautiful contrast, in Summer or Winter, 
with the rest of surrounding nature. The 
somber and dark-colored evergreens, standing 
erect and pyramidal, present a rich and pleas- 
ing picture in Winter's landscape. Some of 
the dwarf varieties are pretty and attractive. 

Good lawns have more to do with the culti- 
vation and enjoyment of substantial home hap- 
piness than numy are apt to suppose. God's 
sweet .songsters love to linger there, and pour out 
their choicest notes and symphonies. The mul- 
tiplication of shade trees often proves a ban-ier 
to malarious atmosphere and malignant dis- 
eases, thus preserving health and prolonging 
human existence. 

Lawn Designs. — We take the following lawn 
designs chiefly from Kern's Practical Land- 
scape Gardening, ' a work of much merit. They 
will afford a general idea of the, lawn and its 
surroundings, subject, of course, to such modifi- 
tions as the nature and the extent of the grounds 
may suggest. 

In Figure 1, we have a city or town lot, with 
the dwelling situated in the center; in front, a 
lawn— which some might prefer to lessen one- 

•Publislifdby 3100KP, WiLSTACll i JIouRE, Ciiicinunti. 



21-i 



THE GARDEN : 



liulf, anil add it to the garden and fruit plat — 
employing the rear of the lot for garden, fruit, 
stable, and back-build- 
ings. Both the kitchen 
and stable are concealed 
from view by groups of 
shrubbery planted be- 
fore tlieui. A group of 
evergreens at the front 
linht-hand corner of the 
building will appear to 
good advantage. The 
la«u is represented by 
A, the garden by B, and 
s'.ible by C. The car- 
riage drive from the 
front gate to the stable 
is represented on the de- 





A, House 


; n. t 


>iint! 


in. 


or Piirt.-i 


Flowers; C, 


Stable 


yurd 


1) 


Kitcht-t 


den ; E Carri 


age-eDtranCf 


i\ 


Foot-ent 


G, Orchard. 











Figure 2 gives the design for the grounds of 
a farm, or suburban residence, where half an 
acre or morels devoted to ornamental planting. 
The house is situated between groups of flowers 
and shrubbery. The out-house is situated in a 
copse of shrubs in the rear of the residence. 
Shade trees, flowering ^hrubs, and flower plats 
may be grouped and "istiibuted so as to pro- 
duce the most pleasing eH'ect. Fruit trees may 
be planted in the lawn, generally bordering the 
walks, as they should also in the garden, inter- 



fering less witli tlie crops, while their roota 
largely fill the land beneath the walk. 




A, llousi 

Fronl-.nlmnce 
ble; F, Front Li 

In Figure 3, we have another design for the 
location of a country or suburban residence, 
with the lawn and other surroundings. In 
this arrangement, a goodly number of ever- 
greens find a place in the lawn, as well as to 
ibe left of the main carriage-way. The view 
across the lawn should be left nearly nnob- 
siructed toward the most distant points, by 
planting small shrubs. 

Arrangement of Trees and Shrubs. — In a val- 
uable article on Rural Improvements, in the 
Register of Rural Affairs, by Robert Mokris 
C'OPELAND, it is correctly suggested that there 
is a mistaken tendency to overplant small 
places with trees, making too dense a shade, 
and preventing a proper proportion of other 
improvements. No paths, lawn, flower beds, 
or other decorations, will make up for badly 
selected or badly grouped trees and shrubs. 
As there is a great variety of flowering shrubs, 
and as they blossom at different seasons, more 
beautiful groups may be made with them than 
with larger trees. In large places, shrubs and 
low trees should fringe the plantations, and fill 
the curves and bends of paths, and be used lo 
bring out points or continue outlines, much as 
a lady develops her patterns in worsted work 
by a filling of some uniform color. 



THE LAWN, ETC. 



215 



Trees and shrubs, Mr. Copeland also sug- 
gests, are too often planted in rows and forniiil 
lines. Nature abhors stiffness and regularity ; 
every group or woodland edge which we ad- 
mire, will be found upon examination to be 
made up of mixed trees and shrubs which grow 
at various distances from each other. There 
will often be in a space of ten feet square, 
twenty varieties of shrubs, or half a dozen 
trees, and in the next ten feet, only one or two. 
By this irregularity the best natural effects are 
produced, and while we can never hope to imi- 
tate Nature perfectly, we may approach her if 
we will follow her methods. A proper plan of 
arrangement should be carefully studied, and 
both evergreens and deciduous trees should be 
grouped with reference to their different shades 
of color, so a,i to give the greatest effect of light 
and shade to the landscape. 

Treatment of 2Ve€*- and Shrubs. — No trees, 
evergreens especially, should be suffered to 
have grass grow about them for a year or so 
after planting. It becomes " rank " in the 
deeply loosened soil, abstracts moisture, and 
otherwise seriously interferes with the tree. 
When the tree gets a fair start, grass does less 
injury, and when it becomes a tough sod, and 
the tree by its shade, or say by frequent mow- 
ing, keeps the grass short, the grass roots do 
not penetrate deep, and the sod is a benefit by 
keeping the surface spongy, and the substratum 
cool. They need mulching for a year or two, 
the evergreens more than deciduous — the roots 
of the former, in periods of drought, absorb all 
the moisture witliin their reach, and die, while 
the deciduous trees will perhaps only shed 
their leaves, and recover with a return of 
moisture. 

Taste will dictate the proper pruning of 
shade trees and shrubs. June and August are 
the suitable seasons for pruning evergreens 
into such forms and shapes as may be desired — 
their natural pyramid form being generally 
preferred as one of rare beauty. 

Seeding Lawns and Grass Plats. — When the 
soil has been properly prepared and the surface 
made sufficiently smooth with the harrow and 
roller, grass-seeds of suitable varieties will do 
very well. A good, permanent green sward 
can not be obtained in soil that is saturated 
with water at one season and parched with 
drought at another. When a soil is full of 
stagnant water the roots of grass can not pene- 
trate into it in search of nutriment. When the 



water is evaporated by the heat of the sun in 
Summer, the soil bakes into hard clods, into 
which the roots can not penetrate, and conse- 
quently the plants become dry and withered. 
A good close sward of evergreen grass can not 
be obtained except the soil is drained naturally 
or artificially, tilled deeply and laid down with 
suitable varieties of grass. When a lawn or 
grass plat has but a thin surface soil tlie roots 
of the grass can not draw up moisture by capil- 
lary attraction, and the plants turn brown in 
Summer. Manuring on the surface induces a 
rapid growth of grass, but not having much 
roots it soon withers. The better plan is to 
till deeply, and incorporate the manure with 
the soil, so that the roots may reach it grad- 
ually. 

Ked top and white clover make a good mix- 
ture for lawns; three bushels of red top to ten 
pounds of white clover, or four bushels of red 
top alone, is none too much for an acre, and it 
should be rolled with a heavy roller. The only 
objection to white clover is that it grows too 
fast and requires cutting too often. Blue grass 
makes a closer turf than red top, but it fades 
sooner. Sweet-scented vernal grass vegetates 
very early in Spring, and makes a close sward. 
It is desirable on account of its agree^ible per- 
fume when cut and exposed to the sun. The 
surface of a lawn or grass plat ought to be per- 
fectly smooth, and the grass should be kept 
closely shaved. When the grass becomes thin 
and of weakly growth, a top-dressing of good, 
well-rotted stable manure should be spread 
over the surface in December. 

Lawn Decorations. — A green expanse of lawn, 
if well kept, is in itself a beautiful object; but 
its beauties are twice raultipled by dropping 
upon it, here and there, at wide distances, such 
picturesque features as shall serve to emphasize 
and give character to special inequalities of 
surface. Now, it may be an old tree lifting its 
bare arms, and carrying the feathery tendrils 
of some graceful climbing plant; again, it may 
be a dense coppice of evergreens ; and again, a 
shimmer of water, with possibly some piquant 
bit of architecture upon its border that shall 
serve as a home for aquatic fowl. 

Rustic furniture, properly distributed, give a 
pleasing effect to the lawn. The accompanying 
cut represents a picturesque ornament. It is 
simply a section of a stump from the woods, 
sawed off near the roots, dragged home, and 
set upon the grass. When made a pedestal for 



216 



THE GARDEN : 



cut or growing flowers, and partially concealed 3, a rustic table, formed of the trunk of a tree, 
in vines, it constitutes a very cheap and rustic with well-selected branches, inverted, with an 



addition to the home surroundings. 




The accompanying design for a garden chair, 
of very simple construction, may be usefully 
imitated, where cheapness and utility are the 
main ideas : 




Figures 1 and 2 represent rustic chairs ; Fig. 



appropriate circular top; Fig. 4 represents a 
rustic stool ; and Fig. 6, a rustic ■ foot-bridge, 
which should be strong and durable, the joints 
secured by iron bolts, and the ends resting on 
stone abutments. 




FUj. 2. 



Fig. 1. 




Fig.b. 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 

The Orchard, Vineyard and Small Fruits; Varieties, Value, and 
Propagation. 



The Orig^in of Fruits.— The apple, 

quince, and grape are natives of many coun- 
tries, and it is not known tliat tliey ever be- 
longed exclusively to any one. Some of the 
finest and most delicious of all our fruit.s, how- 
ever, originated in Persia, Armenia, and other 
parts of Asia, whence they have been trans- 
planted, naturalized, and improved by culture, 
under the auspices of civilization. The quince 
is traced to Persia, and to the Island of Candia. 

The apple, malvs in botany, is unquestiona- 
bly a native of the Eastern parts of the world, 
as we learn, on the authority of the earliest 
writers, botli from sacred history and from the 
information given by the ancient Romans. The 
prophet Joel, when he declares the destruction 
of the earth by a long drought, mentions the 
fruits held in estimation, and among them he 
names the apple tree. PuNY, in his Natur.il 
History, which was written about the com- 
mencement of the Christian era, says one 
named Sextus Papisius brought two kind.s 
to Rome in the reign of Augustus Cjesar — 
one from Syria, the other from Africa. 

The crab, or the apple in its wild state, is a 
native of most countries of Europe, but whence 
we received the cultivated apple is unknown; 
in all probability from the Romans. It was 
largely planted in England by monks, all of 
whom seem to have been their own gardenens, 
and to have taken great delight in the cultiva- 
tion of fruit ; and the remains of their old ab- 
bey gardens show that they chose the best spots 
as to .soil and aspect. As early as 674 we have 
a record describing a pleasant and fruit-bearing 
field at Ely. Ely, in England, at the present 
day has .some splendid orchards, and the cul- 
tivation of fruit there is very much encouraged. 

The cultivated apple seems to have been 
scarce at Rome in the time of Pliny, for he 
states that there were some apple trees in the 
vUlages near Rome which yielded more profit 
than a small farm ; and he mentions twentv- 



nine kinds of apples cultivated in Italy. The 
trees at this early time seem to have required 
the fostering care of man. Of all the fruit-bear- 
ing trees in Italy, Pliny says the apple is the ten- 
derest and least able to bear heat or cold — partic- 
ularly the early one that produces the sweet 
jenneting. Over fourteen hundred varieties 
of apples have been enumerated in a single 
catalogue. 

The apricot is a fruit of the plum tribe, 
which grows wild in several parts of Armenia, 
and was introduced into England about the mid- 
dle of the sixteenth century. It is of olden 
orgin, having been mentioned by Columella, 
Pliny, and Dioscorides, it grows in Japan 
and China, and the whole range of the Cauca- 
sus. Cherries are a fruit of the prune or plum 
tribe, the original slock of which is the wild 
cherry. They are said to come from Cerasus, 
a city of Pontns; whence LucuLLUS brought 
them after the Mithrid;itic War. They .spread 
wherever the Romans e.xtended their arms, 
and were introduced into England in the first 
century. 

The peach is a native of Persia, whence it 
spread over Europe, into England, about 1562, 
and subsequently into America. The nectarine, 
also, is a native of Persia, introduced into Eng- 
land in the sixteenth century ; Linnaeus places 
both in the same genus with the almond, and 
many botanists regard the almond as the parent 
of both the others. 

The culture of the pear is very ancient, and 
several varieties were known to the Greeks and 
Romans. The plum, although found wild in 
England and America, is supposed to have 
originated in .\sia; Dioscorides, a Greek phy- 
sician and author, who wrote in the first cen- 
tary, mentions it. One variety, the Damas- 
cene, took its name from Damascus, the Syrian 
city. The mulberry is a native of Persia, 
whence it was introduced into Europe about the 
sixteenth century. 

(217) 



218 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



Blackberries were highly esteemed by the 
ancients, and the elder Pliny, who flourished 
in the first century, spoke of their medicinal 
virtues. Currants and raspberries have long 
bfeen cultivated in Europe, and wild varieties 
of both are found in the northern portions 
of America. Gooseberries, natives of Siberia 
and the north of Europe, as well as America, 
have been improved by the Dutch and English 
gardeners. Persia is generally considered the 
native country of the grape, where it is still 
cultivated with great success. It is supposed 
to have been introduced into England at the 
commencement of the Christian era. The 
strawberry, though known to some of the early 
Koman writers, is not enumerated among their 
cultivated fruits or vegetables. VlEQlL men- 
tions it only when warning the shepherds 
against concealed adders when seeking flow- 
ers and strawberries ; Ovid mentions the 
Alpine and wood strawberries, and Pliny 
Bpeaks of it as one of the native plants of 
Italy. It has been cultivated only about four 
centuries. 

The Utility and Ilealtlifulness 
'of Fruit. — The apathy of people generally 
to the cultivation of fruit is surprising. Nine- 
tenths of the intelligent, industrious, pains-tak- 
ing, and economical people, who will busy 
themselves twelve or fifteen hours a day in 
their ordinary pursuits, entirely neglect pro- 
viding themselves and their families with this 
luxury, though they may have ample grounds 
for the purpose, every way fitted for producing 
it in prolusion. We call it a luxury, but it is 
more properly one of the necessaries of life; 
and for the want of it, persons frequently be- 
come diseased, or continue so, if disease is in- 
duced from other causes, when the free use of 
seasonable, well-ripened fruit would restore 
them at one-fiftieth part the expense incurred 
by apothecaries' and doctors' bills. We seldom 
hear of an ailing family, whether adults or 
children, that indulges freely in wholesome 
fruits, and abstains from the made-up dishes of 
the pastry and other cooks. 

But it is not as a corrective or medicine only, 
that we deem fruit invaluable as an article of 
diet. It has a direct money value, estimable in 
dollars and cents, for the amount it contributes 
as food to the support of the human .system. 
This is conclusively proved, both theoretically 
and practically ; for accurate analysis has 
shown that cultivated fruits contain large pro- 
portions of nutritive matter, and experience 



equally proves that when fruit enters largely 
into the diet of the family, a corresponding 
diminution of other food is always apparent. 

The late David Thomas, so distinguished as 
a fruit culturi.st, often made the remark, that 
among all his acquaintances he scarcely knew 
a person who was decidedly fond of good fruit 
who became a hard drinker. He considered the 
two tastes as distinct and antagonistic. There 
is undoubtedly much truth in tliis remark. 
There appears to be a natural demand in the 
sy.siem for fruit, aiul this demand not being 
always met, many are tempted to fill the va- 
cancy, by drinking alcoholic liquors. One of 
the best things we can do, therefore, while we 
urge the positive importance of temperance 
principles, and the prevention of a perverted 
appetite, is to endeavor, by the increased culture 
of fruit in all its kinds, so to extend the circle 
of supply througliout tlie year, as to assist this 
benevolent exertion by lessening or taking away 
the temptation lo supply its deficiency with 
intoxicating drinks. 

A writer on growing fruit and its liealthful- 
ness as a proportion of our food, says : " Never 
shall I forget the impression made upon my 
mind at a very early period of my life, by the 
directions given my mother by the family phy- 
sician, as slie sat weeping over the cradle in 
which I had lain for a number of days in a 
hopeless condition. 'Now,' said he, 'don't you 
give that boy one drop of cold water, and you 
had better keep these strawberries out of his 
sight.' In a few hours my brothers and sisters 
returned from the meadow with a pail over- 
flowing witli the delicious fruit, and supposing 
me too far gone to observe anything in the room, 
the berries were left near my cradle. I soon 
opened my eyes upon the tempting delicacy, 
and in a few unobserved moments filled my 
parL'hed mouth several times with the cooling 
beverage, for they were really like water on my 
dry and parched tongue. In a few liours I- 
broke out in a fine perspiration. My tongue, 
which had been rattling on my teeth, became 
moist, and when the doctor came he said my 
fever had turned — the calomel has produced its 
desired eflect, and I should probably get well." 

"The use of ripe fruits," says Dr. J. A. 
Kennicott, "not only prevents disease, but 
their regulated enjoyment helps to remove that 
which already exists. Good fruit is always 
grateful, even to the sickly or palled appetite, 
and in the young and healthy its promising 
appearance or its delicious aroma often excites 
the most ungovernable appetite, and they 



VALUE OF FRUIT PRODUCT PROFITS OF FRUIT GROWING. 



219 



gorge themselves, and suffer tlierefrom no worse 
than from a surfeit of 6sh, flesh, or vegetables, 
perhaps, but still enough to aid in perpetua- 
ting the vulgar idea that the unrestricted use of 
fruit is dangerous. AVho ever heard of chil- 
dren or men who provide seasonable fruits in 
abundance, and permit their habitual u.se, eat- 
ing too much, or becoming sick therefrom? I 
never did. I have had a little experience in 
this matter, and have taken pains to collect 
information, and know that the families where 
fruit is most plentiful. and good, and most 
hi.nhly prized as an article of daily food, are 
most free from disease of all kinds, and more 
especially horn fevers and bowel complainls." 

All ripe fruits are, also, more or less nutri- 
tious. Professor Salisbury has clearly demon- 
strated that the apple is superior to the potato, 
in the principles that go to increase the muscle 
and the brain of man, and in fattening proper- 
lies it is nearly equal, wlien cooked, for swine, 
or fed raw to other domestic animals. 

As an article of food, the value of the apple 
in this country is underrated. Besides contain- 
ing a large amount of sugar, mucilage, and 
other nutritive matter, apples contain vegetable 
acids, aromatic qualities, etc., which act power- 
fully in the capacity of refrigerants, tonics, an- 
tiseptics; and when freely used at the sea.son 
of mellow ripene.ss, they prevent debility, and 
indigestion, and avert, without doubt, many of 
the " ills which flesh is heir to." The opera- 
tives of Cornwall, England, consider ripe ap- 
ples nearly as nourishing as bread, and far 
more so than potatoes. In theyear 1801 — which 
was a year of much scarcity — apples, instead 
of being converted into cider, were sold to the 
poor; and the laborers asserted that tliey could 
"stand their work "on baked apples, without 
meat; whereas, a potato diet required either 
meat or some other substantial nutriment. The 
French and Germans use apples extensively, as 
do the inhabitants of all P^uropeans nations. 
The laborers depend upon them as an article of 
food, and frequently make a dinner of sliced 
apples and bread. There is no fruit cooked in 
so many different ways in our country as apples; 
nor is there any fruit whose value, as an article 
of nutriment is as great, and so little appre- 
ciated. 

There is scarcely an article of vegetable food 
more widely useful and more universally liked. 
AVhy every farmer in the nation has not an 
apple orchard, where the trees will grow at all, 
is one of the my.steries. Letevery housekeeper 
lay in a good supply of apples, and it will be 



the most economical investment in the whole 
range of culinaries. A raw, mellow ajiple is 
digested in an hour and a half, while boiled 
cabbage requiies five h<iur=. The most whole- 
some dessert that can be placed on a table is a 
baked apple. If eaten frequently at breakfast, 
with coarse bread and butter, without meat or 
flesh of any kind, it has an admirable effect on 
the general system, often removing constipa- 
tion, correcting acidities, and cooling off felirile 
conditions more effectually than the most ap- 
proved medicines. If families could be induced 
to substitute apples — sound and ripe — for pies, 
cakes, and sweetmeats, wilh which their chil- 
dren are too frequently stuffed, there would be 
a diminution in the^uni total of doctors' bills, 
in a single year, sufficient to lay in a stock of 
this delicious fruit for the whole season's use. 

Value of our Fruit Product. — By 

the census of 18-50, the total value of the orch- 
ard products of our country was, in round num- 
bers, ST, 723,000, while the census returns of 
1860 exhibited an increa.se to twenty million — 
nearly tripling the value in ten years. These 
returns did not include small fruits, nor the 
wine product. The latter, in 1860, was over 
one million, six hundred thousand gallons, the 
value of which could not have been less than 
three or four millions of dollars. The returns 
of the orchard product of Ma.ssachusetts for 
1865, exhibited nearly double the valuation of 
1860, while the Western and Pacific States must 
have increased in a much larger ratio; so that 
the annual value of the orchard product of our 
country can not now be much, if any, less than 
fifty millions of dollars; and we may safely 
add another ten million for small fruits, and 
twice as much for wine. 

California alone, in 1866, produced over three 
million gallons of wine, and fifty thou.sand gal- 
lons of brandy — the estimated value of which 
was $10,000,000; and in 1868, the grape pro- 
duct of that State was one hundred and twelve 
million pounds, one-half of which was manu- 
factured into wine. This, at eleven and a half 
pounds to the gallon, would show nearly five 
millions of gallons for that year. 

Profits of Fruit CJro^ving'.— Look- 
ing carefully into the matter of the profit real- 
ized from all de.scriptions of fruit growing, iind 
running over a few authorities on the subject, 
multitudes of instances are to be found where 
extraordinary gains are annually realized with- 
out unusual care or skill. 



220 



FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES: 



A gentleman within our knowledge, says the 
Amei-ican Agriculturist, has a small orchard of 
less than seven acres, on the Hudson River, 
which produces from $500 to $750 worth of ap- 
ples annually — this is the average annual yield, 
one year with another; and all tliis is secured 
by the simplest process — management. Rich- 
ard I. Hand, of Mendon, New York, sold in 
one year, four hundred and forty dollars worth 
of Koxbury Russet or Northern Spy apples, 
the pro<luct of a single acre. Hill Pennell, 
of Darby, Pennsylvania, sold, in one year, two 
hundred and twenty-five dollars worth of early 
apples, from half an acre. Hugh Hatch, of 
Camden, New Jersey, obtained from four trees 
of llie Tewksbury Blush variety, one hundred 
and forty busliels of apples, or thirty-five bush- 
els from each tree; of these he sold the follow- 
ing Spring ninety baskets, of about three pecks 
each, for one dollar per basket. 

If one tree of the Rhode Island Greening 
will yield forty bushels of fruit, which has often 
been realized, and these should be sold at only 
twenty-five cents per bushel, forty such trees on 
an acre would yield a crop worth four hundred 
dollars; but reducing this yield to one-quarter 
as a low average for all seasons, and for imper- 
fect cultivation, the result would still be equal 
to tlie interest on fifteen hundred dollars. 

E. H. Skinner, of McHenry county, Illi- 
nois, a widely-known and successful fruit culti- 
vator in the West, wrote to the Country Gentle- 
man: "My young apple orchard of five acres. 
Bet three years ago this November, was a sight 
this Fall to look at. We gathered one hundred 
and three bushels of the Wagner apple, and 
fourteen and a half barrels of the Ben Davis 
apple from it, and they sold at five dollars per 
barrel as soon as gathered. This should be 
enough to convince sensible people that it pays 
to subsoil and prepare land tlioroughty for an or- 
chard. This orchard of five acres has already 
paid for itself, and I would to-day refuse fifteen 
hundred dollars for it. Have just sold ten 
acres of six year old orchard for two hundred 
doUirs per acre. This we call a good orchard, 
though it can never equal the above mentioned, 
Bimply for want of first preparing the land. 
AVhat I once called good preparation I now call 
sa|ishud. 

"The facts are simply these — to have an extra 
orchard, we mu.st go to the bottom, and make 
the whole field as mellow as a garden-bed, nut 
less than twenty inches deep. We were at this kind 
of work when it fi-oze up, with four men, four 
teams, and two plows, and could not fit up more 



I than half an acre per day. On one acre and 
nineteen rods of land I raised one hundred and 
sixty-two and a half barrels, getting an extra 
price for them — netting over one thousand dol- 
lars. Whosecorn field pays better f Nearly one- 
third sold at eight dollars per barrel, and most 
of the remainder at seven dollars per barrel." 

In Thomas' Fruit Culturist, this estimate i^ 
given: "Where land is fifty dollars per acre, 
an acre of good productive apple trees may be 
planted and brought into bearing for as much 
more, making the entire cost one Imndred dol- 
lars. These trees will yield, as an average, 
four hundred bushels annually, or ten bushels 
per tree, if the best cultivation is given. The 
annual interest of the orchard, at six per cent., 
is .six dollars; the annual cultivation will not 
exceed si.x more, or twelve dollars as the cost 
of the whole crop on the trees, or three cenis 
per bushel In many fertile parts of the coun- 
try, where one plowing and two or three liar- 
rowings each year would be all the cultivation 
needed, the cost of the ungathered crop would 
be only a cent and a half jjer bushel." 

An acre of forty trees, says Mr. Thomas else- 
where in his work, with good culture, will 
average, through all seasons, not les.s than two 
hundred bushels, or fifty dollars per year. In- 
stances are frequent of thrice this amount. 
The farmer, then, who sets out twenty acres of 
good apple orcliard, and takes care of it, may 
expect at no remote period, a yearly return of 
five to fifteen hundred dollars, or even more, if 
a considerable portion is occupied with late 
keeping apples. This is, it is true, much more 
than a majority obtain; but the majority 
wholly neglect cultivating and enriching the 
soils of their orchards. , 

Mr. Joseph Robinson, of Chester, New 
Hampshire, has an orchard of less than two 
acres, which produced a crop of fruit in one 
year for which he was offered six hundred dol- 
lars on the trees ; in another year he sold hia 
crop for six hundred and eighty dollars. His 
orchard has been long in full bearing, and bids 
fair to last for a genei'ation to come. His fruit 
has been sold in the neighboring markets for 
from one to three dollars per barrel. It i.s 
probable that the average net income of that 
orchard for ten years past has been more than 
three hundred dollars a year — the interest of 
five thousand dollars! Another New Hampshire 
man sold the fruit of four acres of land one 
season for eight hundred dollars, and last year 
he received fourteen hundred dollars for the 
fruit of the same orchard. 



..JL 



PROFITS OF FRUIT GROWING. 



221 



Oliver Taylor, of Loudon county, Vir- 
ginia, lias a Louilun Pippin apple tree, which 
has been in bearing quite one hundred years; 
and has borne ^'ery season for the last eiglity 
years an average of fifty bushels of excellent 
apples each year — or, an aggregate of four 
thousand bushels! The tree is still sound, 
about forty-five feet higli, with a spread of 
branches of about tlie same distance. 

Enos Wright, of Middlebury, New York, 
sold the product of two apple trees for one 
hundred dollars ; Mr. Hammond, of the same 
town, sold the j)roduct of thirty-three trees of 
Nortliern Spy for nine liundred dollars; C. 
Cronkhite sold the apples on less than four 
acres for one thousand dollars, which were im- 
mediately resold for fifteen hundred dollars; 
Egbert McDowell, of York, Livingston 
county. New York, sold in 1865, from twenty- 
two trees — nineteen years grafted, ground an- 
nually plowed, cropped, and heavily manured, 
and protected by woods on three sides — after 
reserving the culls, one hundred and sixty- 
three barrels of apples for seven hundred and 
seventy-nine dollars and fifty cents; Perky 
Smead, of Bethany, New York, for a period of 
six years, ending in 1807, from an orchard of 
six acres, had an average annual product of 
five hundred and eighty-three barrels of apples, 
realizing an income therefrom of two thousand 
four Juindred and thirty-seven dollars and six- 
teen cents, besides what were used in his family ; 
S. P. Lord, of Pavillion, New York, bought a 
neglected, unfruitful orchard of seven acres, 
trimmed and manured it, and during the ensu- 
ing six years, sold from it to the amount of 
six thousand dollars. A single tree in Middle- 
bury, New York, yielded eleven barrels; four 
in LeEoy, thirteen barrels each; one in Perry, 
New York, fourteen barrels of Baldwin apples, 
which sold for si.xty dollars; and one in Cas- 
tile, New York, fifteen barrels of Gilliflowers. 
These facts in this paragraph were elicited at a 
discussion at the New York State Fair, at Buf- 
falo, in 1867. 

Apricots and the finer varieties of the plum 
have often brought from three to six dollars 
per busliel; and two superior apricot trees have 
produced one hundred dcdlars worth of fruit in 
a season. 

Cherries are also profitable. C. A. Cable, 
of Cleveland, Ohio, obtained in a single year 
from an orchard of one hundred cherry trees, 
twenty years old, more than one thousand dol- 
lars. The trees were twenty-five feet apart; 



and no other crop occupied the ground, which 
was enriched and kept well cultivated. Some 
years ago there was an orchard of seventy May 
Duke cherry trees, a few miles below Philadel- 
phia, the daily sales from which, during the 
season, amounted to eighty dollars. 

The best early peaches sell from one to three, 
and even more, dollars per bushel ; twenty-four 
dollars' worth have been sold of a single sea- 
son's product from four young peach trees, of 
only six years' growth from the bud. John 
Burdett, from his peach orchard of twelve 
acres, on an island in Niagara Eiver, sold a 
single crop on the trees, for eleven thousand 
dollars. In the Boston market peaches have 
brought from one to three dollars a piece. 

Pears will yield from two to five bushels per 
tree, with good management; and on large 
trees five times this quantity. In western Iscw 
York, single trees of Doyenne or Virgalieu 
pear have often afTorded a return of twenty 
dollars or more, after being sent hundreds of 
miles to market; and there are Onondaga pear 
trees in New Jersey which yield fruit enough 
every season to net their owners thirty dollars 
a tree. Judge Howell, of Canandaigua, New 
York, has a white Doyenne pear tree, seventy 
years old, which has not failed to produce a 
good crop for forty years, averaging about 
twenty bushels a year for the last twenty years, 
selling on an average at three dollars a bushel, 
or sixty dollars a year; while three other large 
trees of the same variety, one year yielded 
Judge Tay'LOR, of New York, eleven barrels 
of pears, which sold for one hundred and 
thirty-seven dollars, averaging forty-five dol- 
lars and sixty cents each. Charles Down- 
ing has produced from a single winter-pear 
graft, five years inserted, four busliels of pears 
in one season, which readily brought si.x dol- 
lars per bushel in the New York market. Mr. 
Wilder mentions that the Glout Morceau 
pears have readily sold, during the Winter in 
the Boston market, at from one to two dollars 
per dozen. Dr. Berckmans speaks of pears 
selling in New York at from fifty cents to four 
dollars a dozen, and in Boston, in December, 
as high as six dollars a dozen. In Tucker's 
Rural Affairs, for 1866, W. Sharp, of Lock- 
port, New York, states that he had been able 
to obtain for his Beurre Diel pears in New 
York, i,n account of the spots on them, only 
eighteen dollars per bushel, while the Lawrence 
brought twenty-four dollars. Mr. Bacon, of 
Eoxbury, Massachusetts, has in past years sold 



222 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



pears from one dollar and fifty cents to four 
dollars per dozen; and the crop of a single 
tree brought him eighty-two dollars. 

The prophecy of an over-production of fruit 
is dying away. The prognostication will never 
be fulfilled in America— certainly not witliin 
the ne.xt century. There are two facts that 
make it impossible: 1, Our rapid increase 
of population ; 2, the migratory tendency of 
our people, giving them a disinclination to 
undertake anything that does not promise an 
immediate return. If real estate were entailed, 
or if fruit trees matured like Jonah's gourd, 
■we might get a supply of apples, pears, and 
peaches to meet the demand, at a reasonable 
price; but in the present condition of things 
there is no hope of it. Every farmer in 
America who plants an orchard within the 
next twenty-five years, may be sure of obtain- 
ing for its harvest a large price; quite dispro- 
portionate to the receipts for his grain, vegeta- 
bles, or cattle. Some of us may live to witness 
the dawn of the rapidly-approaching straw- 
berry millenium, but the day when the potatoes 
on the poor man's table shall be flanked with 
Baldwin apples and Barllett pears, and when 
light wines shall be substituted for wretched 
whisky, is still afar off. 

Where to Plant the Orchard T— 

The location of the orchard is a matter of cap- 
ital importance, especially in the West, where 
success depends upon it. An apple orchard is 
planted for a life-time, not for a year, like 
cereals and vegetables, and a mistake in its 
location tells on the harvest for half a century. 
So it should not carelessly be assigned to any 
castaway corner. In the Eastern and Jliddle 
States a peculiar location is not so imperative; 
but where frosts are very severe, and fruit cul- 
ture capricious, the efl'ect of certain situations 
must be studied as a science. 

In the North and Northwest it is generally 
agreed that an elevated site is best; and, if 
practicable, a northern aspect. In the first 
place, it is less subject to destructive night 
frosts than the lower places; for the cold air, 
made chilly by radiation, flows down the hill- 
sides and settles in the trough of the valley. 
In the second place, vegetation in sheltered 
alluvial bottoms is more luxuriant, and the 
less ripened wood is more liable to injury from 
frost. In the third place, the clear air of hills 
furnishes a more probable immunity from lich- 
ens than the damper atmosphere of lower levels. 
Even the texture, color, and flavor of fruit, and 



its marketing and keeping qualities are supe- 
rior on the lighter soils of the slopes. We 
have advised a northward exposure in the 
Northwest; this because on a .southern slope 
there is danger of the sap startins and the 
buds opening prematurely in the Spring; be- 
sides which a northward exposure is cooler in 
the Fall, causing the trees to stop growing 
early, and to ripen their wood. 

Tlie presence of a large body of unfreezing 
water modifies the conditions of planting in 
low ground, as the banks of lakes prove pecu- 
liarly favorable to the perfection of fruit. 
Thomas says : "Along the .southern shore of 
lake Ontario the peach crop scarcely ever fails, 
and the softening influence extends many miles 
into the interior." 

Dr. KiRTLAND states that orchards on lime- 
stone hills invariably aBord the best apples, 
and this claim is corroborated by J.J. Thomas, 
and other careful observers. A dry, well- 
drained soil is undoubtedly of great import- 
ance, sometimes determining the question of 
location. 

J. C. Plumb, an experienced and successful 
nurseryman, near Milton, Wisconsin, writes: 
"The facts are, first, that fruit trees mu.st be 
grown where each year's growth will be hard- 
ened on the approach of Winter; second, that 
ihey should pass the Winter in as equable a 
temperature as possible. The first point — well- 
ripened wood — can be attained as surely in 
sixty days as in si.x months, provided the con- 
ditions are right, which are — very dry soil and 
subsoil, and a cool aspect. The second point 
can be obtained by a free circulation of air, 
and a shade from the sun during Winter. 
Still, the cry comes from the far Northwest, 
'How can we raise good fruit? Have you 
any varieties that can succeed in this cold 
clinuite?' One man north of St. Paul says: 
'Of ten thousand Eastern trees sold here, very 
few are alive now.' All complain of the 
'southwest side deadness,' which is incident 
to all trees upon too rich moist lands, with 
warm, protected location, even several degrees 
south of this latitude — forty-three degrees. 
But to encourage u.s, come i.solated cases of 
complete success everywhere. While there is 
undoubtedly a limit to the fruit zone, as to 
certain varieties and species, still in general 
terms, I say to all, with high ground, well- 
drained, cool aspect, short bodied trees, hardy 
varieties, and very little Winter shade to the 
trunks, you can succeed perfectly." 

The prime objects to be sought are thorough 



PREPARATION OF THE SOIL- — PROTECTION OF ORCHARDS. 



223 



(liainage and a free circulation of air. It is 
piifficiently known fo intelligent farmers that 
drainage makes the soil permanently warm. E. J. 
Hooper, in liis excellent Western Fruit Book, 
advises the planting of orchards on hills, or if 
in prairie land, on mounds, for the reasons we 
have given, urging it especially on account of 
the greater fitness of soils found on such eleva- 
tions, and the development of fruit in its 
greatest perfection. A majority of the or- 
chards tliat have succeeded in the Xorthwest, 
have .succeeded by a compliance with this re- 
quirement, combined with good drainage and 
more or less Winter protection. 

Preparation of the Soil. — On this 

pciint there seems to be a wide-spread and fatal 
lack of knowledge. The ground for a nursery 
needs as much careful preparation a.s the soil 
for a vegetable garden. It needs deep plowing, 
and a loose, deep tsoil, drained of surplus water, 
and supplied with plant-food in proper propor- 
tions. Strips of ground where the trees are to 
stand should be thoroughly subsoilcd and ren- 
dered fertile by mixing with the soil finely pul- 
verized compost or special manures. Clayey 
soils are sometimes much improved by an ad- 
mixture of chip dirt. Leached and unleached 
ashes and lime may be applied profitably to 
nearly all fruit trees — especially to the apple, 
pear, and grape. Pulverized bones are also 
excellent, and a limited supply of common 
salt can sometimes be given with great ad- 
vantage. 

Treating of the preparation of soils, that 
eminent pomologist, Dr. Warder, of Cincin- 
nati, writes: "Having a.ssigned a portion of 
the farm to the apple orchard, which should be 
elevated, and of a light, porous, but productive 
soil, the plow should be employed wherever its 
use is practicable, as the best and cheapest means 
of preparing the soil for planting. Even the 
holes for setting the trees may be made with 
the plow, by simply marking out the surface at 
the proper distances, and planting the trees at 
the ijitersections of the furrows. This is done 
after the whole ground has been well prepared 
by a thorough plowing, and the trees are then 
easily planted in the mellow soil, on which they 
will thrive admirably. 

" On low and flat lands that have no good 
natural drainage, tile should be u.sed, if acces- 
sible ; but even in such situations, surface drain- 
ing may be done with the plow, by throwing 
the furrows together where the rows of trees 
are to stand. This is what the farmers call 



back-furrowing, and should be done two or 
three times, plowing narrow land.s, so as to 
make little ridges on whicli to plant the trees. 
This plan will also leave open furrows between 
the rows, that will give outlet to the surplus 
rain water, or at least draw it away from im- 
mediate contact with the roots." 

Protection of Orcliards. — Fruit 
trees are frequently killed in the North by ex- 
treme and unseasonable frosts, and to this dan- 
ger is added, in the Northwest, a drought, and 
the sirocco-breath of the Southwest winds of 
Summer. The Southwest wind is the principal 
one the people of the Northwest need to pro- 
tect from, as its extreme force in the growing 
season often mars the tree and ca.sls the fruit, 
and its extreme dryness in the Spring is very 
exhaustive of moisture and vitality. From 
these three agents of destruction, fruit trees can 
be adequately protected only by a sy.stem of tim- 
ber belts. The importance of this defense, and 
the great advantage which its general adoption 
would confer, can not be overestimated. The 
efficiency of wood belts as a defense against 
wind, frost, and drought, is being studied and 
experimentally tested by thousands of intelli- 
gent farmers, and we expect to see them 
widely adopted in several of the more exposed 
States, as indispensable to an enlightened hus- 
bandry. 

In the meantime, there are partial prevent- 
ives which may be used in the denuiled sec- 
tions. J. 0. Plumb thinks; "Too much sun- 
shine in early Spring is one cause of so many 
fruit trees dying in the Northwest. The rem- 
edy lies in providing abundant mulch in early 
Winter, to prevent the first warm days of 
Spring having any effect upon the ground 
around the plants and trees we wish to protect. 
Some may object to this, as being too much 
trouble, but the cost is nothing compared with 
the benefits; and as this knowledge has cost our 
individual thousands and our collective mill- 
ions of dollars the past Spring, let us know 
hereafter the price of success in fruit culture. 
As to the extent of this injury it seems con- 
fined mainly to below 431 down to 41° latitude 
westward from Lake Michigan. .\bove the 
northern point named, they were snow and 
frost-bound until Spring came in her clue and 
regular form, hence both fruits and trees look 
better as we go north of that line. 

"The injuries are confined entirely to the 
roots of plants, the parts above ground never 
coming out brighter; but all roots anyway 



224 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



susceptible, were blackened as if subjected to 
an airing some frosty night. Now mark this — 
all roots reaching below the first sudden thaw, 
were left in good condition. This thaw ex- 
tended si.x to ten inches, even under ordinary 
mulch, but in locations protected by unusual 
mulch of straw, etc., or banks of snow and 
bodies of ice, as well as those on the immediate 
north side of groves, buildings, and high 
fences, now show the effect in a luxuriant, 
healthy growth of plants and trees therein, 
while others situated differently in this respect 
are reduced to the condition of cuttings almost, 
and in all these situations the frost reached a 
depth of two to four feet. 

"One orchard in this vicinity, used last Fall 
for a hog pasture, and excessively tramped. 
Buffered the loss of many of the best hardy 
trees ; wliile another, with the rank Summer 
growth of grass, with the addition of a heavy 
coat of straw, all left on the ground through 
the Winter, suffered no apparent injury, and is 
now making a splendid growth, with a waist- 
high crop of buckwheat straw left to fall and 
rot on the ground. My own orchard, with 
good culture and no crop last year, is making 
fine growth, with a two-year old mulch around 
the trees." 

Mr. Plumb is wholly sustained in his views 
of the value of Winter nmlching. Trees some- 
times extend their roots under an old building, 
piles of stone, or other concealments, and were 
least affected by our hard Winters. Tliey sim- 
ply and naturally sought their own mulcliing. 
Mr. FiNLAYsON, of Mazomanie, Wisconsin, 
remarked at the Fall meeting, 1808, of the 
State Horticultural Society, that he had lost no 
trees that year— so fatal to many orchards. He 
mulches heavily in Winter, and leaves it on 
the ground till time to plant corn, and then re- 
moves it and tills the soil. All the trees, he 
had observed, that were treated in that manner 
were in good condition and were bearing more 
or less. His trees were on a southeast aspect, 
and yet they did not blow as early as did those 
of his neighbors, where there was no mulching. 
He was satisfied that well-mulched trees would 
survive hard Winters. 

Another cause of the loss of fruit trees, in 
some sections — viz.: Summer drought — lias been 
investigated and explained by Ju<lge J. G. 
Knapp, of Wisconsin, who has written much 
and ably upon the climatic influences of the 
Northwest upon tree-life. In a paper recently 
read before the Wisconsin Horticultural So- 
ciety, he reviewed the climatic conditions of 



North America, dividing it into the mossy, the 
arborescent, the alternatery woody and prairie, 
the prairie, and the arid regions. He has 
showed the diflerence of climate and vegetation 
in each, traced that difference to the climatic 
conditions of each; and held that those trees 
that flourish in the arborescent region could not 
succeed in the alternate region of wood and 
prairies, as it existed in the Northwestern 
States, without artificial means, to supply them 
with moisture during the Summer droughts, 
incident to that location, between the arbores- 
cent and prairie regions; and concluded that 
tlie desired trees might be reared in the North- 
west if they were properly supplied with 
moisture. He then proved the deficiency of 
moisture from the smaller rain fall of the West 
as compared with that of the Eastern States 
and by the greater evaporating power in the 
atmosphere, and estimated that there was a de- 
ficit of at least twelve inches of water falling 
on the surface of the ground. 

"If," continued the judge, " tliis deficiency, 
of moisture was supplied by watering or irri- 
gation, then fruit trees would succeed here as 
well as further east, especially if they received 
proper protection by tree belts, and such Win- 
ter mulchings as would save the roots from the 
effects of frosts, consequent upon a want of snow 
to cover the ground. 

" Apple trees, peaches, and plum.s, grow with 
a tap root, if allowed to stand where they are 
first planted, and tap-rooted trees alone with- 
stand the droughts of our Summers. Then I 
ask would not ai)ples, peaches, and plums do 
the same thing? .\nd if they would, does it 
not teach us that the true way to secure an 
orchard would be to plant seeds where the trees 
are designed to grow ? They can be grafted at 
any age aderward, without disturbing the roots. 
Such a course might secure good orchard.s. 

" Next to planting seeds where trees are to 
grow, it is advisable to plant trees that are very 
young, and so plant them that roots answering 
to tap roots would be encouraged to grow in- 
stead of side roots. Trees thus planted, or 
planted deep, would not make rapid growths at 
first, but I believe they would live more year.s, 
in this country where we have neither rock 
bottoms, hard-pan, nor cold wet ground below." 

BuFFON held that trees were animals without 
the means of locomotion. More recent natu- 
ralists have shown more definitely tliat the 
roots are the mouths and the foliage the stom- 
ach, and that vegetables have organs of secre- 
tion, digestion, selection, generation, and even 



HOW TO SELECT FRiriT TREES. 



225 



of sensation. J. C. Cover promulgates the 
droll theory that "trees become sickly from 
dsual causes familiar to men, as bad colds, im- 
pure food, overeating, and too fast growing, 
sourness of stomach, inflammations, etc. We 
often see trees very sick, especially after a long 
season of tine weather and good living, and of 
late hours and wakefulness. They eat too mucli, 
grow too much and too long, and are sick of 
it ; and unless reclaimed by artificial means, 
may die of it." 

"Now," continues Mr. Cover, "the right 
practice in my experience is about this : Cut 
away the surplus top made by our overrich soil 
and intoxicating climate. Do it in July. Fin- 
ish by cutting or breaking off the water sprouts, 
which may break out from body and ba.se in 
August and September. Your trees will early 
stop growing, prepare for Autumn freezing and 
Winter slumbers without protection, and there- 
after no diSerence about the cold weather ten 
degrees or fifty below zero. At the Spring wak- 
ing and new life, your trees will come out 
healthy and empty, of course, after the long 
hibernation, but sound and hungry as the cubs 
of a grizzly bear. Such has been my practice 
for many years, and I have lost no trees." 

We have already set forth the necessity of 
prairie farmers planting their orcliards on the 
coolest, highest locations — if possible, on the 
cold side of swells and bluffs. Thorough drain- 
age is more imperative in the Northwest than 
any where else in the country ; for it warms the 
roots and sends them down to depths where 
moisture never fails. 

A conductor is sometimes effectively used to 
draw fro.st from blossoms, described thus : Take 
a pole and set it alongside of the peach, plum, 
or other fruit tree in blossom, so that it may 
reach five or six inches above the highest 
branch ; make a straw rope an inch and a half 
thick, and tie one end to the top of the pole, 
and let the other end descend to the ground out- 
side of the branches, terminating in a large tub 
of water at the foot of the tree, and it will often 
draw the water and attract the frost from the 
blossoms. 

The philosophy of this prevention is this : 
"The rope, which was previously wet, was a 
conductor of heat; the air, and of course the 
limbs of the tree, become colder in the night 
than the earth — the rope conducted the heat 
from I he earth to the tree, thus keeping up an! 
equilibrium and preserving the tree from frost." 
Attaching a rope to each tree of choice fruit, 
and tlms letting it permanently remain tlirough 
15 



the Winter and Spring, the fruit would proba- 
bly be largely secured from the effects of the 
frost. 

Whether any advantage, observes Judge 
Knapp, can be derived from knowing the law 
governing cloudy days and nights, which check 
the radiation of heat into the air, remains for 
the future to disclose. But we can, by imita- 
tion of fogs, derive great benefit from a princi- 
ple involved in the disposition of the strata of 
the atmosphere, in affording protection to vine- 
yards, orchards, and gardens from the effects of 
the clear cold nights in Spring and Fall. Such 
spots can be covered with an artificial fog; 
thus — let the place to be covered be surrounded 
by a thick belt of trees which shall nearly pre- 
vent any current of air from moving along the 
surface of the ground from without ; and then, 
if fires giving off thick moist smoke be lighted 
in the grounds, the smoke will spread out over 
the piece inclosed, at about the tops of the tree 
belt, giving nearly all the advantages of a real 
fog envelop. Crops of fruit, etc., might thus 
be saved, that would be destroyed without sucli 
protection. This plan is followed in some 
places in Europe. 

How to Select Fruit Trees.— There 
are a few simple rules in the selection of trees, 
which, if followed, will generally insure suc- 
cess. 

1. Select the tree that has the greatest amount 
of fibrous roots. With a proper growth of 
roots you can get a good top ; but with a large 
top, ever so finely proportioned, and little or no 
roots, your tree will become sickly, and sooner 
or later die. Some varieties of trees should 
have more roots than others; as, for example, 
the dwarf pear or quince should have at least 
three times the amount of fine roots that the 
standard pear of the same age needs. An 
evergreen is entirely worthless without fibrous 
roots. 

2. Do not select a whipstock of a tree. Such 
trees have usually been crowded in the nursery, 
and very seldom thrive, although they may be 
"headed back," and anxiously cared for. The 
tree should be short and stocky. Always ex- 
amine to ascertain if it is sound at the heart. 
The Wisconsin Horticultural Society advises 
planting trees with heads only two feel from tlie 
grounds 

3. The tree .should be properly and evenly 
branched. Trees that have been crowded in 
the nursery often have a majority of their 
branches opposite on two sides only; and are 



22S 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



what nurserymen term codfish-shaped trees. 
See that your tree has branches on all sides. 
For western planting, trees should be branched 
low, as the wind has then less effect upon them ; 
and the trunk of the tree is more shaded by the 
branches during the Winter months. In a 
word, hardy sorts, plenty of roots, low heads, 
stocky forms, and moderate growth for severe 
climates. 

Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, President of 
the American Pomological Society, gives the 
requisites of a good fruit tree : A good tree 
must possess: 1, Health, or freedom from con- 
stitutional disease ; 2, hardiness, or the power 
of resisting extremes of heat, cold, and drouth; 
3, fertility or productiveness of fruit; 4, per- 
sistency of fruit, or power of adhering to the 
tree; 5, vigor of growtli, or productiveness of 
wood; 6, persistency of foliage; and 7, a good 
habit of growth. Those which unite these 
characteristics in the highest degree are most 
valuable. A good fruit must be: 1, Of the best 
quality; 2, it must possess durability, or the 
property of remaining sound after being gath- 
ered ; 3, size; 4, color; 5, form. 

Young trees are belter for planting than 
tho.se which are older— small trees are more 
easily handled, and are surer to grow than 
large ones. If one purchaser wants large trees, 
by all means let him be indulged; he will have 
to pay in proportion; he will have more wood 
for his money, more weight to carry, or more 
transportation to pay for; more labor in plant- 
ing, and vastly incre:ised risk in the life of 
trees; but let him be indulged with his five- 
year old trees, while his neighbor, for smaller 
sum invested, with less freight, less wood, less 
labor, and infinitely less risk, will plant his 
maiden trees, and five ye.irs hence will market 
more fruit. 

Two years from the graft or bud is long 
enough for the apple to remain in the nursery; 
this is true of most varieties, but there are ex- 
ceptions, for some slow-growing kinds require 
a longer period to attain sufficient size. The 
plants should be stocky and branched, and they 
must be taken up carefully, so as to preserve 
the roots. Hardy and productive kinds of the 
second quality are more satisfactory than those 
fruits of greater excellence which have not 
these prime qualities of the tree. It is rare 
that we find all excellence united in one indi- 
vidual. For the family orchard, it is best to 
have a succession in the time of ripening; the 
same is true of an orchard planted for stock 
feeding, but in the commercial orchard, where 



a large quantity of frnit is to be produced for 
shipping, it is found best to plant only a few 
varieties, and these should be productive, 
hardy, and of such a character as to bear 
transportation, and to command a ready mar- 
ket; they should be well known and good 
looking — less regard being had to their supe- 
rior quality as table fruits, than in the amateur 
or family lists. 

Dr. KENNrcoTT says: "Plant small trees. 
The cost is one-half less at the nursery, less in 
transportation, and in planting you will lose 
scarcely any at all. You can form the tops to 
suit yourself. Form the heads low. This, on 
prairies, is absolutely necessary to success." 

Mr. BucHANAi* says: "Apple trees two 
years old are better than those of more ad- 
vanced age; and an apple tree transplanted at 
that age, other things being equal, will produce 
iVuit as soon as one transplanted at four years 
old, and make a more healthy tree." 

Transplanting'.— Taking a tree from 
its native bed and transferring it to another is 
always an act of violence, injurious to its vigor, 
if not perilous to its life. The greatest care is 
requisite to preserve its vitality from being se- 
riously impaired. 

Autumn or Spring Planting f — There has been 
Touch tniprnfitable discu.ssion of the question 
whether it was better to transplant in the Au- 
tumn or Spring; unprofitable, because the 
question can not be answered categorically. It 
depends on circumstances. As Thomas well 
says in his Fruit Cullurist, "As a general rule, 
'the proper season' for the removal of trees is 
at any period between the cessation of growth 
in Autumn — usually a little later than mid-au- 
tumn in the Northern States — and its re-com- 
mencement in Spring. The earlier in Spring 
the better ; but if deferred till the buds ore 
much swollen, the roots should be coated im- 
mediately with mud, and kept moist till again 
set out. Transplanting may be performed in 
Winter, whenever the ground is open, and the 
air above freezing ; but roots which are frozen 
while out of the ground, will perish unless they 
are buried before thawing." 

Farmers and orchardists generally transplant 
their young trees in the Spring, moved thereto, 
no doubt, as much by the vernal instinct, and 
the vague inclination to plant something as by 
any special fitness in the season. It is now gen- 
erally held by the highest authorities, that Au- 
tumn is the best season for transplanting apple 
and other hardy trees, providing that the soil 



TAKING Ur TREES. 



227 



is friable and well drained, and that the young 
trees receive adequate after-protection. 

The organs of nutrition of the tree, during 
Winter, are suspended or nearly so ; the de- 
mand for fluid increment by the tree is so small, 
that the lacerated radicals can easily supply it, 
besides domiciling themselves to their new lo- 
cality ; so that by Spring they can supply the 
full demand of the plant for an active growth. 
Winter will enable the tree to renew its granu- 
lations, before the exhaustion of the store of 
food laid up the year previous, so that when 
April comes again, it begins to grow without 
interruption. " In the Fall ibe soil is warmer 
than the air ; the formation of roots proceeds 
while the branches are dormant ; when Spring 
arrives, the balance of the tree being in a great 
measure restored, growth commences vigorous- 
ly, and the plant hecoines established and able 
to bear up against Summer aridity." 

Andrew S. Fuller, a New York horticul- 
turist, says with emphasis, " We would never 
plant evergreen trees in the Fall, but always in 
the Spring, just at the time they begin to grow." 
The Wisconsin Farmer says : " Tree planting 
may be as safely done in Autumn as in the 
Spring, in all common cases — especially if done 
early enough to enable a tree or shrub to be- 
come well and naturally imbedded in the soil, 
by the action of rain and time. But in all 
cases of Fall planting, we deem it indispensa- 
bly essential to raise a mound around the tree, 
from six to twelve inches in height, and from 
three to four feet broad ; and in making this 
mound, care must be observed, not to take the 
earth so near the tree as to leave a low circle 
around it, to allow the surface water to settle 
around the roots, and freeze or drown out the 
tree. We believe this is the most common cause 
of failure in Fall planting. Plant as early as 
the middle of October, and leave the ground 
around the tree level, as in Spring planting, for 
two or three weeks, until the rains usually oc- 
curring at that season of the year, have fallen 
upon and settled the ground ; then go before it 
freezes, and put up the mound for Winter." 

William Sadnders, the superintendent of 
the United States Agricultural garden at Wash- 
ington, favors Fall transplanting — as soon as the 
leaves change color, stripping oflf the foliage 
before removal — at the commencement of the 
dormant season, while the ground is several de- 
grees warmer than the atmosphere, and acts as 
a hot-bed for the roots to get well established 
for Winter, and be prepared to enter upon an 
early and vigorous growth in the Spring. 



But Spring setting will doubtless still con- 
tinue much in vogue. Transplanting trees, 
vines, and shrubs late in the Spring, even after 
new wood has grown three or four inclies, if 
the new wood and the leaves be removed and 
the roots be left nearly inlact. There are ni;iny 
conditions rendering Spring tran.splanting pre- 
ferable in certain cases. Tender trees, for in- 
stance, or tho.se of unripened wood, taken to 
a colder climate with mutilated roots might l]e 
in danger of winter-killing. Even hardy trees 
might be likelj' to perish if set out on a lieavy, 
undrained soil. In these cases, it would be 
advisable to heel in the trees, covering them on 
some dry knoll in well-pulverized soil, being 
careful to keep mice or other depredators from 
the mound. 

Taking- up Trees.— Too nuich care can 
not be taken in removing the trees from tlie 
nursery, nor in protecting them from the parcli- 
ing effects of the sun and air. Trees are often 
cut or torn up by the roots, as if the trunk and 
br.anches were the only thing necessary and the 
roots superfluous. The proper way is to open 
a trench on each side of the tree, with a com- 
mon spade, keeping the edge toward the tree 
so as not to cross any of the roots. These 
trenches should be far enough from the tree to 
avoid the main roots and deep enough to go he- 
low all, including as much of the tap root as 
po.ssible. This being done, the tree may be 
pulled up with the roots almost entire. Many 
a fine tree has lingered awhile, and finally died 
for want of its native tap root. Many who once 
■said, "let the tap root be cut off'," now take 
sides with the backwoodsman, who contends 
that the tap root is es.sential to the life and 
health of the tree, as it goes down deep inlo 
the earth to supply the growing stem wi.h 
moisture and mineral matter during the dry 
season of the year, when the lateral roots can 
not find half so much moisture as escapes from 
the leaves. Therefore, every tap root should 
be retained as perfect as practic;ible, and be en- 
couraged to grow. A large hole should be 
made with a crow-bar, several feet deep where 
the tree or vine is to stand, and a lateral root, 
when there is no tap root, should be encouraged 
to grow in the hole. 

Trealmeni of Nursery Trees. — If the trees con.e 
to hand while the earth is too wet to receive 
them, or have been loo long on the way and are 
much dried up, immediately imnjerse their 
roots in a bed of liquid mud. Then either 
bury their roots in the ground with the tops in 



228 



FRUIT AND TRUIT TREES: 



a leaning position near the ground, so that they 
can be shaded and watered conveniently, if the 
weather be dry; or place them in the cellar, if 
the weather be wet, or place them, if dry, in 
water from twelve to twenty-four hours. 

If the trees have become very dry, it will be 
necestary to bury them entirely, root and 
branch, by putting them in a trench, and cov- 
ering them with earth that will touch every 
(lart of their roots and branches. They must 
be watered frequently, and should remain in 
this condition from a week to ten days. Trees 
that have become quite dry, may be perfectly 
restored when treated in this manner, and when 
transplanted will grow vigorously, while those 
that were not treated in this way will be very 
apt to die. 

Cutting Back the Branches. — Before planting 
it is always advisable and sometimes quite 
necessary to strip ofi" the leaves, and cut back 
the top, to re-establish the equilibrium that has 
been disturbed by the laceration and removal 
of a portion of the root. It is sometimes nec- 
essary to cut off one-half or more of the top. 
The leaves perform the function of lungs, and 
when the supply from below is greatly reduced, 
while the leaves continue to make an undi- 
minished demand and to throw off an undimin- 
ished quantity of moisture, it produces e.^haust- 
ion, and death frequently ensues. 

The Horticulturist says : " There is room for 
study in the practice of heading in, because of 
the vigor of growth and power of producing 
strong new shoots, being much greater in some 
sorts than others. The peach, for instance, 
may be cut back to within two feet of the 
crown, leaving not a limb or twig, and yet the 
tree, in the ensuing Fall will be found, under 
good cultivation, to have made four or five 
strong shoots, each as many feet long, and with 
abiindant lateral branches. Pursue the same 
course with the apple, and nine times out often 
the result will be only a few feeble shoots of 
four to six inches, with a dead tree the follow- 
ing Spring. The pear, when worked on the 
quince, will bear much more severe pruning 
back than when on the pear stock ; and further, 
some varieties will endure more severe pruning 
than others. The grape, when cut back two or 
three buds, grows vigorously ; but if left un- 
pruned, it struggles a year or two, produces a 
few imperfect bunches, and is, perhaps, dead. 
Tliese are some of the many variations that an 
observing horticulturist will notice on short 
practice." 

Harking Off the Ground. — After the soil is 



thoroughly and deeply prepared, twenty inches 
or two feet deep, as already set forth, it is ready 
to mark off with the plow in two directions, so 
that the intersections of the furrows shall be at 
the stations selected for the trees — twenty feet 
apart has been quite generally recommended by 
our Northwestern fruit culturists. This is the 
best way to dig the holes, for the furrows may 
be made quite deep enough for planting, and 
by thus preparing all the ground the holes are 
ready made for the trees to be planted. It is 
not desirable to set the trees deeply, and some 
writers have even advocated planting them on 
the surface, without any excavation, save cov- 
ering the roots with a little fine soil. 

Distance of Trees Apart. — Wide planting 
was formerly recommended; but close planting 
has recently many advocates, who advance co- 
gent reasons for crowding the trees within 
twenty feet, placing the upright and wide- 
spreading varieties alternately. In the first 
place it is now conceded that the land appro- 
priated to the orchard is to be given up to the 
trees, and should not be used for other crop.s, 
therefore there is less necessity for room. In 
close planting the whole ground is shaded, 
and kept from the baking influence of the sun, 
and thus it remains more loose and friable than 
when exposed. The crowding of the trees 
also protects them, in a great degree, from the 
severity of the cold in Winter, and from the 
injury incident to the sudden changes of our 
climate; but in exposed situations this close 
planting shelters them from the trying winds 

DISTANCES FOR PLANTING TREES, ETC. 

Apples, standard Vi to 30 feet 

Apples, dwiirf. 5 to S *' 

Peurs, standard 20 " 

Pears, dwarf. 8 to 10 " 

Pench.'S, headed back 12 " 

Cherries, standard 20 " 

Cherries, dwarf. 8 to 10 " 

Plums, standard 15 " 

Plums, dwarf. 8 to 10 " 

Quinees 6 to 8 " 

Grapes 10 to 12 " 

Gooseberries and C'urrants 4 " 

Raspberries 4 " 

Blackberries to 8 " 

For the above distances the following is the 

number of trees required for an acre : 

At 4 feet apart each way 2,720 

"5 1,742 

" li " '■ •' •• 1,200 

" 8 " " " " 680 

" 10 " " " " 4.KI 

" IS " " " " "!!!!.'."!""'"™r^!"!!!!!!!!!'!!!!!!!! 2n<i 
" 18 " " " " yn' 

•■ 20 ' " 110 

" 25 " •' " ■' 70 

" 30 " " " " 50 

■• 33 40 

It is not extravagant to say that all the hill- 
sides of the West ought to be given up to or- 
chards. In planting these, the rows should be 
horizontal, or around the hill, so that there 



TAKING UP TREES. 



229 



miglit be no up and down cultivation, and as 
there is left a strip on the line of the row not 
cultivated, it will form a terrace that will pre- 
vent any serious washing. If the trees are 
planted quite thick one way, and the cultivated 
space narrowed as the trees get size and shade 
the ground, they can be left with very little culti- 
vation in a few years, if a good mulch is annu- 
ally applied to the intervening spaces. In any 
event the trees must have the benefit of the 
whole soil, to insure vigor and health. 

Setting the Trees. — Mr. Thojias, in his Fruit 
Culturist, sums np what he regards as the es- 
sential requisites for transplanting, as follows: 

1. A previous preparation of a rich, deep 
bed of mellow earth to receive the roots, and 
land which can not be water-soaked. 

2. Removing the tree with as little mutila- 
tion of the roots as practicable. 

.3. Paring off the bruised parts. 

4. Shortening-in the head, in a greater or 
less degree, to correspond with the necessary 
loss of roots. 

5. Immersing the roots in mud, at planting 
[if the soil be previously dry]. 

6. Settling the earth with water [unless the 
soil be clayey]. 

7. Planting no deeper than before. 

8. Staking or embanking, to prevent injury 
from the wind. 

9. Watering the stems and branches only, 
before the appearance of the leaf. 

10. Mulching, where danger of midsummer 
drought is feared. 

To this agricultural decalogue might be 
added an eleventh : As a general rule, apply 
no manure to the roots, when transplanting, 
unless it be finely pulverized compost; fresh 
manure is inflammatory, and acts as an agent 
of decay, because the fractured roots are not 
able to receive it as a stinmlant. The best way 
to fertilize, is to apply the manure to the sur- 
face around the trunk ; it acts as a mulch; the 
ground gradually absorbs it, and the delicate 
spongioles of the roots can receive no food ex- 
cept in a liquid form. Special manures may 
be also given, as already indicated. 

The tree is a vitalized being, manifesting 
itself through delicate organs, whose functions 
ought to be carefully studied by every successful 
fruit-grower. Trees, in transplanting, must re- 
ceive tender treatment. No satisfactory results 
can be expected, if, with Uncle Twiggs, 

Now thick, now thin ; 

For what cares I 

If they grow or die.'* 



Mr. Weir, in the Illinois Agricultural Re- 
port for 1865, urges that it is necessary to lean 
trees from twenty to thirty degrees towards whei-e 
the sun is at two o'clock, or about ten degrees 
west of south. " I have," he says, " lcam<l 
them as much as forty-five degrees, and, when 
the trees were six years set, they were, many nf 
them, perpendicular. The reasons for leaning 
them in this way are: 

"1. The general cour.se of our strong winds 
is from the southwest, and, if the trees are 
planted upright, they would all be leaned to 
the northeast, which would not look well, and 
would be very detrimental to their future pros- 
perity. 

" 2. When trees are torn from the ground and 
transplanted, the circulation of the sap, until 
they get established, is very feeble, and, if ex- 
posed to the full glare of the sun, on the .south 
side, in our hot, dry climate, is liable to be 
dried up, thus killing that side of the tree. 

"3. It is a well-known fact, amcmg tree grow- 
ers, that the hot sun, in Winter, injures and 
kills more trees than the severe frost. When 
trees are planted upright, or leaning lo the 
northeast, as they will eventually when so 
planted, the sun has full effect on the south 
side, causing the sap to flow and bark to loosen 
early in Spring, then, freezing suddenly at 
night, bursts loose and spoils that side of the 
tree. 

" 4. It retards the blossoming in the Spring." 

The tree should not beset more than an inch 
or two deeper than it stood before. Thomas 
says no deeper. It is well known that a large 
proportion of transplanted trees die because 
they are set too deeply in the earth. When 
the soil is clayey, peaty, or permanently damp, 
if it can not be drained, the tree should he set 
on the .surface, after it has been plowed, and 
light earth should be sprinkled over the roots. 

If the ground be mellow and dry, set the 
tree in the unfilled hole on the pulverized soil, 
and spread out every root and fiber in its 
natural direction, having previously examined 
them, and cut off, with a sharp knife, tho.se 
portions that have been torn or wounded in 
digging or transportation. Then sift on the 
mellow earth, shaking the tree gently and thor- 
oughly working the earth beneath and aniniul 
every root, so as to exclude the air. In dry 
weather, in dry soil, pour in a pail of water 
and leave a slight basin about the stem, to re- 
tain the moisture until it can soak into the 
earth. In other soil, the earth should be left 
slightly concave, to allow of settling, and in 



230 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



the Fall this should be made prominent for 
mulching purposes. Do not tread the soil 
fiinily about the tree; it need only be solid 
enough to furnish support. 

It is now generally conceded that the ground 
occupied by fruit trees should not be drawn upon 
for any other vegetation — either for liarvest or 
pasturage. Cattle sliould never be admitted 
to the orchard. Grass, clover, or other green 
crop' may be grown and carefully plowed in 
yearly, or left to decay upon the ground as a 
mulch. 

Should the cultivator feel unable to surren- 
der the land exclusively to his orchard, hoed 
crops, like corn and potatoes, will be preferable 
to any other. The trees should have some cul- 
ture for a few years ; this, and a thorough pre- 
vious pulverization of the soil by deep trench- 
ing are most important. 

Transplantiny at Night. — The Workint/ Fai-nier 
says: A friend, in whose power of observation 
we have confidence, and who is an accurate ex- 
perimenter, informs us that in the Spring and 
Summer of 1867, he made the following ex- 
periuient: lie transplanted ten cherry trees 
T\hile in blossom, commencing at four o'clock 
in the afternoon, and transplanting one each 
hour until one in the morning. Those trans- 
planted during daylight shed their blossoms, 
producing little or no fruit, while those planted 
during the darker portions maintained their 
natural conditions fully. He did the same with 
ten dwarf pears after the fruit was one-third 
grown; tho.se transplanted during the day shed 
their fruit, Avhile those transplanted during the 
night perfected their crop, and showed no in- 
jury from having been removed. With each 
of these trees he removed some earth with the 
roots. 

A single experiment is not sufficient to demon- 
strate so important a principle as is here infer- 
red. But philosophy tends to corroborate it. 
It is a well established fact, that when the sun 
is shining brightly, plants are performing their 
most active organic operations, and when it 
goes down these operations of growth are mostly 
suspended until it rises again. The arrest of 
the process of nutrition in men or animals at a 
time when it is being actively performed, is 
commonly marked by certain uniform signs. 
When persons recover from diseases in which 
the process of nutrition is suspended, the hair 
often tails off, and the nails show a transverse 
mark at the point which was then its root. 

Vigorously growing plants — and plants are 
growing rapidly at the time they are in blos- 



som — by the most transient interruption of 
their common supply of nutriment, are quite 
likely to lose their blossoms, and to sufler an 
arrest of development of their fruit. The.se 
trees were removed at a time when their or- 
ganic operations, or those of growth, were 
being performed with greatest energy, and they 
would consequently suffer the more, while those 
which were removed later, or after the sun 
went down would naturally suffer much le.ss. 
Of course trees should never be subjected to 
to the violence of a removal at the period of 
fructification when removal at any other season 
is practicable. 

After Culture. — If any blo.ssoms or buds ap- 
pear on a recently transplanted tree, vine, or 
plant, pluck them oft'. If the fruit be left to 
perlcct, it will be at the expense of the vigor- 
ous growth of the plant, and a corresponding 
depreciation in quantity and quality of fruit 
the next .season. Growth and fruitfulncss are 
antagonistic processes, and should not be suf- 
fered to proceed at the same time in an imma- 
ture tree. 

Watering the tops of trees in the evening, 
may be done as often as convenient, with great 
advantage. It tends to soften the bark and 
buds, and enables the tree to put forth its ten- 
der leaves directly. 

Having already set forth the necessity of pre- 
viously enriching and pulverizing the ground 
intended for the trees, and the inexpediency of 
applying any fermentable manures to the roots 
in transplanting, it only remains to say that the 
orchard should thereafter be kept well fertilized. 
To protect and enrich the roots, cover the sur- 
face with straw, leaves, or very coar.se manure, 
to decay gradually. If set in the Spring apply 
well-rotled manure in the Autumn; if set in 
the Autumn, nmlch pretty liberally with coarse 
manure or litter before the ground is frozen. 
When trees get a good start, and are making 
roots and limbs rapidly, we do not know that 
you could hurt them with manure, lime, or 
ashes, in any reasonable quantity. It is well 
known, as a general thing, that all sorts of 
trees, vines, and shrubs, are wofully neglected, 
and suffer for want of nianure pabulum. 

Though we have incidentally spoken of the 
custom of plowing orchards for four or five yeai"s 
after planting them, yet it is of very doubtful 
utility. The roots of a tree, if undisturbed, 
will generally keep near the surface of the 
ground, and plowing cuts them 08' or lacerates 
them. Many fine orchards have been sadly 
injured by such treatment. Mulching, or top 



MULCHING — PRUNING. 



231 



dressing with ashes or other fertilizers would 
seem to be much preferable. 

Some permit the sheep to run in the orchard, 
contending tliat they eat the wormy apples 
which drop early, and that the apple crop is 
therefore almost entirely unaffected by the cod- 
ling moth, and also that they remove very little 
from the soil that is not returned. Others de- 
clare that where the orchard is not kept prop- 
erly mulched, the next best thing is to allow 
hogs to ramble and root there, stirring the soil 
around the trees, but not cutting tlie roots like 
the plow. They also eat decayed and wormy 
apples as they fall, and are destructive to grub 
worms and vermin, and tlius render the or- 
chard a good .service. Thomas says, "more 
trees are lost from the neglect of after culture 
than from all other causes combined." 

]IIulcllin§r> — To protect young trees from 
drought, frost, or sun, nothing is more effectual 
than a mulch — a four to six inch covering of 
Btraw, loose litter, tanbark, chip dirt, or forest 
leaves about their trunks. This keeps the 
earth light, warm, and moist, and renders the 
too-often-injurious process of watering unneces- 
sary, except in extremely dry sections or sea- 
sons. 

Did you ever lift a board from the ground 
in warm weather? If so, you have found that 
the ground was moist, however severe the 
drought. This is mulching. But keeping the 
ground moist is not the only benefit of mulch. 
The moisture deposited beneath the mulch is 
the warm air coming in contact with the cool 
ground. This air always contains more or less 
fertilization in the lorm of vapor. And this 
vapor is arrested by cool air coming in contact 
with warmer. Everybody can see, if they will, 
that a piece of land kept covered instead of 
bare, will increase in fertility, while a piece left 
naked will continually grow poorer. If a 
farmer leaves a covering of grass upon the 
ground during the Winter, he will find it will 
pay him well in the increiise of the crop, while 
the naked ground is liable to lose not only what 
grass there is by winter-killing, but less and 
less grass will grow where it is all fed off close 
in the Fall. An apple tree will be made to 
grow and bear fruit, simply by covering the 
ground with stones around the roots. 

Trees must not be kept permanently mulch- 
ed, for this would exclude much of the light, 
heat, and air, all of which are essential to a 
healthy vegetable growth. The Horticulturist 
says; "We have found our best results to come 



from stirring the soil frequently until the Sum- 
mer heat, then applying our mulch, removing 
it again early in October, and again applying 
it as soon as the ground is well frozen. By this 
course we give our roots, in the Spring, the 
benefit of the elements tliey need to make per- 
fect growth ; we keep the powerful rays of the 
midsummer sun away, and thus give tlieni a 
longer time to mature wood and root ; wi- yivc 
tliemin Autumn the action of the atmospliiiie to 
enable them to gradually harden the root and 
branch, and fit it for the extreme cold of Win- 
ter; and in Winter, after having frozen them to 
sleep, we cover them so they may not be wak- 
ened from week to week, but continue tlieir naji 
until such time a.s, by the natural order, they 
should again pursue their appointed course." 

Low heads and thick planting prevent the 
necessity of culture eventually, and then their 
own shade and fallen leaves constitute the best 
and a natural mulch for the orchard. 

Pruning.— "Why?" The third inquiry 
embraced in the title of this volume, should be 
assiduously studied until it can be intelligently 
answered by every man who tries his hand 
at pruning. Pruning is an art; yet it is prac- 
ticed so clumsily, that it is frequently worse 
than the waywardness of vegetation which it is 
intended to cure. Better straggling limbs and 
ligneous deformity, than the horrible liacking 
and artificial maiming exhibited by thousands 
of orchards. P. T. Baknum, the liinious show- 
man, who has a keen relish for a joke, espe- 
cially when it is against himself, tells how he 
(once) tried bis hand at pruning, seizing the 
knife and saw in the absence of his gardener, 
and rushing out to restore .symmetry to his fa- 
vorite orchard. He went thrnugh it like a 
mowing machine, slashing right and left, clear- 
ing off the immature and superfluous "sprouts," 
and reducing the whole to the classic line of 
beauty. In an hour, when lie bad worked him- 
self into a fine perspiration, the gardener re-aj)- 
peared, and the proprietor suspended his surgi- 
cal operations to receive approval. His aston- 
ishment and mortification may be imagined, as 
the afliicted gardener raised his hands reproach- 
fully and exclaimed, "My God ! You have cut 
off all the grafts ! " 

Pruning has two prime objects : 1, To give 
form to the tree; 2, to promote the growth of 
fruit. In effecting these ends, two propositions 
are be kept in view : 

First. No well-managed fruit tree is ever 
allowed an undisturbed natural growth. 



232 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



Second. No skillful and yigilant orchardist 
ever makes much use of the knife or saw on 
trees which he has had the exclusive manage- 
ment of. 

Pinching Off the Buds.—T\\e skillful and 
watchful fruit-grower forestalls the necessity 
of employing the pruning-knife, by an early 
and constant use of his hand, in pinching off 
the superabundant shoots and buds while yet 
soft and green. In proportion to his skill he 
prevents all wanton growth, and thereby saves 
the strength of the soil and the vigor of the 
tree, which would otherwise be expended on 
useless limbs. A much worn prunlng-knife, 
tells of a thriftless gardener. 

Thumb-and-finger pruning is the best of all 
pruning. The saw is almost entirely out of 
place in an orchard. This pinching back does 
not disturb Nature. It is apt to be done judi- 
ciou.sly, for breaking off the buds and shoots 
when in a succulent state can hardly produce 
harm. If a branch grows too rapidly, is likely 
1 usurp too much space, it should be pinched 
hack for one season, to allow the rest of the 
tree to come forward. Insist upon equality. 
Every tree can be made perfectly symmetrical 
by a little care in pinching in, if begun when 
it is young. Everybody can prune in this 
way — even Baenum might venture on it. It 
requires no particular skill — only the exercise 
of a little common sense. Rubbing off all 
superfluous buds as they appear, keeps the 
tree clean, and the growth in the proper chan- 
nels. Some of the handsomest and most profit- 
able orchards we have ever examined, never 
had a knife or saw about them. 

Pruning in Moderation. — The pruning-knife 
and saw do, on the whole, nearly as much 
harm as good. The remedy is sometimes 
worse than the disease. Cutting off a large 
lower limb of a tree is a terrible shock, tend- 
ing to impair its constitution and shorten its 
life. It throws the root and top out of equi- 
librium ; and it hurts the juices of the whole 
tree, and begins a rotting process, attended 
with fungus, where the wood is exposed. Some 
ignorant farmers imagine that " pruning is 
pruning," and so they slash away, in the delu- 
sion that the more they mutilate and lacerate 
the better. And so we see great handsome 
apple trees and standard pear trees murdered, 
and other cripples tottering on the meadow, 
with dead limbs, naked wounds and bleeding 
arteries — perishing subjects of malpractice ! 

Prune gently and carefully. Avoid heroic 
remedies. As a rule a limb that can not be 



cut off easily with a pocket-knife, ought not 
to be cut off at all. The philosophy of prun- 
ing is ea.sy. Examine every tree in the or- 
chard, especially in the young orchard, early 
and often, and remove all twigs and new shoots 
which seem likely to clash with each other in 
future years. Keep the heads of the trees low — 
in the Northwest very low; this is one of the 
objects of pruning. While cutting to prevent 
a too crowded top, avoid the other extreme — 
a too open one; for ours is a hot sun, and 
partial shade for both branches and fruit is 
desirable. 

When it is. necessary to remove a limb, take 
it off close to the trunk smoothly, shave the 
wound with a sharp knife, and paint with 
white paint, grafting salve, or gum shellac, to 
prevent rotting. 

When to do Heavy Pruning f — 1, Never; prac- 
tice disbudding vigilantly, so that heavy prun- 
ing will not be necessary ; 2, but if it be neces- 
sary, on account of your own or some other 
man's negligence, do not do it all at one time 
or in any one year. There is but one time 
pruning should be absolutely interdicted, and 
that is when the wood is frozen. When in 
that condition it should never, on any account, 
be cut or disturbed or handled in any manner. 

As to the precise season that is best for prun- 
ing. Dr. Warder lays down the postulate, 
"Prune in Winter for wood, in Summer for fruit." 
Mr. Saunders, Superintendent of the United 
States Agricultural Garden, at Washington, 
calls this " an axiom," and concludes that 
"strong growths should be pruned in Summer; 
weak ones in Winter." 

" Summer pruning can be useful where wood- 
growth is to be checked, and it will be re- 
pressed in proportion to the severity of the 
removal of foliage. Fruit trees, when planted 
in a generous soil, frequently attain a luxuri- 
ance incompatible with a fruitful habit, and 
their flowering may be somewhat hastened by 
judicious Summer pruning or pinching, so as 
to retard wood-growth ; but care must be ex- 
ercised, and much observation and experience 
are requisite, before the object can be safely 
attained. 

"Winter pruning invigorates wood-growth. 
When a portion of the branches of a tree is 
removed after the fall of the leaves, the balance 
of growth is destroyed, and the roots have the 
preponderance; the remaining buds will now 
shoot forth with increased vigor — an important 
consideration with trees or vines that have be- 
come weakened from overbearing, or any other 



233 



cause, imparting new vigor to weak and sickly 
plants." 

" Never prune," says the New England Farmer, 
"when the sap is in full motion, as in April 
and May, and it is better not to prune in March ; 
a few sunny daj-s will start the^sap even in that 
montli. The reason for this is, that the tubes 
that conduct the sap to the branches are full, 
and if cut off, the sap will run out. When the 
sap comes to the light and air it trickles down 
the bark, and undergoes a change that is very 
unfavorable to tlie tree. It frequently kills the 
bark entirely, and finally the tree itself. 

"By the middle of June, a large amount of 
the sap has gone to the branches and exhausted 
a portion of it in expanding the leaves and 
flowers; most of the remainder then returns 
down the tree, immediately under the outer 
bark, in a thickened state, .and this makes the 
annual growth in the diameter of the tree. 
When this is the state of things, then is the proper 
time to prune. The wound made will rarely 
bleed, and it will heal even quicker than at 
any other season of the year. This period lasts 
from about the middle of June to the middle 
of July, when the second growth, so called, 
commences, and the sap is again active in the 
pores of the sap-wood. 

" It is safe to prune, also, after the leaves 
have f^iUen in October, or at any time after- 
ward until the sap is .ictive, but the wounds 
made will not heal so readily as they do in 
June. The black part, that may be seen in al- 
most any orchard, is evidence that the trees 
were pruned at an improper season." 

At a meeting of the Fruit Growers' Society 
of Western New York, fruit culturists of expe- 
rience were nearly unanimous in the opinion 
that all severe or heavy pruning should be 
done in Winter, or before the flow of sap in 
Spring; that the wounds made in Winter 
should be covered with paint, tar, and whiting, 
or what is best, shellac in alcohol ; that if per- 
formed in Spring, the sap runs out and injures 
the wood of the wound; and that after the 
leaves have expanded, the loss of the foliage 
injures or checks the growth and vigor of the 
tree. There is no doubt that Winter pruning 
ia practicable, subject to the conditions laid 
down by Dr. Warder. 

Dr. Joseph Hoebins, President of the Wis- 
consin Horticultural Society, recommends that 
pruning be done in June, when trees finish 
their " first growth." J. C. Cover, one of the 
most careful observers, says: "I recommend 
the month of July for pruning all the apple 



kinds, except the wild crab, which perfects its 
growth in June, and should therefore be pruned 
in that month — I think about the 20th. This 
is assuming that all trees, of whatever kind, 
should be pruned at or about the close of their 
first growing stage, the tijiie of course varying 
with the different kinds. And such is pre- 
cisely my assumption. Forest trees complete 
their annual growth early in June, and by the 
last of that month their growth of wood is fully 
ra.ide. The cherry, plum, and pear complete 
the same process early in July, and the apple 
by the 15th to the 20th of July." Pruning can 
also be safely done at the end of the second 
growing season — in the Fall. 

The following interesting illustration of the 
various modes of training trees in England, 
where the useful and ornamental are combined, 
is taken from Lotjdon'.s Encyclopedia of Gar- 
dening. It is only necessary to add the terms 
by which each form is known: a, the herring- 
bone fan; 5, the irregular fan; e, the stellate 
fan; d, the drooping fan; e, the wavy fan; /, 
the horizontal; g, the horizontal, with screw 




stem; h, the vertical, with screw or wavy shoots; 
i, same, with upright shoots; j, the double 
lateral. 

Pi-uning for Fruit. — Every tree develops two 
sorts of buds, one of which produces leaves and 
the other fruit. The fruit buds are generally 
plump and obtuse at the end, while the leaf 
buds are more slender and sharper. Thomas 
states, the generally recognized principle, that 
whatever tends to free sap circulation, and so 
to rapid growth, causes the formation of leaf 
buds; while whatever tends to retard the flow 
of sap, and so accumulate it in any part, induces 
the production of fruit buds instead. The mul- 
tiplication of fruit buds .ind the increa.se of 
fruit, may be eflected by checking the growth 
of vigorous trees ; but this should be cautiously 
practiced. Leaf buds are changed into fruit 
buds by breaking off the ends of lateral branches 
in Summer, and so turning back the flow of 
sap upon the leaf buds. 

Root Priming has been tried to a limited 



234 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



extent — mainly in the nursery or the amateur's 
garden. It consists in promoting fruitfulness 
by digging a trench around the tree a few feet 
distant, and severing a portion of the roots. It 
tends to dwarf the tree, and can not be success- 
fully practiced except on young trees, 6r in 
fertile and well-pulverized soil. 

Propag'ation. — There are five methods 
of propagating fruit trees : 1, By planting the 
seeds and thereby producing new varieties ; 
2, by grafting ; 3, by budding ; 4, by layers ; 
5, by cuttings. 

Planltng. — If you haveyour ground prepared, 
and it is dry or well-drained, you can plant 
your seed in the Fall. Some, however, prefer 
to pack such seed in sand, and keep it cool and 
moist until Spring, and then plant it as early 
as it can be got in the ground. Plant an inch 
deep. The seeds of stone-fruits, such as cherry, 
peach, etc., should be planted in the Fall, or be 
80 exposed that they will freeze during the 
JVinter. Plant three or four times the diame- 
ter of the seed in depth. A light, rich loam, 
if you have it, is a good soil in which to grow 
trees. A well-drained soil is necessary. The 
seed for a nursery ought not to be taken from a 
grafted fruit, but from a seedling that has ar- 
rived at maturity, or to a state of strength and 
vigor, which is in accordance with the laws 
of nature ; for the progeny of early youth or 
old age are inferior to the productions of mid- 
dle age. If apple-seeds could be sown where 
they are permanently to remain, and there be 
grafted at the proper time, it would not be nec- 
essary to disturb the tap root — an important 
appendage to convey moisture to the tree in a 
dry season. 

Grafting. — Propagation by grafting is effected 
by inserting the scion or cutting in, or fixing 
it firmly on, the stock of a growing tree. If 
they are joined with an exact eye and a careful 
hand, so that the inner bark of both will coin- 
cide, the sap will flow upward from the tree to 
the scion without interruption, and the new 
wood will freely grow downward into the ex- 
posed cleft. It is necessary that the fibers and 
pores of the wood be cut evenly, with a sharp 
knife, and that after the scion is spliced to the 
lirabj d moderate pressure be applied to hold 
them together, and a complete plaster of grain- 
ing salve afterward added, so as to exclude, 
completely, the external air and moisture. 

Great care should be taken in cutting scions. 
Scions from an unhealthy stock are much more 



liable to affect the healthy tree than we are 
wont to suppose. They should be cut from 
healthy trees and from shoots of the last year's 
growth. We should be careful not to make use 
of too small and feeble shoots. There have 
been more failures from selecting too small 
scions, than from all other sources together. 
The bark should be glossy, with well-developed 
buds. The wood should be white and firm, not 
soft and spongy. C^ut them from young and 
healthy trees, and keep them in a damp place 
in the cellar till wanted, but do not allow them 
to be kept wet. In a cold latitude, cleft graft- 
ing should not be practiced on trees till the 
branches are one inch in diameter. The scion, 
after it is sharpened to a wedge-like point, so 
as to fit into the cleft, should be left thickest on 
the outer side, where the inner bark is to join 
that of the stock. A compound of three parts 
rosin, three of beeswax, and two of tallow, 
makes an excellent grafting-wax. A favorite 
salve is also made by mixing a pint of linseed 
oil, six pounds of rosin, and a pound of bees- 
wax. It may be applied in any way, so that 
no interstices remain, and no cracks whereby 
air and rain may enter. 

There are two methods of grafting much 
practiced: 1, Whip or tongue grafting, consXsim^ 
in splicing the scion to the stock, by joining 
them on an oblique cut ; and, 2, cleft or wedge 
grafting, the insertion of a wedge-shaped cut- 
ting in the cleft stock. The first of these meth- 
ods, particularly adapted to cases where the 
scion and stock are nearly of equal size, is ex- 




Figure 1. Figure 2. Figure 3. 

plained by Figures 1, 2, and 3, the first two show- 
ing the methods of whip and tongue cutting 
of the scion and limb, prior to joining them, 



PROPAGATION. 



235 



and the third a graft completed. Figure 4 




Figure 4. Figure 5. Figure 6. 

shows a graft leady cut for insertion into the 
cleft stock ; Figure 5 and Figure 6 represent 
the two properly joined, ready for the wax. 

Grafts put into old limbs will bear much ear- 
lier than those put into side shoots. In the 
former case they partake at once of the quali- 
ties of the mature bearing wood. 

Scions for grafting, it is said, may be sent 
safely to almost any distance by mail or ex- 
press, by dipping the ends in a thick solution 
of gum arable, and wrapping them in dry pa- 
per or oiled silk. When received they should 
be packed in dry sand in a box, or moss, or 
moist sawdust, and buried two feet deep in the 
earth on the north side of some building. The 
box should be so inclined as to shed the rain. 

The use of grafts or scions taken from young 
nursery trees that have never borne fruit, or 
" water-sprouts " from older trees, is a promi- 
nent cause of sterility of young orchards, and 
this opinion is the result of observation and 
experience. In the Northwest, grafting into 
the Siberian, Transcendent, and Hislop crabs 
might prove desirable, and on the northea.st 
side of the tree is thought to have some ad- 
vantage over the opposite in protection from 
the sun, and south and west winds. 

Grafting is done in Spring, when the buds 
are swelling, though apple and pear trees will 
bear grafting even after they are in leaf. Thom- 
as says: "After a graft is inserted, and as 
soon as the tree commences growth, the buds 
on the stock (near the graft) must be rubbed 
off, in order to throw the rising sap into the 
scion. The practice of allowing leaves to ex- 
pand on the stock near the point of union, to 
' draw up the sap,' appears to be founded in 
error," for the sap is expended before it reaches 
the graft. 

Root Grafling is strongly advocated by some, 
and objected to by others. It consists in cut- 
ting off the stock below ground, and inserting 



the graft, by whip or tongue grafting, in its 
its place, with its top above the ground. This 
kind of grafting is largely practiced by nur- 
serymen on one or two year seedling apple 
trees, and is not practicable on larger trees. 
The roots are generally taken up in the Fall, 
and carefully kept in pulverized muck till 
Spring, the grafting being meantime effected. 
It is more complicated, and requires more skill 
than stock grafting, and all who desire to prac- 
tice it should study Thomas' Fruit Culturisi 
carefully, or take lessons of an experienced 
nurseryman. 

At the Northern Illinois Horticultural So- 
ciety, in February, 1868, it was stated that the 
opposing arguments to the system of root graft- 
ing were speedily overwhelmed by the testi- 
mony of men of largest Western experience, 
and Pr. Wakder came down with his usual 
practical logic in its favor, defining the terms, 
and saying that careful experiment had demon- 
strated the sound philosophy of root grafting 
as a mode of propagation, that success de- 
pended less upon the mode of grafting than 
upon the variety and its habits. The Society 
adopted the following resolution on this subject: 
That root grafling is preferable to stock graft- 
ing, except with a few varieties. 

Budding. — In many localities, the propagation 
of varieties by budding is surer than by grafting. 
In the severer climate of the Northwest it is very 
difficult to get a sound, healthy union between 
the graft and the stock, and, in these latitudes, 
this result is easier secured by budding. Fruit 
can generally be obtained, however, two years 
sooner by grafting than by budding. 

Budding is effected by cutting through the 
bark across the stock, and, from the middle of 
this cut, making a short incision lengthwise 
of the limb — the whole resembling the letter T, 
as in Figures 1 and 2. "A bud is then cut from 




Fig. I. Fig. 2. Fig. 3, Fig. ■!. 

a shoot of the present year's growth by shav- 
ing off the bark an inch or an inch and a half 
in length," says Elliott in his Western Fruit 
Book. "A small part of the wood should re- 
main attached directly beneath the bud," as in 
Figure 3. The edges of the bark, at the incision 



236 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



in the Btoclc, are then raised a little, as 
in Figure 2, and the bud put in place, and 
pushed downward under the bark. A bandage 
of bass bark, woolen yarn, or other substance 
is then wrapped around, commencing at the 
bottom, and, passing the bud, returning ag;un 
tying just below, covering all but the bud, as 
represented in Figure 4. The pressure should 
be just sufficient to keep the inserted por- 
tion closely to the stock, but not such as to 
bruise or crush the bark. In about ton days 
or two weeks after insertion, examine and see 
whether the buds have taken, which may be 
determined by their freshness and plumpness; 
the strings will then require to be loosened, 
and, at the expiration of three weeks, removed 
altogether. The ensuing Spring, as soon as the 
bud begins to swell strongly, cut off the stock 
about six inches above the bud; and, as the 
shoot or bud grows, tie it to the piece of stock 
above its insertion until about midsummer, 
"when it will be time to cut away the piece of 
stock above the bud, leaving a sloping cut 
downward from the top of insertion of the bud. 
The bud should not be saturated in water, and 
any leaf connected with it should be immedi- 
ately cut oil' to within half an inch of the bud, 
otherwise the evaporation will exhaust and in- 
jure its vitality." 

The operation of budding is principally prac- 
ticed on small tree-s, and only duriug the time 
when the sap flows freely, and the bark peels 
readily — generally from the first of July to the 
middle of August. Buds should always be set 
before the stock has ceased to grow for the 
season. In setting pears in pear stocks it is 
important to commence earlier than with ap- 
ples, as the former do not grow so long as the 
latter. Plum and cherrj' stocks also stop grow- 
ing early, unless the development is kept up 
by stimulating manure and' careful tillage. 
Apple trees, if healthy and in" a good grow- 
ing condition, may be budded late in .\ugust. 
Peach trees continue to grow even longer tlian 
apple trees, and it is never advisable to bud 
them early. In all trees, when budded, there 
Bhould be sufficient sap to cause the bark to 
peel freely. 

In budding, the newly-.set bud is cemented 
to the wood of the stock by the cambium, a 
half-liquid substance between the bark and the 
wood, which hardens and fastens it firmly. 
The^ext Spring the bud grows, forms a shoot, 
and the two portions become securely united 
by the new wood. Unless there is enough of 
the cambium to cement the wood to the stock, 



the operation can not succeed ; and this is the 
reason why, with vigorously growing stocks, 
which are depositing much, budding succeeds 
better than with feeble growers, where but little 
of this cement exists. 

When apples are grafted or budded on crabs, 
pears on the wild species, plums upon plums, 
and peaches upon peaches or almonds, the 
scion is, in regard to fertility, exactly in the 
same state as if it had not been grafted at all; 
while, on the other hand, a great incrc.ise of 
fertility is the result of grafting pears upon 
quinces, peaches upon plums, apples upon white 
thorn, and the like. 

Cultings. — Propagation by cuttings is, next 
to sowing seed, the simplest method of multi- 
plying plants. It consists in setting a shoot of 
one year's growth in the soil, where, under fa- 
vorable conditions, the moisture supplies sap, 
the buds and leaves begin to show themselves, 
the granulations form a ring of new wood at 
the lower extremity and roots start out, giving 
permanent life to tlie plant. Ordinarily this 
method is only adaptable to the grape, currant, 
quince, and the hardier plants that strike root 
easier. Apple, pear, and peach cuttings will 
not throw out roots, except when confined 
under glass. Autumn is the best season to take 
off scions, and they should be cut off directly 
below a bud. More than half the shoot should 
be inserted in the ground. Grapes are propa- 
gated by placing the shoots horizontal, with a 
single bud attached. 

Lathers. — A. layer is a side limb, growing low, 
bent down at the middle, and covered in moist 
soil. Some trees and plants which can not 
easily be increased by cuttings, are propagated 
in this manner. The sap from the parent trunk 
sust4iins the layer while it strikes root, and 
after these are formed it is severed and trans- 
planted. More immediate success is sometimes 
attained by splitting upward a small portion of 
the layer, just-under a bud, at the point of its 
greatest curve. 

Dwarf Fruit Trees.— Where a man 
has but a small quantity of ground he can 
have more dwarf trees than standard varieties, 
in a given space, and many regard them as or 
namental. Heading, as they do, near the 
ground, the bodies of dwarf trees are better 
protected from the extremes of heat and cold 
than the taller varieties. Dwarf apples receive 
more attention than they formerly did, and 
most varieties admit of this mode of cultiva- 
tion. The apple on the Paradise stock is a 



THINNING FRUIT, ETC. 



237 



mere bush ; on tlie Doiicain stock it makes a 
little larger growth. 

Dwarf trees may be produced in tliree difi'er- 
ent ways — by grafting on slow-growing stocks, 
as the pear on tlie quince; by planting in pots 
of small size, tilled with poor soil, by wliich 
the plant is starved and stinted ; and by the 
Chinese method, of causing a portion of the 
extremity of a branch covered with a ball of 
moist clay, to produce roots, and then cutting it 
oft" and planting it in a box of poor soil. 

In the garden culture of the apple, where 
trees are retained as dwarfs or esi)aliers, the 
more vigorously growing kinds are often ren- 
dered unproductive by the excessive though 
necessary use of the pruning knife; such trees 
can be' made fruitful by digging them up, and 
replacing them in the same situation — root 
grafting might answer the purpose. The too 
great luxuriance of growth is checked, and a 
di.ipbsition to bear is brought on. In one in- 
stance, apple and pear-seeds were planted in a 
box in November, transplanted in the Autumn 
of the next year; every year the trilling lateral 
shoots were pruned away, leaving the large 
lateral shoots at full length to the bottom of the 
plants — one tree yielded fruit at lour years old, 
and .several at five and six. Checking a vigor- 
ous growth tends to the early production of 
fruit. 

Tbinning' Fruit. — Many trees are al- 
lowed to bear, in ordinary seasons, from four to 
six times as much fruit as accords with their 
full and perfect development. If large and 
choice well-flavored fruit is wanted of any kind 
it must be thinned out, removing a few at a 
time from every part of the tree, so as to leave 
the residue pretty evenly distributed. The 
work can not be well performed at once, and it, 
therefore, should be commenced early in the 
season, the operator going over his trees, 
bushes, or vines from time to time, removing 
now one here, now one there, as the eye meets 
it, and the evidence appears of the' advantage 
obtained by its removal. Early thinning, be- 
fore the strength of the tree or vine is taxed in 
the stoning or seeding, will avail much more 
than the same course afterward. 

Modes of Increasing- tlie Size of 
Fruit. — Professor Dubkieul points out ten 
ways by which the size of fruit may be in- 
creased; and as fruitgrowers are discovering 
that fine fruit brings a higher price in the city | 



markets, these modes are worthy of attention. 
We condense his rules : 

1. By dwarfing. 

2. Thinning the branches by pruning. 

3. Keeping the bearing shoots short and near 
to the center of the tree, small specimens grow- 
ing on the top of shoots. 

4. Thinning the fruit. 

5. Shortening in. 

6. Supporting the fruit on its foot stalk. 

7. Diminishing evaporation from the surface. 

8. Moistening the surface with copperas. 

9. Ringing. 

10. Inserting spurs of old trees on vigorous 
yonng ones. 

Barren Fruit Trees.—" What shall I 
do with these barren trees, set out fifteen year.s 
ago, in a rich prairie soil, their growth going 
all to wood in.stead of fruits?" "Take out the 
hearts," was the reply. So the hearts were 
taken out — all the interior limbs cut away. 
The beauty and symmetry of the trees were de- 
stroyed. It was done when the sap was in full 
flow, and the trees jnst out of blos.som. They 
were, indeed, an unsightly .spectacle. The fruit 
grew and remained on the trees, to the wonder 
of the owner. It would not thin out by drop- 
ping, but bent down their limbs and made the 
trees look like great spiders, vacant in the cen- 
ter and spreading in every direction. These 
trees bore the best crop in the orchard. But 
the crop was so heavy that it made alternate 
bearers of them. The second year they were 
again erect, growing rapidly as before, and 
loaded with blossoming, which ripened into 
very large crops of fineT fruit— a large, perfect 
yield. These are facts. The trees are yet 
standing, and are uncommonly strong growers, 
and will probably go back to their original 
nnfruitfulnesR, in which case they will need 
again to be pruned down as before. 

Renovating Old Fruit Trees.— 

Old apple and pear trees frequently become 
" hide bound." In other language, the bark 
becomes so hard and dry that the diameter of 
the body of the tree can not enlarge. This 
hard and ifirm bark will not yield, or give way 
to the expansive force of the sap and new wood 
scarcely more than if it were ti^ or sheet iron. 
As a natural and certain result, the health of 
the tree is impaired, and the fruit can not grow 
large, fair, and delicious, as it would be were 
the bark kept in a healthy condition. 



238 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



The bark of a healthy growing tree is more 
or less elastic; and as a new circle of wood is 
formed, the bark enlarges by expanding, and, 
in some places, cracking apart. After a few 
years scales of dead bark cover tlie body of 
the tree, which should be scraped oflf clear to 
the live bark. Sometimes it may be necessary 
to shave it off with a drawing-knife. If the 
tree is very old, and grows but little, we have 
frequently removed the outside half way 
through the live bark, afterward smearing the 
body with a thin coat of liquid grafting-wax, 
applied warm with a brush. This is essential 
to the health of old apple as well as pear trees. 
The bark of peach and plum trees should not 
be cut beyond the dead bark. 

Anotlier thing is, the soil needs renewing. 
Perhnjis for more than forty years a crop of 
fruit lias been produced from that ground 
where old trees st.and, witliout having received 
any fertilizing material to compensate for the 
long succession of crops of fruit. When tliis 
is the ca«e, remove six or eight inches in depth 
of the old soil, with horses and scraper, and 
haul rich alluvial, or sods from the highway 
side, in place of wliat has been removed. Min- 
gle with this earth sawdust and chip manure, 
the more the better. Let the whole be spaded 
in deep and thoroughly, with a few busliels of 
ashes or lime, and some barn-yard manure. In 
a year or two, if the trees are not too old, and 
been neglected too long, they will again bear 
like young trees. 

Another economical and effective manner of 
making old trees bear well, is to enclose each 
tree in the middle of a small yard, say fifteen 
or twenty feet square, and keep a few swine in 
it while fattening. Make holes eight inches 
deep, with a crow-bar, in scores of places be- 
neath the tree, dropping into each one a few 
kernels of grain. The swine will shortly root 
up every inch of ground, destroy all the roots 
of weeds and grass, and renovate the soil with 
the foecal matter which they deposit, so that 
another sea.son the trees will bear abundantly. 
This has been tried with the best results, on 
old pear and old cherry trees. Autumn is the 
best time to attend to it. 

Girdling fruit trees to produce fruit has been 
tried .successfully. Captain Joseph Davis, of 
Templeton, Massachusetts, noticed that an 
apple tree of his, which had not previously 
borne, had a small portion of the bark acci- 
dentally torn from its trunk, while in blossom, 
and produced quite a quantity of fine apples 
that year. The next year he experimented on 



a barren fruit tree, girdling only one of the 
largest branches, cutting away the entire bark 
about half an inch wide, taking care not to cut 
the wood ; and the result was this limb pro- 
duced a large quantity of fine apples, while the 
rest of the tree yielded none. Similar experi- 
ments on a large scale produced the same re- 
sults. 

Hon. John Y. Smith, of Wisconsin, says: 
" Hearing that the bark might be stripped 
from a fruit tree, any time in July, without in- 
jury, and having an apple tree that shed its 
fruit about the middle of July, we girdled two 
limbs, cutting a ring out entirely around about 
three-fourths of an inch wide. The fruit had 
mostly dropped off at the time, and the cause 
seemed to be the apple worm, so that no very 
marked effect upon the fruit was expected. 
Still, the fruit on those limbs hung on better 
than on the rest of the tree. It did not injure 
the limbs at all. A new, thin bark soon 
formed, not apparently by any inductive pro- 
cess from the bark on either side of the girdle, 
but as if the material oozed from the naked 
wood." Barren trees are sometimes made pro- 
ductive by July pruning and by cutting the 
roots at the tip ends. 

Bruising fruit trees in their blossoming sea- 
son, will produce the .same results. In our 
school-boy days, there stood upon the common 
near the school-house, a large black-walnut 
tree, which had never been known to bear 
fruit. A boyish freak induced a score or two 
of youths to pelt the tree unmercifully one 
Spring with good sized cobble-stones as a pun- 
ishment for its barrenness ; and to the surprise 
of all, that year at least, it produced a plenti- 
ful crop. 

Fertilization of the earth at the proper time 
and in proper measure, is, however, generally 
better than any thing else. Sap in plenty is to 
fruit trees what blood is to animals. lis vigor- 
ous flow reaches every part and gives to each 
its proper play and function. There are fre- 
quent instances of a decrepid, shriveled branch, 
which, by the throwing open and manuring of 
the roots, and a thorough pruning of the whole 
top, increases from an inch to two inches in 
diameter in a single season ; and without as- 
sistance as it grows, bursting and throwing off 
its old contracted bark as freely as the growth 
of a vigorous asparagus shoot would develop 
itself during a warm shower in May. 

IWanurfn^ Orchards.— Nothing pays 
better for care and attention than fruit. A 



DIGGING ABOUT TREES — MANAGEMENT OP FORKED TREES, ETC. 



239 



single acre kept in good heart by manuring 
and cultivation, will yield more profit than ten 
acres neglected in tlie ordinary way. The only 
secret in having apples abundant every year, 
is in keeping the trees clean and feeding them. 
Leached ashes make a good manure. 

Orchards, says the American Fanner, to en- 
sure continued t'ruitfulness and fair fruit, should 
be periodically manured, in order that the food 
carried off annually in the fruit, should be re- 
stored to the soil. Six parts peat and two of 
lime, or six parts marsh mud and two of marl, 
would form an excelleni dressing, in the pro- 
portion of twenty loads to the acre; the cost of 
which might be covered by growing a crop of 
corn, potatoes, or other roots thereon, the year 
of any such application. But see to it that the 
tiling be not overdone, and an excessive vege- 
table growth produced. 

Dig^gin^ About Trees.— Few trees, 
comparatively, have any roots to part with. 
For this reason the fork should be eruplnyed, 
instead of the spade, for pulverizing the ground 
where there are roots, as the spade will cut 
off all the small rootlets, to the injury of the 
growth of the tree. The tines of a fork will 
crowd them aside, seldona breaking even the 
small ones. Then, as the hard soil is broken 
np with fork-tines, and removed from the roots 
and returned to them thoroughly jmlverized, 
all the little fibers are brought in contact with 
different portions of soil that has not been ex- 
hausted of its fertility. Thus, comparatively 
new earth settles around the roots, so that in a 
short time the spcngioles begin to absorb plant- 
food, and thus promote the growth of the 
branches and the fruit. Now, if a spade be 
used, such a large proportion of the roots will 
be severed that the sources of plant-food are all 
cut off, except a small proportion of the root- 
lets beneath the large roots, far down in the 
soil, beneath the reach of the spade, where 
they can absorb only a limited supply of nour- 
ishment. Great care should be exercised, 
whether the soil is pulverized with fork or 
spade, to mutilate the roots as little as possible. 

Slanag-ement or Forked Trees.— 

There is always danger of forked fruit trees 
splitting down by high winds or a heavy yield 
of fruit. We have seen in Illinois, and other 
Western States, a very simple and effective 
remedy. Let twigs or small limbs grow out on 
the inside of each prong, say six or eight 
inches or more, above the fork, and when they 



are long enough to reach across the sprtce, twist 
them together — in some cases tying may be 
necessary to keep them firmly attached — and a 
second set of sprigs, similarly twisted, a little 
distance above the others, and the ligament 
will soon grow firmly together, and enlarge 
from year to year, rendering it impossible for 
the tree to split at the fork. 

Coreless and Seedless Fruils. — As 

early as 1838, the senior editor of this work 
learned from his friend, S. S. Abbott, then of 
Alexander, Genesee county New York, that 
when a youth, attending a country school in 
central New York, he, in conjunction with his 
school-fellows, in a freak one day, tore up by 
the roots a barren apple tree near the school- 
house and replanted it firmly in the ground 
invertedly — the roots uppermost. Contrary to 
all expectation, the tree survived, re-rooted, 
sent forth a new top, and in due time yielded a 
fine harvest of fruit — all delicious apples, but 
without core or .seed, and such was the charac- 
ter of the fruit ever after. This singular freak 
of nature was mentioned to the late Paul 
Hawes, of Sylvania, Ohio, a man of close ob- 
servation, who said that he had often experi- 
mented in raising fruit without cores or seeds, 
and always with success. He said that he 
would generally bend down some low limb of 
a tree, so as to insert its top in the earth, and 
when it had taken root, would sunder it from 
the parent tree, transplant it. At sufficient 
age, it would produce coreless and seedless 
fruit; somelimes, not often, he added, there 
would be a slight indication of a core observa- 
ble, but never of the seed. 

We have seen and eaten apples, says John 
Y. Smith, editor Wisconsin Farmer, as desti- 
tude of seed or core as the soundest potato; 
and we were told that they were produced by 
inverting the tree. 

To make peaches grow without stones, an 
agriculturist, who has tried it with success, 
says ; Turn the top of the tree down, cut off" 
the ends, stick them into the ground, and fa.sten 
so with stakes ; in a year or two those tops 
will take root, and when well rooted, cut the 
branches connecting these reversed and rooted 
branches with the tree proper, and this re- 
versed peach tree will produce fine peaches 
without stones. The same experiment may be 
tried with plums, cherries, currants, and grapes. 
How much better these fruits would be for eat- 
ing, drying and cooking; and seedless grapes 
would give us seedless raisins. 



240 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES ; 



The best oranges in the market at Bahia, 
Brazil, are superior flavored and seedless — 
doubtless produced in this way. When we call 
to mind the increased richness and delicacy of 
animal food — the capon, for instance, when 
deprived of the power of reproduction, may 
we not have sufficient grounds to hope and ex- 
pect that the flavor of fruit would be much 
improved by the process here indicated? 

Ornamental Fruit Plantations. 

One of the subjects that commends itself 
to the practical horticulturist who finds it 
necessary to make the beautiful subserve the 
good, is the arrangement of his orchards and 
other fruit plantations so as to at once please 
the eye and at the same time admit of facility of 
cultivation and the proper production of fruits. 
Mr. Saunders, of the Experimental Gardens, 
at Washington, says he has long endeavored to 
show how fruit trees may be arranged to take 
the place of purely ornamental trees in pleas- 
ure grounds. In grouping the trees, he would 
make the outline of the groups irregular, while 
the trees may be placed in a formal manner 
in the interior of such groups, each group may 
contain a certain class, or variety of class. Oc- 
cupying the center ol such groups, upright grow- 
ing kinds, such as the Bufl'um, among pears, 
and tlie Lady apple, among apples, may be 
planted in the extreme outlines, set with pend- 
ant varieties. Avenues (straight) planted with 
the cherries will be suitable. Dwarf apples 
and pears will make a tine, efl'ective outline, 
surrounding the larger tree. Winter ajjples in 
one group. Summer apples in anotlier, Winter 
pears in a third, etc. For shrubbery, cur- 
rants and gooseberries answer. Kaspberries 
should be placed in an arrangement by them- 
selves. These and strawberries can not be 
made to produce much eflect in land.scape. 

Many of the fruit trees are of beautiful habit 
of growth, as fine as any other deciduous trees, 
but the mode of planting an orcliard would 
make any tree look commonplace. An acre of 
Norway spruce or Sugar maple planted twenty- 
five feet apart would look as formal as any 
apple orchard. 

PiclUng' and Preserving- Apples 

and Pears. — We copy the following, on 
tilis branch of the subject, from the Rural 
World: "Moat people let apples and pears be- 
come too ripe before they gather them. They 
wish to see them fully ripe — ready to fall ott' 
the tree before they pick them. This is wrong. 



If picked a few days before maturity they will 
keep longer, color more highly, and command 
a better price in market. The precise time to 
pick is rather diflicult to determine. The best 
criterion is to raise the fruit up and bend the 
stem over, and if the stem parts from the shoot 
without breaking, the fruit is ready to pick — 
whether apples or pears. Pears should be 
picked earlier than apples. The quality of 
the fruit is also improved by early gathering. 
After being picked it should be put in tight 
boxes or barrels, and kept a few days in the 
dark, if of Summer or Fall varieties. Here 
they undergo a sweating process, and when the 
box or barrel is opened, the fruit will be found 
of the brightest crimson and richest golden 
colors. Half of the secret of success in or- 
charding, is in knowing how and when to pick 
fruit, and how to get it to market so as to com- 
mand the highest price and readiest sales. 
Every one's experience must govern him, and 
the more he studies this matter, the more ex- 
pert he will become." 

Summer apples, and especially those inclined 
to mealiness, should be picked early — as soon 
as the skin begins to change color, otherwise 
they part with their juices, and become worth- 
less. Kipeness is indicated by the .seeds turn- 
ing dark colored, and by the stem parting 
readily from the tree when it is lifted upward. 

Winter apples and pears should be allowed 
to remain on the trees as long as vegetation is 
active, or until frosts are apprehended. 

The Maine Farmer, on the other hand, wishes 
to disabuse the public mind in regard to the 
sweating of apples. "We do not believe," it 
says, "in anything of the kind. We have not 
seen it on our own apples for twelve years past, 
simply because we have put them into the 
cellar at the close of a warm day in October, 
when the apples were warmer than the cellar. 
Put them in the cellar in November, when the 
apples are colder than the cellar, and they will 
condense the warmer moisture of the room 
upon them, and this is all the sweating they 
ever have. If you doubt it, try two barrels, 
one in a warm day in October, and the other 
on a cold day in November, and you will be 
convinced." 

With reference to the mode of gathering the 
fruit, some do so with a step-ladder, or a light 
narrow ladder, and a sort of sling sack thrown 
over the left shoulder, with the mouth in front, 
picking the fruit carefully with the right hand 
and placing it in the sack, with as much ten- 
derness as they would so many eggs. All fruit 



riCKING AND PRESEEVINCi APPLES AND PEARS. 



241 



^ r\ /ft /fj 




bIiouIcI lie emptied with pireat care to keep 
well. Tlie baskets into which fruit is deposited 
from the sack.s should be broad and shallow, 
with paper, cloths, or moss placed in the bot- 
tom to prevent bruises, and also between layers. 
Fruit should only be gathered in dry weather, 
and in the dry time of the day. 

A cheap and simple fruit-gatherer has been 
brought to the notice of the public, by N. G. 
Caknes, of Kiverdale, New York. It is sim- 
ply a narrow sheet of strong 
tin, bent to a circle, and the 
ends tacked to the end of a 
pole. The upper edge is cut 
with notches to pick the 
fruit, and a bag large enough 
to hold half a dozen or more 
fair-sized apples, is attached 
to tlie lower edge. The en- 
graving represents the han- 
dle inserted in a tin tube, 
which is soldered to the side 
of the apparatus, but this is 
not necessary. Any one can 
fit up this arrangement with 
a piece of old tin leader, a 
small strip of muslin, and 
a pole, at an expense of not 
over six cent.s, and it will 
be as effective as many implements of the sort 
costing ten or twenty times the amount. The 
teeth or scolloped edges should be rounded 
and filed smooth, to prevent their cutting the 
apples, pears, and peaches in careless handling. 
It is speaking within bounds to say that one- 
half of all the Winter fruit put up for market 
or for famrly use is spoiled in gathering, and 
in careless handling after it is gathered — few 
realizing the mischief a bruised apple will 
cause to those that come in contact with it in 
bin or barrel. 

In barreling apples, some advise putting a 
little sprinkling of dry hay or oat straw be- 
tween the layers, but we doubt whether the 
hard substances likely to get in would not, on 
the whole, do more harm than would be bal- 
anced by the isolation of the fruit, unless 
enough were put in to make it objectionable 
on account of the filling up. Something of the 
kind should be put in the bottom of the barrel 
to relieve the pressure against the wood, the 
barrel be filled nearly even with the head, and 
the fruit shaken down gently and a little pack 
ing be put over the top so that the head will 
press snugly upon it, to keep the fruit from 
shucking about when moved. Vent holes should 
16 



be bored in Imth heads of llic barrel before the 
fruit is put in. 

In packing for long transportation, the ap- 
proved method is to press the apples down by 
a press constructed for the purpose, so that in 
handling there is no moving about of the fruit 

the barrel. In this practice care is exercised 
not to apply so much pressure as to crush the 
fruit, but apply sufficient to pack it firmly to- 
gether. But the fruit properly gathered and 
packed, all its subsequent handling should be 

th the delicacy with which we handle eggs. 
Care in these respects is all that is necessary to 
make the fruit business much more reliable 
than it is at present, and much more profitable 
both to seller and buyer. 

There are many opinions as to keeping fruit; 
people generally ignoring the fact that the best 
method in one locality will by no means be 
tlie best in another — this depending on the tem- 
perature and dryness of the place, and the kind 
of fruit. In cool dry cellars apples are usually 
kept best on large shelves — the Rhode Island 
Greening and Northern Spy preserving their 
texture and flavor a long time in this way. 
Some kinds of Pippins al.so keep very well on 
shelves; while those that, like the Holland Pip- 
pin, sometimes have more or less black spots on 
the skin, will keep better on shelves than in 
barrels — as when barreled up the black spots 
on these apples will soon mold and rot. Air, 
and freeness from too much moisture, are what 
apples most require. 

Keeords are daily made, and have been for 
years, of the success of keeping apples after 
being frozen solid, and hundreds of barrels are 
yearly buried in the earth and brought out in 
Spring as fresh as so many potatoes. The one 
great condition of the preservation of a frozen 
apple is that it be kept in the dark until com- 
pletely thawed out. And the condition of 
keeping apples in ordinary dry cellars, is to 
place them in bins, or boxes, of about one 
foot in depth, and cover them from all light, 
while at the same time there is kept up a free 
circulation of air in the apartment. Light and 
warmth serve to assist the natural process of 
maturation, while shade and a cool tempera- 
ment retard it. Shade, again, in a contined 
atmosphere, as in the case of apples barreled 
tight, often advances decay rather than re- 
tard it. 

At a recent New York State Fair, Delos 
Rdndall had on exhibition some Rus.set ap- 
ples grown a year before. They were plump, 
fresh, and of good flavor, quite as good as the 



242 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



same kind of apples oidinarily are on the ap- 
proach of Spring. They were put up in refusse 
boxes obtained at the groceries, and in the follow- 
ing manner: A layer of dry sawdust was sprink- 
led at the bottom of the box, and tlien a layer 
of apples placed in it so that they did not touch 
each other. Upon these were placed a layer' 
of sawdust, and so on until the box was filled. 
The boxes, after being packed in this way, were 
placed on the wall of tlie cellar, up from the 
ground, where they kept, perfectly retaining 
their freshness and flavor, until brought out 
and e.xliibi(ed at the fair. He says he has kept 
apples in this way some months later than those 
here mentioned. 

Another excellent plan for late keeping is, to 
wrap up each apple in a bit of old paper and 
pack tliem in barrels or bo.xes. Old newspapers 
torn into patches eight or ten inches square, will 
answer. However packed, all wormy or other- 
wise defective apples should be culled out. 
Store apples, in p'all and Winter, should be 
kept in a dry place, and as cool as is consistent 
witli safety from frosts. 

To those who have not a good dry cellar, the 
following plan, suggested by a Missouri corres- 
pondent of the Prairie Farmer, will probably 
answer as a substitute, increasing the amount 
of covering in colder latitudes: Select a dry 
spot near tlie dwelling — dig a trench to the 
depth of half the length of a barrel, and a lit- 
tle wider; cover the bottom with a sprinkling 
of cornstalks; set the barrels filled with apples 
on this bedding and put slalks between the bar- 
rels and the sides of the trench ; cover well 
with hay or straw and over this a coating of 
earth' three or four inches thick. Make a roof 
of two wide planks, edges nailed together. 
When Winter sets in put a few inches of dirt 
over the roof. When a barrel of apples is 
wanted take it from under the roofing and close 
the pit tightly again till all are removed. 

Drying' Fruit. — Dried apples and peach- 
es constitute a considerable article of commerce. 
But their quality is immeasurably inferior to 
that which might be attained. The same dif- 
ference in flavor exists between unpalatable 
seedlings and the most highly improved graft- 
ed variety, whether they be fresh or dried. 
Yet the poorest apples are usually selected, 
simply because the dried fruit is bought by the 
pound and not for its excellence. Late or in- 
ferior peaches are chosen, because their owners 
have no other use for them; when besides the 
inferior flavor of the late seedling so largely 



used, the cool damp weather to which they are 
exposed while drying, does the work in a very 
imperfect manner, and a half-decayed flavor is 
often mingled with that of the fruit itself. If 
dried at all in the open air, it is of much con- 
sequence that early sorts, both of apple and 
peach, be .selected, (hat tlie benefit of a hot sun 
may be .secured. Why is it not as easy to plant 
and raise early prolific sorts, that will ripen at 
a lime when two days of hot sun will dry them, 
as later sorts, which will scarcely get dry at all 
in the open air? 

The want of a free circulation of heated air 
is the reason why the use of flat boards and 
shelves is usually attended with greater or less 
decay. Light wooden lattice work is better, 
but imperfectly admits a free circulation, with- 
out making tlie slits too wide to prevent the 
dried fruit from falling through. Cheap net- 
ting or light twine is a still farther improve- 
ment. Frames covered with coarse gauze or 
netting would probably be found well adapted 
for drying the smaller fruits. If dried in a 
drying room, with artificial heat, upon netting 
shelves, stretche<l on frames, one above another, 
still there must be a current of atmosphere to 
sweep ofl^ the moisture from the fruit. 

Apples should be dried in clear, dry weath?r, 
and never exposed to wet, or the night air. 
Such exposure lurus them a dark color, which 
not only lessens the market value of the arti- 
cle when offered for sale, but renders them less 
desirable for culinary uses. After exposure for 
some days to the air and sun, remove to a light 
airy chamber, and there perfect the process, 
keeping open the doors and windows while the 
sun is above the horizon, but securely closed 
while below. Dried apples, manufactured in 
tliis way, will he found greatly superior to the 
same article made in the ordinary careless man- 
ner. Only sound and perfect fruit should be 
selected for this use. 

Influence of Stra'ivberrs' Plants 

on Trees. — On this suliject, we have the fol- 
lowing from the Country Gentleman : "There are 
few, if any, cultivated plants .so pernicious to 
fruit trees and berry bushes :is the strawberry 
when it is planted around or near to tlieiii. They 
not only feed largely upon the mineral, vege- 
table, and electrical ingredients of the earth, 
but also partake of the life-producing qualities 
which surround them in the atmosphere. While 
the strawberry looks thrifty and vivacious, the 
other fruits it has encompassed appear wan and 
sickly, notwithstanding that the soil they stand 



FRUIT OIIOWING IN THE SOUTH. 



243 



upon tnav ne fertile. Yoii must not expect j 
larpe, rich fi'uit.s to grow within its surround- 
ings, for the natural reason that the strawberry 
plant holds a stronger affinity in attracting the i 
ga.ses and electrical currents from the vivifying 
atnio.-^phere, and the more crude and unmel-i 
lowed ahsorhonts from the earth." 

Fruit Grooving- in the Sowtli.— 

At a recent Pcmiological Convention, held in 
Xew York city, Mr. Redmond, of Georgia, set 
forth the superiority of the climate of the 
Sduihern Statea' for the production of nearly 
all the finer varieties of oullivated fruits. He 
remarked that a great misapprehension had 
long existed in regard to Winter Apples at the 
South, it having been supposed that long-keep- 
ing varieties could not be raised there. This is 
a mistaken notion. If Southern seedling vari- 
eties are selected, there is no difficulty in pro- 
ducing, throughout the Southern States, apples 
superior in size and flavor, and fully equal in 
keeping qualities to the very best of the North 
or Europe. Pie also spoke of the success of 
the Pear at the South, and e.'cpressed the opin- 
ion that it would there attain its highest devel- 
opment and perfection. The Peach finds its 
true home in the South, and has long been the 
favorite fruit of the people. It has been found 
a very profitable fruit for shipment to tlie 
North, and large orchards are cultivated on 
the railroads leading to Savannah, Charleston, 
and Norfolk, for the supply of the New York 
market. A constant succession of Peaches 
may be had in the South from early June until 
the first week in November. The Nectarine 
and Plum also succeed well; but the .\pricot is 
liable to be cut off by the Spring frosts. The 
Quince is not grown to any considerable extent, 
but succeeds well in some localities. The 
Cherry, as a general rule, does not succeed well 
in the far South ; the common Morello does 
better than the finer varieties. The Currant 
and Gooseberry can not be profitably culti- 
vated at the South; neither, as a general thing, 
can the im)iroved varieties of Raspberry. The 
Strawberry succeeds perfectly, producing fruit 
for three or four months in .succession, when 
regularly watered. The Jujube and the Olive 
are beautil'ul and valuable fruits, and worthy of 
a place in every garden in the South — as is 
.ilso the Pomegranate, which grows very freely 
and hardly ever fails of a crop. Of all fruits 
cultivated at the South, the Fig requires the 
least care, and is one of the most useful and 
productive. It comes into bearing early, pro- 



duces two or three crops a year; and if dried 
for exportation or preserved in sugar, might be 
made a crop of great importance to the South. 
The Grape is beginning to attract great and de- 
served attention at the South. It grows there 
with a luxuriance, and produces such an abun- 
dance as is seen in no other portion of the Union. 
Large vineyards are being planted ; new varie- 
ties introduced; vine-growing a.ssociations and 
companies formed, etc. Many vineyards are 
now in successful bearing, and the wine al- 
ready produced has been pronounced very 
superior by all connoisseurs who have tested it. 
The vine succeeds perfectly on poor lands and 
hill-sides unfit for ordinary planting purposes! 
and the raising of Grapes for market and wine- 
making is destined very soon to become of the 
very greatest importance to the whole South. 

The fact has come under our observation, 
says the Wisconsin Farmer, that in the South, as 
far as central Alabama, and we know not how 
ranch farther, the peach trees are liable to fail- 
ure, and that they begin to die just as our apple 
trees do here — on the southwest side — and to 
prevent this, they set up a board on that side, 
close to the trunk, extending up to the branches. 

It appears from a paper read before the Penn- 
sylvania Horticultural Society, by Dr. P. J. 
Berckm.\xs, of Augusta, Georgia, that apple 
trees fail there jtist as they do in Wisconsin. 
Death commences in the trunk on the .south- 
west side, and extends to the top and around 
the whole tree till it is destroyed, and that they 
seek to avoid the difficulty just as we do here, 
by growing the tops close to the ground. It 
appears also that the AVinter varieties of the 
Eastern States are worthless there, and that 
thej' are obliged to seek out new varieties which 
will stand the heat of that climate, just as we 
are obliged to look out for varieties which will 
stand the peculiarities of our Northwestern cli- 
mate. Whether the killing of fruit trees in 
the South and in the Northwest is from the 
same extreme — heat and dry winds— or from 
opposite extremes in the two localities, we re- 
gard as still a subject for study. Certain it is 
that trees which die in Georgia and .\labama 
precisely in the same way that they do in Wis- 
consin, do not freeze to death in Winter in those 
localities ; while it is not equally certain that 
in this locality they do not burn to death in the 
Summer. Extremes of heat and extremes of 
cold, however, often produce very similar ef- 
fects. Without further comment, we copy the 
remarks of Dr. Bekckjians, on apples in the 
South : 



lU 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREE3 



" The Apple. — This being the most reliable 
in its products, must rank as our first fruit in 
cultivation. For years past tlie prevailing 
opinion throughout the South has been tliat 
this fruit will not succeed well enough to be 
depended upon as a profitable crop. Happily, 
this prejudice is losing ground, and more atten- 
tion is being paid to the cultivation of this fruit. 
The main failures are owing to the selection of 
varieties unsuited to the climate, and the train- 
ing of trees as high-bodied standards. The 
Xorthern and European Summer apples gen- 
erally improve in quality here, but few late 
Fall apples of the North are worthy of cultiva- 
tion; and, so far, I know no true Northern 
Winter apple that is of any value for us. The 
latter drop their fruit in August, before they 
are perfected; and, as a whole, are unfit for any 
purpose whatever. The want of Southern Win- 
ter apples, long felt, is now amply supplieil. 
Thanks to the efibrts of our Southern pomolo- 
gists, we have now a class of fruits wliich are 
bringing the culture of the apple on a large 
scale a profitable feature here. As to the qual- 
ity of these Winter apples, numbers are of the 
very best description, and we have scores of 
varieties that will keep until April or May in 
tlie middle sections of the States of Georgia, 
Alabama, Soutli Carolina, and Mississippi. 

" The training of tlie apple trees has been 
heretofore very defective. Having few works 
treating upon Southern pomology, the public 
have been dependent on the writings and 
teachings of the Northern pomologists; and 
although no work has its equal in the world to 
'Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees,' it will not 
do to follow it verbatim in every section of the 
country. 

" We require shade, in the Eastern States 
sun is necessary to perfect fruit; hence our aim 
is to train onr trees with low bodies, making 
the foliage of the tree shade its roots, and en- 
deavoring to make the heads as comp.ict as 
possible, and produce the fruit as near its cen- 
ter as can be feasible. Hence, high, naked- 
bodied trees are short-lived^the bark is dis- 
eased on the southwest side, the lieads are 
likewise deficient there, and, after a few years, 
the tree decays and dies. 

" The apple tree begins to bear much sooner 
than farther north. Some varieties, like the 
Shockley, will produce remunerative crops the 
third year after transplanting. Others require 
more age; but as a rule, an orchard begins to 
bear well the fourth year of planting. We re- 
quire young trees to start with — -one-year-old 



apple trees cut back to two feet, arc the most 
preferable. The apple grows with snch vigor 
tliat one-year-old nursery trees often attain ten 
feet growth upon ordinary uplanil." 

We find in the Southern Field and Fireside the 
following statement by Dr. BerckmanS, per- 
taining to pear culture in the South; "The 
Bartlett is decidedly better here than in New 
York or Pennsylvania; the White Doyenne is 
more hardy, more certain, hut rather too rich ; 
the Flemish Beauty, the Pratt, the BufTum, the 
Van Assche, are larger and better here than in 
the North. So with nearly all the pears I had 
occasion to test in Georgia and South Carolina, 
except the old Winter pears. Varieties of 
doubtful quality in the North, as the Parfuni 
Aout, Foudante de Septembre, Bellissime 
D'Ete, Belle de Bruxelles, wliich I fmind to be 
of uncertain or second quality in Boston, New 
York, and New Jersey, are almost of first qual- 
ity in my grounds in upper Georgia, a paradise 
for this favorite fruit. So much for the influ- 
ence of a Southern temperature upon the pear. 
.-Vnd, as for the much-dreaded action of the 
Southern sun upon the bark, let me remark 
that I found it not to be so prejudicial as it is 
commonly thought to be. I have planted all 
sorts of trees, and some with highly denuded 
bodies; I have not found any of them to sutler 
from that cause. The only pernicious effects iu 
such cases is owing to the rash process of sud- 
denly removing the protecting liinbs from a 
fruit tree, when the body has not been exposed 
and inured from its early youth to the South- 
western rays of the sun." 

If an apple was the forbidden fruit of Par- 
adise, it was the falling of an apple that led 
Sir Isaac Newton to discover the law of 
gravitation. The apple, says Downing, is the 
world-renowned fruit of temperate climates. 
It is "the king of fruits," and " belts the year." 
Out of a thousand varieties, less than fifty will 
be found eminently profitable. We .shall aim 
to notice only the tried and reliable few, leav- 
ing the curiosity hunters to indulge their love 
for novelties. 



APPLES— SUMMEE VAPJETIE.S. 

^CTomt.— Said to be the prince of early apples 
for the Ohio Valley; the limbs have an upright 
habit, fruit is good and rich, ripening in July, 
and the tree is healthy and a good bearer. 
Succeeds finely on the Western prairies, and in 
the South. 



APPLES — SUMMER AND AUTUMN VARIETIES. 



245 



Carolina Red June. — Much cultivated in tlie 
South, where it ripens in June; in Illinois, 
Iowa, and soutliern Wisconsin it lias proved 
hardy and a profuse bearer, and ripens in July 
and August; fruit medium size, deep shining 
red and white, tender and pleasant. About 
two weeks later than the Ked Astraclian. 

Dutchess of Oldenburg. — This is of Russian 
origin, and one of the very hardiest for the 
Northwest, standing the Winters as far North 
as St. Paul; fruit medium to large, light red 
and striped, sharp subacid. Season, .\ugust and 
September. 

Early Harvest. — A pale yellow fruit, one of 
the very best early apples for all purposes ex- 
cept keeping; not, however, a prolific bearer. 
July and August. 

Early Joe. — Hardy, a good bearer when well 
grown; fruit of a delicate pear flavor. Last of 
August. Dr. Jo-SEPH HoBBiNS, of Wisconsin, 
recommends the Early Harvest and Early Joe, 
tested bj' him, as suited for general culture in 
the Northwest. 

Early Peimoch: — A thrifty, hardy tree, and 
an early and prolific bearer, of not more than 
second rate quality; fruit greenish yellow, 
juicy, subacid. August. 

Eai-ly Strawberry. — Sometimes called the 
American Ked Junealing; tree erect, produc- 
tive; fruit rather small, yellowish wliile, sub- 
acid, tender, and generally esteemed. July. 

Fuitrtk of July. — From Columbus, Ohio, not 
ideiuieal with the Tetot'sky, but resembling it 
in beauty of growth and hardiness of tree, but 
fruit of better quality — worthy of general culti- 
vation, especially in the Northwest, where or- 
chards are liable to winter-kill. July. 

Garden Royal. — A slender, slow growing tree 
while young, hardy, annually productive; 
suited to gardens, or small orchards when a 
delicious fruit is desired for family use; fruit 
rather below medium size, tender, mild sub- 
acid. August and September. 

Golden Sueel. — Tree hardy, irregular grower 
wliile young, spreading to|), very productive 
and profitable; fruit medium size, yellow or 
green, a rich, agreeable sweet taste, excellent 
for baking. Late Summer and early Fall. 

High Top Sweet. — Or Sweet Lowell, or Sum- 
mer Sweet, or Sweet June — tree hardy, up- 
right, productive; fruit medium, greenish yel- 
low, juicy, sweet, and good. August. Very 
popular West and Southwest; is being intro- 
duced into the Northwest. 

Red Astrachan. — One of the few universally 
recommended for the Norllnvcst; a hardy Rus- 



sian variety, good bearer, rather acid, and a 
fine cooking and marketing variety. August. 

Saps nf Wine. — A hardy fine growing tree; 
fruit medium size, light red, juicy, mild, sub- 
acid, good. Augu.sl to September. It has suc- 
ceeded well in the Northwest, and is e-fcelleut 
and popular everywhere. 

Sweet Bough. — Tree rather lender, a moder- 
ate annual bearer, succeeding on good soils not 
wet ; fruit hardy, medium size, greenish to pale 
yellow, crisp and sweet, desirable as a dessert 
fruit. 

White Juneating. — Tree upright, moderately 
productive, will bear close planting; fruit small, 
but very early, pale green, tender, juicy, sub- 
acid. Last of June and early July. 

Williams' Favorite. — Hardy, and good bearer ; 
fruit medium size, mostly red, tender, and very 
good. August. 

Tetofsky. — This is one of the hardy Russian 
varieties, a regular annual bearer, similar to 
but earlier than than the Red Astrachan; fruit 
medium size, subacid, aromatic. Last of Julv. 



AUTUMN VARIETIES. 

Autumn Strawberry. — Hardy, upright, vigor- 
ous and productive; fruit medium, oval, striped, 
juicy, and good. October. 

Bailey Sweet. — Tree hardy, fruit large, yel- 
lowish red, I'alher dry, otherwise rich and good. 
November to December. 

Bevan. — Hardy, vigorous, spreading; fruit 
medium size, striped on yellow, spicy, rich, 
high flavored. September, 

Borovitsky. — Another of the hardy Russian 
varieties, suited to the Northwest; fruit round- 
ish, pale green, translucent, sunnyside faintly 
striped, firm, juicy, and agreeable, subacid. 
August to September. 

Cooper's Early While. — Grown in Illinois and 
Wisconsin, where it is regarded as prodnclive 
and profitable ; fruit medium size, roundish, 
jiale yellow, flesh white, crisp, and sprightlv. 
Needs a soil supplied with potash. September 
and October. 

Drop D'Or, or Clulh of Gold. — Hardy and 
vigorous; good annual bearer, excellent mar- 
ket variety; subacid, juicy, an<l well flavored; 
succeeds well in northern Illinois and south- 
ern Wisconsin. September and October'. 

Emperor Alexander. — Of Ru.ssian origin, 
hardy; fruit a beautiful deep red, tree spread- 
ing, vigorous, and productive. October and 
November. A northern Iowa farmer stroiig!'^ 



246 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



recommends, from liis own experience, the 
Kussian varieties, Borovitsky, Dutchess of 
Oklenburgh, Emperor Alexander, Red Astra- 
cluui, and TetofsUy, as succeeding well fully as 
far Xiirtli as the forty-fourth degree of latitude 
liy giving winter mulching to protect the roots; 
:ind were he to plant another orchard, he would 
plant one half his ground with them. They 
iiif all, he adds, vigorous growers and early 
bearers. 

Fallmvater, or Tulpehocken. — From Pennsyl- 
vania; huge and popular, second rate; tree 
stiiul, vigorous, and spreading; produces well 
on limestone soil, and fruit having a thick skin, 
keeps well even in Southern latitude.s. 

I-hll Orange. — Tree a fine hardy grower, bear- 
ing very young; fruit light greenish yellow; 
large, subacid, and first rate when well ripened 
and fresh from the tree. 

Fall Pippin. — Tree tender, but survives the 
Winters of nortliern lUinoi.s, southern Iowa, 
and southern Wisconsin, it is a coarse grower, 
and requires wide planting; bears moderately 
while young; fruit large, greenish yellow, 
splendid. Grown extensively in the Eastern 
and Western States. October to December. 

Fall Queen, or Horse Apple. — Hardy, and an 
e;irly and productive bearer; fruit large, yel- 
hiw an J striped, mild subacid flavor; nmch 
grown and much esteemed in the South and 
Southwest, and adapted to the Northwest. 
September. 

Fall Stripe. — Vigorous grower, early and 
productive bearer; extra hardy for the Xorth- 
west; fruit, medium size, round, aromatic, sub- 
acid. August and September. 

Fall Wine, or Sweet Wine. — Tree slender, 
Bijff growth, healthy, producing annually, but 
moderately; much grown in Indiana and Illi- 
nois as the Wine apple; fruit medium to large, 
rich red, marbled over clear yellow, with spots, 
juicy, subacid, delicious. September to No- 
vember. 

Fall Winesap. — Generally very hardy; fruit 
medium size, round, conical, pale green, witli 
blush ; juicy, vinious, good, and a great favorite. 
October to January. 

Gravenstein. — Succeeds well on all soils, an- 
nually productive; fruit large and handsome, 
changing from pale green to rich yellow; ten- 
der rather sour, good, with a peculiar aromatic 
taste. September and October. 

Haas of Northern Illinois. — This is a very 
liardy apple, different from the Hass of south- 
ern Illinois, and it diflers too from the Fall 
Queen, with which it has been confounded. 



1 
Rapid grower, best adapted f 
ioil ; very productive 'and ' 
■ek 

m- 



From its success where tried in Wisconsin, it 
bids fair to prove a valuable variety for the 
Northwest. 

Keswick Codtin. — Hardy,- bears early and 
profusely, and is valuable for cooking; suited 
to Western soils and the Northwest generally; 
fruit above medium size, greenish yellow, ten- 
der, and acid. September and October. 

Lowell, or Greasy Pippin. — Hardy, good, and 
early bearer; has succeeded well in Ohio and 
nortliern Illinoi.s, and is there commended for 
extensive cultivation for de.ssert, cooking and 
market purposes ; fruit large, productive, and 
profitable; green, turning to rich yellow, oily 
surface, rather coarse, subacid, and fine aroma. 
September. 

Maiden^s Slu^h. 
to limestone clay soil ; very p 
profitable; fruit clear lemon yellow, with cheek 
varying from faint blush to rich crimson ; teu- 
der, rather sharp subacid unless fully ripenei 
valuable for cooking, drying, and very sahibf 
on account of its beauty. Rather tendei 
the Northwest. September and October. 

Meyer's, or Ohio Nonpareil. — Straight, stout 
growth, compact head; an annual bearer of 
large, handsome, and good fruit, red and yelrj 
low, marbled and splashed color. "In our ex- 
perience," says Elliott, "it is one of the most 
valuable of P'all apples." October to Decem- 
ber. 

Plumb's Cider. — Hardy, vigorous and pro- 
ductive; succeeds well in the Northwest; fruit 
large, oval, red striped, subacid, good for cider, 
pies, and family use. 

Porter, or Golden Pippin of Michigan.— Hai 
proved a hardy and full bearer of good fruit in 
Iowa and northern Illinois, and one of the best 
at the South ; fruit medium to large bright yel- 
low, with blush clieek when exposed to the sun, 
juicy, tender, acid. September and October. 

Primate. — Popular in central New York, and 
esteemed where known; fruit medium size, 
roundish, very tender, delicate, mild subacid, 
and of best quality. September and October. 

Pambo, or Seek-No-Further, of Pennsylvania. 
Succeeds best on limestone soils, in Middle 
Slates and Ohio Valley, superior as a Fall 
apple; rather small, yellowish white, crisp and 
juicy, well adapted for the table. October to 
February. 

St. Lawrence. — Hardy, vigorous and produc- 
tive, of Canadian origin; has succeeded well in 
northern Iowa, where it appears, in that cold 
climate, to hife improved in the vinous and 
sparkling subacid qualities of its large, beau- 



APPLES — ^yINTER VARIETIES. 



247 



tiful, yellow striped crimson, juicy fVuit. Sep- 
leiiiber and October. 

Smokehouse. — .\. free grower, bearing early 
and abundantly; well, approved in Pennssyl- 
vania, Ohio, and East; red, striped, and mot- 
tled color on greenish yellow; crisp, juicy, 
delicate, agreeable aroma. October and No- 
vember. 



WINTER VAEIETIES. 

Tn a report and a discussion on apples, at the 
Chill PomologicalSociety, in 1S65, it was stated 
that many of the most experienced fruit grow- 
ers are of opinion, that in Ohio they should 
look' to tlie South instead of the North and 
East for trees of the best and longest keeping 
varieties. The philosophy of tliis was claimed 
io be tliat the Northern and Eastern kinds 
transplanted to the Ohio Valley ripen too soon, 
and after maturation begin to lose their .solid- 
ity and keeping qualities; while those from 
till' South are looking for a longer Summer, 
:i)id when gathering season arrives, it finds 
llii'iu scdid and green, and they will only fully 
ripiu the next Spring, when the warmth again 
appears to inaugurate maturation. 

American Golden Mussel, or SuUoch's Plpjiin. 
Medium size, erect, slender tree, admirably 
suited to the rich soils of Ohio, Indiana, and 
the Southwest. The fruit is rus.seted in the 
South; in the North, on sandy soil, it is of a 
rich, green, yellow color, with russet mar- 
bliiigs; fruit small to medium, juicy, almost 
buttery, delicate and sprightly — in quality first 
rate ; beautiful in appearance. Tlie best of the 
Eusset family ; not jirofitable for general culti- 
vation. December to February. 

Bnhlii'in. — Takes the lead of all other apples 
at the East, surpassing all others for early, 
great and continued bearing; needs a limy 
and potash soil, and has generally proved too 
tender in Western prairie soils, but succeeding 
better on hilly and sandy locations; and in 
Sniitliern Stales the fruit drops prematurely; 
fruit large, yellowish, striped and dotted, ten- 
der and subacid. Better at the North than 
South; in the West it is liable to the bitter rot. 
Early Winter. 

Jien Dae!/!, or Sed Pippi7i. — This variety 
is from Kentucky, and is a favorite in the 
South; is proving hardy in the Northwest, a 
I'rodigious grower, and a constant and abun- 
(bitit bearer; fruit large, somewhat egg-shaped, 
striped and splashed with red and yellow; 



mild, subacid, pleasant flavor. Winter anil 
Spring. 

Bailey Sweet. — Grown succe-ssfuliy in the 
Ohio Valley and northern Illinois; fruit clear 
yellowish red, round, beautiful, delicate, sweet, 
juicy, rich. November and December. 

Bellfiower, White. Called also Detroit, Ohio 
Favorite, and Ortley; succeeds well, and is one 
of the best of apples in southern Ohio and 
Indiana, but has bitter rot south of the Obio; 
does best in the West on new ground; fruit 
yellowish white, fine for table use, from De- 
cember to .\pril. 

Bellfiower, I eKuic — Adapted to the Oliiii 
Valley; has beautiful blossoms, is a superior 
variety, but moderate bearer; a coarse grower, 
and needs wide planting; fruit pale yellow, 
with blush next the sun — fine table fruit. Oc- 
tober to March. 

Belmont, or Golden Pippin.— A. healtliy, vig- 
orous, spreading tree, a good bearer; succeeds 
well in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and In- 
diana; loses its flavor in the South; does not 
do well on rich alluvial soils ; but on all high, 
warm, or limestone soils does finely; fruit, a 
rich, light yellow color, fine grained, juicy, 
subacid. November to February. 

Bond's Bed Winter. — Has proved very hardy 
in the Northwest; fruit medium size, roundish, 
slightly ribbed, with most of the surface cov- 
ered with brilliant red ; tender, with a good 
and agreeable subacid flavor. During Winter. 

Blue Pearmain. — Hardy, .succeeds well in the 
Ohio Valley ; tree very large, not a good bearer; 
fruit striped and blotched, mild subacid, good. 
September to January. 

Brotuiwell, or Broadwell Sweet. — Popular in 
southern Ohio; tree vigorous and sprea<ling, 
very productive; fruit medium to large, light 
yellow color, with cloudy flakes, fine grained, 
sweet and juicy. November to March. 

Camtda Bluel;, — Tree hardy, upright, and a 
strong grower; fruit medium to large, oval, 
green, mostly covered with dark red; juicy and 
mild. February to Spring. Evidently very 
similar to the Black Detroit. 

Dominie. — This is the Wells apple of Obio; 
hardy, strong, and vigorous, a good bearer, and 
a profitable orchard variety for the Wcs: ; I'mit 
medium to large, greenish yellow, with stripes 
and spla.shes of bright red and russet specks ; 
tender, juicy, good. November to April. 

Dumelow's Seedling. — Hardy, strong, spread- 
ing, productive; size medium, round, lemon 
yellow, crisp, brisk acid; juice retaining its 
freshness till June. 



248 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



Fameme, or Snow Apple. — For tlie Northwest 
this hardy variety of Winter apple, of Cana- 
dian origin, stands first on tlie list; tree spread- 
ing, early, and good annual bearer; fruit me- 
dium size, round, striped or green ; tender, 
juicy, subacid. October to January. 

Finck. — A very long keeper, productive and 
valuable for market or cider; succeeds well in 
the Ohio Valley. 

Fulton. — Originated in Fulton county, Illi- 
nois, an annual and productive bearer; fruit 
medium, roundish, pale yellow, bright red 
clicek ; tender, juicy, mild subacid, good. No- 
vember to March. 

Golden Russet. — English Golden Russet is its 
true name, (hough sometimes called the Golden 
Russet of New York, one of the best of the 
russet family; very hardy, and suited to the 
Northwest; a good grower, spreading top, free 
bearer, and requires wide planting; fruit, rus- 
set or yellow, crisp, juicy, rich. December to 
June. 

GUlijlower. — There are the Elack, Cornish, 
Red, and Scollop varieties, all having their 
season from November to February. The 
Scollop kind is largely grown and much es- 
teemed in central and southern Ohio ; fruit 
medium size, very egg-shape, light yellow, 
striped and splashed with shades of light and 
dark red; tender, juicy, with slight tinge of 
sweet. Too tender for the Northwest. 

Grimes' Golden Pippin. — • Much approved 
where known ; fruit medium size, golden yel- 
low, subacid, good. Successful, and regarded 
as very good in the Ohio Valley. December 
to March. 

Hertfordshire Pearmain. — Hardy, and rich, 
strung soil gives fruit of the highest excellence; 
is best in northern sections; fruit medium size, 
brownish red, or yellow, mottled and slightly 
striped; tender, mild subacid, aromatic. De- 
cember to February. 

Hubbardston Komueh. — A superior fruit, good 
and popular, especially in the North, and im- 
proved by its transfer West, but not always 
hardy ; producing good fruit in northern Illi- 
nois ; fruit large, yellow striped, with rich red ; 
mild subacid, juicy. October to February. 

Jonathan. — A slender tree, hardy and very 
productive, and has proved one of the best 
Winter varieties for northern Illinois; fruit 
medium size, roundish, tender, juicy, and sub- 
acid ; when fully matured is beautiful and first 
rale. December to February. 

King of TompK-ins County. — A handsome an- 
nual bearer ; large size, and a number one 



apple in quality. It is quite largely cultivated 
in New York and Ohio. In the South and the 
Ohio Valley it sometimes drops prematurely 
from the tree. December to February. 

Lady Apple. — An upright tree — will bear 
close planting; fruit small and beautiful, a 
bright red color oii a clear yellow; very profit- 
able for the Philadelphia and Eastern markota 
— quality excellent. November to Slay. 

Milam, or Blair. — Much grown in Michigan, 
Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky, hardy and pro- 
ductive ; though not quite a first-class apple, it 
has many good qualities, resembling the West- 
field Seek-No-Further ; fruit small to medium, 
green and red color. It is popular in some lo- 
calities. December to March- 

Minkler. — Regarded as pretty hardy, strong, 
spreading grower, and productive; size me- 
dium, handsome red, subacid, long keeper. 

NewtoKn Pippin, Yellow. — Fruit greenish yel- 
low with red cheek, a little crisp, of the very 
best quality. Large, handsome and favorite 
apple. March. 

Newtonm Pippin, Green. — Bears alternate 
yeiirs, apples of high flavor, and generally 
considered superior to the Yellow Newtown , 
both adapted to the rich limestone soil of the 
Ohio valley — the Yellow sometimes profitable, 
the Green never. January to May. 

iiorthern Spy. — Hardy, handsome, and up- 
right, but a tardy bearer; fruit large, round- 
ish, bright striped upon green. Keeps well 
till April. It requires an age of at least 
twenty years before it will become profitable- 
Not suited to the South. 

Peck's Pleasant. — Rather erect, vigorous, pro- 
ductive; does best on sandy soils, fruit firmer 
and keeps better, though not so large as on 
clay. "All who have tested it," says the Ohio 
Pomological Report for 1866, "commend it as 
one of the very best apples for early Winter" — 
suited especially to the North and East. Fruit 
medium to large; when ripe a clear yellow 
with a blush on the sunny side ; tender, juicy, 
aromatic, subacid. November to February, and 
sometimes much later. 

Perry Russet. — Hardy, vigorous, spreading; 
fruit large, roundish conical, yellow with rus- 
set patches, juicy, mild subacid, of excellent 
quality. Promises well for the Northwest. De- 
cember to March. 

Pomme Grise, or Gray Apple. — A hardy va- 
riety from Canada, especially adapted to North- 
ern and Southwestern sections, and though R 
good bearer, it is of slender growth and small 
size, and fitted only for the garden; fruit small, 



APPLES — WINTER VARIETIES. 



249 



yellow-gray, tender and sprightly. December 
to Fi'briKiry. 

lluule's Janet. — Hard}', sure-bearing, and so 
productive as to cause it to dwarf in the or- 
chard ; is adapted to close planting; succeeds 
ydiiiirably in Missouri, and pretty well in 
norlhern Illinois; often escapes frost from 
coming into bloom late in the Spring; fruit 
medium size, conical, dull red, striped on 
green, rich, mild subacid. January to June. 

lied Canada. — Tree slender growth ; is pro- 
ductive in rich, strong soil ; good and popular, 
especially in the North; fruit medium, red on 
yellow ground, juicy, sprightly, aromatic, sub- 
acid. One of the most valuable varieties for 
garden or orchard. January to April. 

Red Rovumite or Gilpin Apple. — Called also 
the Carthou.se apple; tree spreading, hardy, 
and productive ; fruit, small, roundish, deep 
red and yellow, firm, rich, juicy, but wanting 
in flavor — especially valuable and profitable for 
its late Spring keeping qualities. 

Rhode Island Greening. — A superior apple in 
the New England and Middle States, from De- 
cember to February ; it is unreliable in the 
Soutb, drops too early ; probably for want of 
lime and phosphates; it is subject to bitter rot 
and speck in the West; while an experienced 
fruit grower in northern Illinois says he has in 
his orchard six trees of this variety, seedling- 
bodies, top-grafted, producing a small quantity 
of large, fine fruit. It is one of the coarse 
growing varieties, and needs wide planting. 

Roman Stem, or French Pippin. — Succeeds 
finely on the dry prairie.s, and on rich lime- 
stone soils, and is productive ; one of the best 
varieties in the Southwest, and the Iowa -Agri- 
cultural Report for 1865 shows that it is hardy 
and popular in that State ; fruit medium, ob- 
long, whitish yellow, tender, juicy, and sub- 
acid. November to February. 

Rome Beauty. — .4 native of southern Ohio, to 
which region its cultivation is chiefly confined; 
requires a rich, warm, loamy soil ; a great an- 
nual bearer of large, showy, beautiful apples ; 
fruit, a light rich yellow, striped with red, 
hangs on the tree late, keeps and sells well ; is 
tender, juicy, with slight subacid, and agreea- 
ble flavor — a great beauty. November to Feb- 
ruary. 

Roxhury Russet. — A fine variety at the Ea.st, 
but unreliable in the West and South ; fruit, 
medium to large, moderately juicy, mild, sub- 
acid. January to June. 

Smith's Cider. — Very hardy, spreading, bear- 
ing heavy crops every year, profitable and re- 



liable, and much esteemed in the South and the 
Ohio Valley; fruit pale bright red i.nd yellow, 
sometimes red with while specks, large and 
handsome, juicy and aromatic. November to 
February. 

Spitzenberg, Esopus. — Much cultivated in the 
Middle States, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and 
Mis.souri ; not much fruit in northern Illinois, 
and not generally as reliable and productive as 
formerly ; it requires much lime and potash 
and considerable age for fruitage; it is not 
suited to the South ; fruitj-niedium size, rich 
lively red on yellow, dotted and marbled, crisp, 
high flavored and delicious. January to March. 
SiL-aar. — Originated on the Hudson ; means 
"heavy;" not much known in the West; re- 
quires a rich soil, good in some localities; fruit 
medium to large, from a dull green it changes 
toward Spring to a brilliant lemon color, juicy, 
tender, subacid, with a spicy aromatic perfume. 
January to March. 

Sweet Pearmain. — Sometimes called the Eng- 
lish Sweeting, and Bamsdell's Sweeting; is 
largely cultivated in central Ohio and farther 
West; well adaiiled to rich soils; medium size, 
dull red, rough russet dots, tender, moderately 
juicy, sweet; highly valued for baking or eat- 
ing, and for its good keeping qualities. De- 
cember to March. 

Tallman Sweet. — Tree hardy, fine spreading 
top, great bearer; fruit, medium size, yellow, 
rich, sweet, and excellent for baking. Good, 
especially in the North, and one of the best va- 
rieties for the Northwest. In twelve years after 
planting, ten trees of this variety in Winne- 
bago county, Wisconsin, produced one hundred 
bushels of fruit in a single year. November to 
March. 

UUer's Red. — Hardy, vigorous, and annually 
productive ; fruit large, round, nearly white 
with red stripes, tender, juicy, fine tart, showy 
and valuable. Se[)tember to February. 

Vandevere Pippin, or Newtown Spitzeiilary. — 
A popular apple in the Middle and Southern 
States, requiring a limestone soil, otherwise a 
dry bitter rot appears; an early and productive 
bearer, of the wide-spreading variety, and needs 
wide planthig ; fruit medium to large, orange 
yellow, striped, tender, aromatic, mild subacid. 
December to February. 

Wagener. — Much admired in New York; .a 
fruit grower in northern Illinois says "the 
body of the tree is tender, and should be grown 
on the tops of hardy varieties; a great and 
early bearer, and good keeper, fruit very good ;" 
medium size, red striped and splashed on yel- 



250 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



low ground, crisp, vinous, subacid. Xovember 
to May. 

Wesljield Seek-No-Further. — Hardy, and popu- 
lar for ils good qualities in New England, tlie 
Middle and Western States, not-valuable in the 
South ; succeeding well in Michigan, and "mod- 
erately productive" in northern Illinois and 
^Visccinsin ; fruit, medium size, light yellow 
groinid, sunny side striped and splashed with 
red and russet dots, tender, subacid Novem- 
ber to February. 

Willow Twig. — Hardy, originating in New 
Jersey, suited to the rich bottom lands and 
prairies of the West ; an early and prolific 
bearer, and a great keeper ; succeeds well in 
the West ; fruit, above medium to large, second 
quality, rather dry, mild subacid. December 
to Ma'y. 

Winter Wine Sup. — From New Jersey, and 
one of the very best varieties in the Central 
and Southern States, and in Oregon, and does 
very well in northern Illinois; hardy, early, 
and very productive; fruit small to medium, 
of a bright clear red, stained, striped, and 
yellow-spotted ; in the South, a darker red, and 
patches of light yellow, juicy, tender, subacid. 
October to January. 

Wood's Greening. — From New Jersey, hardy 
and spreading, and should be extensively plant- 
ed in our Western and Southwestern States and 
Territories; E. G. Myoatt, of McHenry county, 
northern Illinois, speaks of three trees he has, 
twenty years old, as " hardy, good annual bear- 
ers, and quality of fruit much the same as the 
Khode Island Greening ;" fruit, medium size, 
juicy, tender, subacid. December to March. 

We conclude our apple list with the three 
most commonly cultivated varieties of the crab 
apple : 

Hislop Crab.— In size this fruit is a small ap- 
ple, but sometimes an inch and three-quarters 
in diameter, and although classed with the 
family of Crabs, it is quite dissimilar, and can 
bear no comparison. It is ornamental, and 
bears young. 

Med Siberian Crab. — It makes rich, firm, 
beautiful preserves when gathered before it is 
too ripe; the stalks should remain on. The 
Hislop and Transcendent crabs make good ci- 
der also, and answer an excellent purpose for 
cooking. The great merit of these crabs is to 
be found in their extreme hardiness, standing 
the severest Winters in the Northwest. 

Transcendent Crab. — The fruit is not so large 
and beautiful as the Hislop, yet its early, per- 
petual, and prolific bearing renders it very val- 



uable. It sometimes bears when only two or 
three years old. 

Apricots. — The apricot is a tender tree, 
and succeeds where sweet cherries do; the small 
yellow wild plum of the Western Slates makes 
one of the best stocks for it. The stones grow 
readily, often producing very good sorts with 
an increased hardiness and productiveness. The 
apricot is one of the most refined and peculiar 
of all the stone fruits; and it possesses an ex- 
quisite flavor that is not found in any other 
fruit. It is very prolific and Tvould bear boun- 
tiful crops annually if not destroyed by the 
curculio. The apricot tree, when young, in 
good ground, is a rampant grower, and if left 
to it.self will produce long naked branches in 
consequence of its growing only from the ter- 
minating buds and those near the top of each 
year's growth, leaving the lateral branches and 
fruit spurs feeble. In order to obviate this and 
develop the fruit good all through the tree, 
there should be only branches enough to form 
a nice open head and these shortened every 
season. This removes those radical buds at 
and near the ends of the new growths, and 
brings the sap to feed the growths from the .side 
buds, which produce fruit branches and fruit 
spurs. Decidedly the best way to do this prun- 
ing, is by pinching the ends of the tender 
growths oil' when they are a foot long. 

Clicri'les. — The American Pomological 
Society declared in 1868, that cherries are ca- 
pricious, and beyonil tlie Early Richmond, May 
Dnke, and Morello, there seems to be none that 
can be called universal favorites. The Early 
Richmond, known in the South as the Early 
May, is regarded as the most valuable cherry 
for the West and Northwest. There are in Il- 
linois two cherry orchards of this variety of 
six hundred trees each, four of a thousand each, 
and one of two thousand trees- — these for the 
Chicago and other Western markets. The 
large English Morello, wliich comes a month 
later, is the only other sort put on the list for 
the Illinois markets. "The Early Richmond," 
says Tilton's Journal of Horticulture, "suc- 
ceeds nearly or ecjually as well in the Eastern 
and Middle Slates, and should be more exten- 
sively cultivated than at present." The Mo- 
rello is regarded as the best stock on wliich to 
graft these two varieties. 

The Wisconsin Horticultural Society rec- 
ommends the Early Richmond, the Kentish, 
and Morello varieties for the Northwest, the 



FIGS — -NECTARINE — PEACHES. 



251 



Heart and Bigarreau varieties proving too 
tender for tlie cold Winters of tliat region. 

In milder sections of the country, the Black 
Tartarian, or Black Heart, the Carnation, 
Cleveland Bigarreau, the Governor Wood, the 
Gaffion, or Yellow Spanish, Kirtland's Mam- 
moth, Red Jacket, and Tecuniseh — the two 
latter late varieties — will richly repay cultiva- 
tion. 

Tlie cherry is a very difficult fruit to graft, 
and to succeed at all the scions must be cut be- 
fore the buds have shown the least sign of 
swelling, and buried in the ground or other- 
wise secured against drying, till wanted for use. 

Dwarf cherries, trained as pyramids are 
worthy the attention of those who despair of 
succe.'ss in the ordinary modes of cultivating 
this delicious fruit. 

The Canadians have a successful way of 
protecting clierries from birds, by the use of 
stufled hawks perched on the trees or above 
them. 

Cherries should never be gathered except 
when perfectly dry. We have known them to 
decay entirely in twenty-four hours when gath- 
ered while wet. It pays also to carefully .sort 
cherries for market, on a table, picking out any 
mashed or wormy or imperfect fruit before 
sending to market. Of course, the stems are, 
or always should be, attached, although we 
have (iccasionally seen them in market looking 
more like round cranberries than cherries. 

Figs. — Asia and .^.frica are the native re- 
gions of the Fig. It is al.so much grown in the 
Southern States ; we have seen them growing 
in ihe open air, without Winter protection, in 
the neighborhood of Baltimore, and a writer 
states that he can grow them as easily and 
surely in New York as he can the choice Icinds 
of raspberries. Among the best varieties for 
open culture are the Brown Turkey fig. Brown 
Ischia, and White I.scliia — the latter a very 
small sort, one inch in diameter. The Nevil 
is the richest cultivated in England, and the 
Pregussata is a favorite for growing under 
glass. In the Middle Stales figs should be 
grown as dwarfs or low shrubs, if at all, well 
covered in Winter, and kept root-pruned, to 
prevent too much growth of wood. The fig is 
easily propagated by cuttings taken ofT in the 
Spring, tlie lower or cut end inserted in a good- 
sized potato or turnip, and planted in soil natu- 
rally calcareous, or made so by the use of 
lime. In warm climates the fig tree gives two 
crops a year ; in the Middle States but one. 



IVcctarillC.— This is similar to the peach, 
the trees of both appear very much alike ; it 
was originally from India, a wild variety of 
peach, small, smooth-skinned, and of piquant 
flavor. Grown under glas.s, or at the Soutli, 
where the heat is more uniform and of longer 
continuance than at the North, the fruit is really 
fine ; but as grown in the Ohio Valley it is in- 
ferior to the peach, having the peculiar flavor 
of the pit. It is somewhat less hardy than the 
peach, and the fruit makes a popular dessert. 
Smooth-skinned, like the plum, it is liable to 
attacks from the curculio. The Boston, Down- 
ton, Early Violet, and Elruge are all good 
varieties. 

Peaches.— The peach is believed to have 
originated in the poisonous almond. Its fleshy 
parts were used to poison arrows, and it was 
for this introduced into Persia. The trans- 
planting and cultivation, however, not only re- 
moved its poisonous qualities, but produced the 
delicious fruit that we now enjoy. 

Peaches, says Dr. Warder, are always ac- 
ceptable and easily grown, and they come into 
bearing at an early age, usually the third year. 
Unfortunately, they are not so geneially suc- 
cessful as they were at the first .settlement of 
the country, when every log cabin had its an- 
nually laden group of peach trees. Now they 
are uncertain bearers, becau.se the flower-buds 
are often injured by the severity of the Winters 
or Spring frosts, climatic conditions that appear 
to have resulted from the clearing up of the 
forests. When we do have a crop, the fruit is 
often seriously damaged. by insects, and by the 
invasion of fungus, both of which troubles 
were unknown to the early settlers of the coun- 
try. The peach will grow on almost any soil, 
but light, sandy, or gravelly lands, and elevated 
situations, seem best adapted to it. The trees 
should be but one year old from the bud, cut 
back to a bare stem, about two feet long, before 
planting ; they should he .set from fifteen to 
twenty feet apart in the orchard, or even 
closer; they should be planted in the Spring, 
and the ground cultivated continually. 

All pruning, continues Dr. Waedek, should 
be done while the tree is young, as large limbs 
do not heal over, like the pear and apple. 
Shortening-in the branches may, however, be 
done with great advantage if it be undertaken 
while the trees are young, and continued from 
year to year. The result will be the produc- 
tion of fruit-bearing twigs all over the tiee, in- 
stead of the blossom-buds being only on the 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



ends of the branches. This treatment will be 
followed by a dense growth of twigs, some of 
which will have to be removed, to keep the 
head of the tree sufficiently open. Thiiiniii 
the fruit, as well as the twigs, will have the 
happiest effect in improved size, color, and 
flavor. The two operations of shortening-in 
and thinning may often be carried on siniulta 
neously. Trees so treated live longer, are 
broken down less by the wind, and produce 
larger and better fruit, which is more easil 
gathered than from trees grown by the old 
method. Lime and bone dust will be found 
especially beneficial in perfecting healthy trees. 

Peaches are divided into clings and free- 
stones, of all colors; the former are the best, 
the hitter the most popular in market. Dr. 
Warder gives the following varieties: 

Freestones — White Fleshed. — Early TiUotson, 
Early York, [Tale's Early, Large Early York, 
Morris Red, Oldmi.xon Free, the President, 
(which escapes the curculio). Red Rare Ripe, 
StuMip-the- World, and Ward's Late. 

Freestones — Yellow Fleshed. — Barnard, Ber 
gen's, Columbia, Crawford's Early, Crawford's 
Late, Melacoton, Red Cheeked, Smock, and 
Yellow Rare Ripe. To this list might be 
added an American peach, called George th 
Fourth, which produces fruit of the finest qual- 
ity — tender, melting, juicy. 

Clingstones — White- Fleshed. — Grand Admira- 
ble, Baltimore, Heath Cling, Large White, 
Oldniixon Cling, and Rodman's Red. 

Clingstones — Yellow- Fleshed — Lemon, Orange, 
Tippecanoe, and Washington. 

Deep Red-Fleshed. — Blood Cling, or Claret, 
and Blood Free. 

N. P. Hkdges, of Western New York, sug- 
gests that in the propagation and cultivation 
of the peach there are certain leading facts 
that require more attention than has been hith- 
erto given to them : 

1. The whole tree, root and top, should be 
adapted to our length of Summer. 

2. A small peach stone, like small corn, will 
become perfect sooner than a large one ; conse- 
quently, it is an indispensable sign of hardiness, 
and should always be u.sed for roots where 
budded trees are produced. 

3. A dwarfish tendency or shortish growth, 
causing the buds and twigs to become perfect 
while the weather is yet warm, is indispensa- 
ble. Such trees will cast their leaves early, and 
are not liable to freeze back easily. 

4. A large blossom is very desirable ; it not 
only wraps the embryo jieach more securely 



through the Winter, bringing the fruit buds 
safe through a cold Spring to the time of 
blossoming, but in case of a Spring frost, when 
fruit trees are in full bloom, as May 12th, 
1865, mercury at 28°, when apples and pear.s 
and cherries were pretty much all killed (at 
my place in Bennington, Wyoming county, 
New York), while nearly a thousand peach 
trees, fully in bloom, were uninjured, and 
bore a very heavy crop. These trees are 
known here as the Canada seedling. They have 
the above peculiarities in a marked degree. 
The peach of this variety is good to best, and 
took the first premium at the Wyoming County 
(New Y'ork) Fair. 

Shelter, said J. F. C. Hyde, before the Mas- 
sachusetts Board of Agriculture, in 1868, is of 
the greatest importance with this fruit. It is 
said that very cold weather will kill the fruit 
buds, and so it will when they are exposed to the 
cold winds ; but in sheltered places tliey will 
withstand a great degree of cold without injury. 
One-year-old trees are the best to plant; and 
they shoulil be cut back one half or more, and 
so every year the new wood should be short- 
ened in. The tree so treated becomes more 
compact and symmetrical, and is less liable to 
be broken down by the winds, ice, and snows 
of Winter. They should, when planted in an 
orchard, be set from ten to iwelve feet apart 
each way. Both peaches and cherries are in- 
jured, and often destroyed outright, by excess- 
ive manuring. 

At the same meeting of the Board, I. K. 
Brown related that a farmer in Acton, Massa- 
chusetts, lias a peach orchard of two hundred 
trees on an acre of ground, planted between 
apple trees, on land that is high, stony, and 
gravelly. One year he received $350 net for 
his peaches; another year they netted him $400. 
Mr. Brown mentioned a peach orchard of 
eight hundred trees he had visited in New 
Hamp.shire, set about twenty feet apart, that 
bore well. They were thoroughly mulched. They 
were about eight feet high, and so level that 
you could look across the tops of the trees. 
They were almost as level as a floor, he takes 
such pains to head them in. The branches 
were eighteen inches long, but the peaches were 
up next to the stem of the tree. The owner 
cuts out the middle shoot, and lets the two side 
shoots go ahead. He keeps the whole tree 
eaded in, and the top twigs come down within 
eight inches of the ground. 

A correspondent of the Iowa Homestead, 
states: "I raised this season one bushel of 



choice peaches on one tree four years old. By 
the same method I have seen one tree in Iowa 
bearing every year for tlie hist ten years. Any 
one can do the same by strictly following these 
directions, viz.: When quite young, set the tree 
in the ground witli all the roots running north 
and south, and thin the tree to a fan shape, 
with edge in the same direction as the roots. 
WIr'm the tree is past three years old, after the 
leaves are off in the Fall, lean it toward the 
west until the branches nearly touch the ground. 
This can be done easily, as the roots which run 
north and .south will be only slightly twisted. 
This should be the permanent position of the 
tree, and it .should never be righted up- The 
suckers, or water-sprouts, sliould be kept 
striiiped off during the Summer, or the vitality 
of the tree will run to sprouts. 

"The end of all the branches should be 
clipped about the first of August to force the 
sap into tlie fruit buds. Every Fall, before 
cold weather sets in, cover the tree with brush, 
to keep it close to the ground, and with straw 
over the brush, to protect fruit buds from the 
cold — and uncover in the Spring about the 10th 
of May. 

" Thus, by a little care and labor, every year, 
an abmidance of that delicious fruit can be 
raised at home, affording a great pleasure, and 
saving e.^ipense of exportation from a distance." 

At the meeting of the Illinois Horticultural 
Society, in 1864, G. W. MixiER, of that Stale, 
said, that he once accidentally put corn stalks 
in the Fall around a peach tree, which were 
not removed till in April, the fruit buds were 
thus protected, and the tree bore peaches; and 
SuEi, Foster, of Muscatine, Iowa, observed, 
that a neighbor of his lias been in the habit, for 
a few years, of bending down some lateral 
branches, of his peach trees, and laying bru.sh 
upon them, and has succeeded in raising 
peaches from these branches when no others 
were grown in that vicinity. I 

Mr. Clement related, at a meeting of the I 
Massachu.setts Board of Agriculture in 1867, 
that a farmer in Middlesex county, in that] 
State, had a tree, one of the branches of which 
lay almost horizontal, very near the ground. \ 
and in the Autumn he threw a load of corn 
shucks all over it, and hence the fruit buds 
were not killed. When Spring came, he un- 
covered it, and that one branch bore a fine crop 
of peaches. Before the same Board, in 1868, 
I. K. Bkown .said: "Most of us get peaches, 
almost every year, from branches that lie on the 



ground and are covered with snow. There- 
fore the tree needs protection." 

There is no doubt that peach trees in the 
open ground may be so dwarfed as to he laid 
down and covered in the Winter. The best 
way is. probably, to form fine straight brandies 
taken as near, the ground as possible, and keep 
them closely pruned and lied down to .stakes, 
80 that the outer ends will rise but two or three 
feet above the groimd, according to the length. 
Mr. Camp, of Pennsylvania, has thirty trees 
laid down every Winter. 

At a recent meeting of the Northern Illinois 
Horticultural Society, Mr. Bingh.\m, of Free- 
port, stated that he lays down his pe.ich trees 
for the Winter, by digging under one side a pit 
large enough to contain the whole tree ; into this 
he lays the tree, compacted by hay topes, and 
covers all over with earth and mulch, taking 
up in Spring when the blossoms begin to open. 
His success for three years has been complete. 
The late Edwin B. Qttiner, author of the 
Hislnry of WtJicoiiistn in the War of tlie BebelUon, 
who had devoted many years to fruit culture 
and experiments in Wisconsin, gave his plan 
for peach raising in the Northwest : Head in 
the new growth of the tree toward the close of 
Summer so as to harden the balance of the 
limb.s, and better perfect the fruit buds ; cut 
a trench two feet deep some three feet from the 
tree, and encircling it for water, ice, and snow 
to gather in during the Winter; and as Spring 
a|iproaclies, fill the trench, if not already full, 
with snow and ioe, and bank around the trunk 
with the same, covering the whole with a thick 
mulch, so as to keep the blossoms b.ick till 
after the late frosts. 

A fruit grower in Marquette county, in north- 
ern Wisconsin, has succeeded in raising peaches 
by having a rude sort of a sentry-box placed 
around each tree, lop and body, and filled in 
closely with straw or litter, and removing the 
whole after the Spring frosts. 

George P. Peffer, an experienced fruit 
grower of Waukesha county, Wisconsin, stated 
at the February meeting, 1869, of the Wiscon- 
sin Horticultural Society, that he had grown 
peaches for several years on the north side of 
a hill, without any protection but the snow 
banks, but somewhat shaded from the sun in 
Winter; but he had always noticed whenever 
the thermometer fell below sixteen degrees 
below zero, that the peach buds were always 
killed, though the trees were uninjured, and 
whenever a Winter pa.ssed in which the ther- 



254 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



mometer did not reach that point, then his 
trees would bear. 

L. Baetlett, of Warner, New Hampshire, 
states that he obtains regular crops of peaches 
by keeping the branches bent down near the 
earth, where they are confined by liooked 
wooden pins. The covering of snow — for they 
have it in plenty lliere — protects the fruit buds 
from the cold. .He has found that trees so 
treated, ripen fruit ten days earlier than when 
entirely exposed. Covering such prostrate 
brancbes with corn-fodder, or with a dense 
mass of evergreen boughs, in the absence of 
snow, has answered equally well. It is more 
difficult to protect those limbs some feet above 
ground, as they are exposed on all sides to the 
wind, and do not receive the warmth of the 
earth. 

It is thought in the South that the peach 
tree is killed on the southwest side by the 
vicissitudes of heat and cold in tlie early part 
of the season. The Springs advance very 
slowly in those temperate latitudes, making 
a barely perceptible advance in the course of a 
week. The warm d.iys of February start the 
sap on the southwest side by or before the 
middle of the month, if not protected from the 
sun, after which, even to the first of March, as 
far south as Montgomery, Alabama, they are 
liable to sharp frost', sometimes sufficient to 
freeze the sap, which, in its expansion, bursts 
the bark on that side of the tree, and the .soorcli- 
ing sun and dry winds of Summer complete 
the work of destruclion. They sutler from un- 
seasonable beat, followed by unseasonable cold 
in Spring, and excessive heat and dry winds in 
Summer. 

So great a luxury is the peach, that there are 
some persons who are willing to take unusual 
pains to raise them. "Cultivating peaches in 
pots, and taking them into a cellar or hot- 
house in Winter," said Asa Clement before 
the Massachusetts Board of Agrieulture, in 
1867, " is .safe, but is of course somewhat ex- 
pensive. Still, it is worth trying. If by plant- 
ing a dozen trees in tubs or pots — any cheap 
article — so that they can be taken in during 
the Winter, and placed where they shall not 
be injured by our severe seasons, we can secure 
a crop, I think it would be better to have them. 
My experience is, that a little freezing will not 
hurt them, but I am not sure of that. I know 
peaches are raised in that way. I have seen 
them on the tables of the Mas.sachuset(s Horti- 
cultural Society, and it was a very beautiful 
sight — exceedingly ornamental. A little tree, 



the size of a whip-stock, three feet high, trained 
symmetrically and handsomly, with four or 
five dozens of early Craw fords upon it, looks 
beautifully. I do not know why people who 
raise things for ornament should not go in for 
peaches as well as every thing else. Tliey cer- 
tainly would be ornamental, and I have no 
doubt profitable for the Boston market, where 
I learn some of the fairest peaches sell for a 
dollar a piece." "Three dollars," responded 
Mr. Hyde; and I. K. Brown added, "I have 
raised Ihem in pots, and am doing it still. 
Very fine peaches can be raised in that way, 
but they require greater care than a common 
farmer, who is engrossed by his every-day 
duties about his farm, can bestow upon tliera." 

Dr. Nathan Dubfee, of Fall River, Ma.s.sa- 
chuselts, related his experience in growing 
peaches under glass, at the meeting of the 
Agricultural Society of that State, in 1868: "It 
is something like fifteen years since I com- 
menced. I l'?.d a house seventy-two feet long. 
1 put a trellis against the wall of that house, 
and planted six trees, spreading them out fan- 
like upon the wall. 1 then had a trellis built 
in front, upon which I put six more. These 
trees, with the exception of one or two which 
have decayed, have boine every year from the 
first year they were set out, and I have had an 
abundance of fruit from those trees, of the 
finest quality. It has been said that you can 
not f;et the peach in perfection under glass; 
ihMt tlie fruit is watery, and insipid to the ta.ste, 
lait I think I can say that as fine peaches as 
ever grew have been grown under that glass 
for now something like fifteen j-ears, and in 
great abundance; for I have had, every year, 
to thin them out more or less to prevent injury 
to the trees. Ol'ieritimes I have taken off fiva 
out of six of every lot that exhibite<l -itself on 
the trees, and then bad an abundance of fruit. 

That is the only way in which I have been 
able to cultivate the peach at all. I tried its 
cultivation on a trellis against a wall out of 
doors, and I found a Northwest exposure was 
far belter for the crop than any other exposure. 
I think a hot, scorching sun injures our peach 
trees more than anything else, especially after 
a rain. I have noticed that when we had a 
shower of rain, followed by a hot sun, it almost 
invariably killed the buds, and I had no crop. 
I think, if any one desires to cultivate the 
peach, the best way is to try it under glass. I 
think it may be made profitable. I do not 
make it profitable, because I prefer to have the 
pleasure of giving them away, rather than to 



Bell them. But I do not think the yellow 
peach, uqJer glass, can he brought to that per- 
fection that a while peach can. 

Tlie Van Biiren Golden Dwarf peach origina- 
ted in Georgia with Mr. J. Van Buken, an 
eminent pornologist, and was supposed by him 
to be an accidental cross between the Italian 
Dwarf and Van Zandt's Superb; it is a mere 
shrub, a natural dwarf, never attaining a height 
of more than four or five feet. The fruit is of 
large size and good flavor. Where cultivated 
extensively near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, it 
has proved verji productive. The advantage 
of this dwarf variety is, that it can be easily 
covered in Winter, and the hope i.s cherished 
that it may thus succeed where it is too cold for 
larger varieties. It is quite ornamental, the 
leaves being large, and the foliage dense. 

To preserve it during the Winter in the colder 
latitudes, it might be planted in row.s four or 
five feet apart, and toward Winter, a slight 
trench, a few inches deep, dug on each side of 
the row, perhaps two feet apart; in these insert 
boards so clo.sely together that mice could not 
get through, reaching as high as the trees, 
somewhat wider apart at the top than at the 
bottom, with slats tacked across to hold them 
together, aird then pack in straw or litter, and 
if tlie whole could be covered with snow, all 
the better. If not thus set in close rows, they 
could be thoroughly wound with straw, and a 
barrel placed over each. Even if the extreme 
cold of the Northwestern Winters should pre- 
vent their fruitage, they will well repay this 
trouble of protection in their charming orna- 
mental appearance. L. II. Lyman, of Palmyra, 
Wisconsin, is introducing them into the North- 
west. 

Peaches, and other stone fruits, should gen- 
erally be allowed to reach perfect maturity, or 
within four or five days of it, on the tree. In 
moist, cool seasons particularly, they are bene- 
fited by being gathered a few days before ma- 
turity, and allowed to ripen in a dry, warm 
room; they part with the water contained in 
their juice.s, which become better elaborated, 
more sugary, and better flavored. They should 
be carefully gathered with thumb and finger, 
pressed as lightly as possible, for first a brown 
spot, and tlien decay is sure speedily to follow 
auytliiug like a squeeze or a bruise. If the 
bloom, or fuzzy coating on the fruit, is rubbed 
off by rough handling, its beauty of appearance 
is injured, and it will decay all the sooner for 
it. Formerly it was supposed that the peach 
must be gathered before fully ripe in order to 



ship it any distance; but practical experience 
has proven that ripe fruit, not quite soft, will 
carry just as well as unripe, and command a 
much better price. 

Pears. — Out of some two thousand varie- 
ties of pears described, and known to those who 
make pomology a study, only about seventy or 
eighty are counted as truly valuable and profit- 
able to grow, when season, size, productiveness, 
and hardihood of the tree are taken into the 
account; and these .seventy or eighty might 
safely be reduced to twenty varieties. lion. 
M. P. Wilder, in his orchard near Boston, has 
no less than nine hundred different kinds in 
bearing. It w^ts said at the meeting of the 
American Pomological Society, in 1868, that 
pears are perhaps less cosmopolitan than apples, 
yet the following are spoken well of in most 
parts of the United Slates and Canada; Bart- 
lett. Belle Lucrative, Beurre d'.injon, Flemish 
Beauty, Louise Bonne de .Jersey, Seckel, Tyson, 
Vicar of Winkfield, Winter Nellis; and he who 
can grow these, or the half of them, is well ofl'. 
Hon. Hans Ckocker of Milwaukie, Wisconsin, 
has seventy varieties in cultivation, and after 
several yearj trial, has tested the following 
kinds as doing well in his locality on the west- 
ern border of Lake Michigan: Bartlett, Ros- 
liezer, and Tyson, of the Summer varieties; 
Flemish Beauty, Beurre d'Anjou, Dutchess 
d'Angouleme, and Louise Bonne de Jersey, of 
the Autumn, and Winter Nellis and Lawrence, 
of the Winter, varieties. 

Slimmer Varieties. — Bloodgood, Brandywine, 
Dearborn, Doyenne d'Ete, Early Bergamot, 
Early Butter of Cincinnati, Gifford, Golden 
Butter, Jargonelle, Osband's Summer, Eos- 
tiezer, Tyson, and Washington. 

Autumn Varieties. — Bartlett, Belle Lucrative 
or Fondante d'Automne, Beurre Bosc, Beurre 
d'Anjou, Beurre Diel, Beurre Superfin, Buf- 
fum, Dutchess d'Angouleme, Edmond, Flemish 
Beauty, Howell, Kirtland, Louise Bonne de 
Jersey, Onondaga, Oswego Beurre, Seckel, 
Sheldon, St. Ghislain, Urbaniste, and White 
Doyenne. The Flemish Beauty is pre-emi- 
nently the pear for the Northwest, and the 
BufTum is probably the next most hardy va- 
riety, and both are very productive. 

Winter Varieties. — Beurre D'Aremburg, Ca- 
tillac, Dana's Hovey, Easter Beurie, Glout 
Morceau, Lawrence, Lewis, Passe Colinar, 
Pound, Vicar of Winkfield, and Winler Nellls; 
of these the Easter Beurie is the longest keeper, 
and the Winter Nellis the hardiest, and the 



256 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



Glout Morceau and Lawrence the next most 
liardy vaiieties. The Catillac will keep till 
April. 

Most orchardists, says Dr. Warder, prefer 
to have tlieir trees worked on the pear rather 
than on the quince or other dwarfing stock. 
Dwarfs are very satisfactory for limited grounds; 
if properly managed, tliey will bear the third 
or fourth year from the graft; they require 
high culture and judicious care in trimming 
luul training to make them yield Iheir best re- 
sults — the new growth should be cut back at 
lea.st one- third, about the middle i)f Augu.st, 
that the next growth may form Imit buds. 
The two styles should not be planted together. 
The Horticulturist says its editor set a dwarf 
pear orchard, four feet by eight, and admits 
that while they are all healthy, and have re- 
tained their fruit better than others more widely 
separated, yet they seem growing one way 
jiretty closely together — eight feet apart each 
way would doubtless be better. Dr. Warder 
says pear trees will bear crowding, as most of 
them are of an upright habit; fifteen or twenty 
feet apart is wide enough for the majority of 
the sorts in cultivation, and many will succeed 
if planted nmch closer; and the trees should not 
be gi'own as standards, with tall, naked stems, 
for they do much better if trained from tlie 
first in a conical form, when they are generally 
called pyramids — causing them to branch low, 
curbing tlie growth by Summer and Winter 
pruning, thinning tliem out and shortening them 
in sucli a manner as to keep the lower branches 
always the longest, thus well exposing to the sun 
and air all the twigs, foliage, and fruit. 

Any good loamy soil, with a predominance 
of clay, will produce thrifty pear trees; they 
need lime and phosphoric acid, and therefore 
bones may be profitably applied to lands defi- 
cient in these elements. A mnlching of six 
inches of straw over the ground during the 
Summer serves as a porous blanket, preventing 
the effects of drought in midsummer, checking 
the growth of weeds, yet allowing a free circu- 
lation of air and moisture about the roots of 
the trees. This mulch should be removed 
about the middle of September to allow the 
young wood to harden before Winter, and to 
prevent the harboring of mice around the trees 
during the cold season. 

As we have seen. Dr. Warder endorses the 
more recent practice of grafting the pear upon 
pear stock. Hon. M. P. Wilder states his 
experience as favorable to grafting on the 
quince. They should be planted deep enough 



to cover the place of junction, three or four 
inches below the soil, and then the pear will 
throw out roots from itself. He adc*, that he 
has dwarf pear trees on the quince stock twen- 
ty-five years old, which produce annmdly a 
barrel or more of fruit each, and give every 
promise of longevity. Dwarf pear trees have 
survived a centnry, and we know not how much 
longer they may live. As a general rule, says 
Mr. Wilder, no tree will succeed for any great 
length of time, where it is grafted on any other 
than its own species ; there are, however, ex- 
ceptions to this rule, and, among Ihera, some 
varieties of the pear, which grow vigorously, 
bear abundantly, and seem better adapted to the 
quince than to their own root. There are, he 
adds, three considerr^ions which are absolulely 
necessary to success, viz.: A deep rich soil — 
the planting of the quince stock entirely be- 
low the surface of the ground — and a system- 
atic and scientific course of pruning, as the tree 
progresses in growth. George W. Harsh, 
of Kockville, Illinois, grafted pear scions on 
the common, thorn apple, the second year it 
produced a few blossoms, and the third year 
the lop measured thirty feet in circumfeience, 
and twelve feet across at the widest place, 
and bore a bushel or more of very, fine pears. 
Dr. Warder contends that grafting on the 
thorn gives no exemption from weakness of 
the tree, the blight, nor cracking of the fruit. 
Another experimenter says pears are generally 
improved by grafting on the mountain ash. 

A pear tree near Vincennes, described some 
years ago by Rev. H. W. Beecher, was taken 
from Pennsylvania in 1802; it produced one 
hundred and foily bushels of fruit in 1857; and 
Dr. Warder states, that it has yielded one hun- 
dred and eighty four bushels in a single season, 
and bears every year — the fruit being of good 
size, and tolerable flavor, ripening early in the 
Fall. The girth of the tree at one foot from 
the ground was ten feet, and at nine feet from 
the ground was six feet and a half. The soil 
in that region is rich and deep, and the tree 
stands in an open field, far from any other tree, 
and at a distance would easily have been mis- 
taken for a spreading oak. 

Of two thrifty Flemish beauties, of apparently 
the same age, near Madison, Wisconsin, the one 
standing most distant from other trees, had the 
widest spreading top, and produced much the 
largest yield of fruit. A pear of this variety, 
raised at Winona, Minnesota, and exhibited at 
the La Crosse Fair in September, 1865, meas- 
ured eleven inches and three-fourths in circum- 



fi Tcncf, and Wfiglicd firtcen ounces. Its giowtli 
in ihe lieli Missinsippi boltoni piobably en- 
Itanced its size. 

Tlie pear is a lonj-lived tree, and witluil it is 
boaulifiil as an objtct in the landscape. The 
(lid Stnvvesant pear tree in New Yorlj city, has 
liiirne several crops of frnit since it'has attained 
tlie age dl' two hnndred years. There was a 
jiear tree in I'lill liealth and bearing, in New 
Haven, Connecticut, a few years since, then one 
Imndred and sixty-nine ye,ars okl. Tlie aged 
]iear trees at Detroit, planted by the French 
during the last century, are familiar to many. 
They are planted iipoil a sandy loam and rest 
upon a thick stratum of clay. 

KoBERT Douglas, of Waukegan, in north- 
ern Illinois, a very successful pear grower 
states that "the pear will flourish on any prai- 
rie .soil in which there is a mixture of chay and 
loam, if so elevated as to prevent the roots from 
Cuming in contact with standing water. As a 
general rule, the more elevated the better, as 
the roots of the pear go so much deeper than 
is usually supposed ; and it is very doubtful 
whether land in which water can be found for 
months together, within three or four feet of the 
surface, can ever be made suitable for a standard 
pear orchard, even if thoroughly undcrdrained 
to that depth; though dwarf trees would do 
well on such land, as the quince roots grow 
near the surface of the ground. There are 
comparatively few prairie farms on which there 
is not an elevation several feet above the ordi- 
nary level I on such a site, even if too flat to 
let the water pass off' freely, the land can be 
plowed in ridges, upon the toi) of which the 
the trees may be planted ; if undcrdrained, so 
rmch the better, placing a drain equidi-stant 
from the rows of trees. " 

In the report of the American Pomological 
Society's recent meeting at Rochester, New 
York, one of the members stated, that good 
Winter pears could not well be raised because 
of the delicacy of foliage peculiar to many 
varieties causing them to drop their leaves 
prematurely. All orcliardists, says the Ohio 
Farmer, know that good and perfect leaves are 
requisite to perfect ripening of fruit, but all per- 
haps do not know that manuring the pear with 
a solution of the sulphate of iron — copperas 
water— will prevent leaf-blight, and keep the 
"le tree in full vigor to the end of the season. 
The pear seems to be particularly well adapted 
to this treatment, says the British Medical Jour- 
W; and old nails, thrown into water and left 



MS. 257 

there to rust, will impart all the necessary 
qualities for forcing fruit. 

Summer and Autumn pears require to be 
gathered, as a general thing, from a week to a 
fortnight before their maturity. Sweet varie- 
ties, and such .as are inclined to become mealy 
are entirely worthless when ripened on the 
tree, and many very excellent varieties are con- 
demned on this account. Such as these should 
be gathereil the moment the skin begins to 
change color in the least degree; but nearly 
every variety is improved in appearance and 
quality by keeping in close, dark drawers, 
wrapped in flannel or soft paper, or packed in 
bran a few days. 



Plums.— Among plums, Coe's Golden 
Drop, Green Gage, Imperial Gage, Lombard, 
Smith's Orleans, and Washington, seem to 
have the widest popularity, and if the curcu- 
lio and black knot would only let these alone 
we need haidly sigh for more. 

A writer in the Western Farmer, thus wisely 
counsels with reference to plum culture, espe- 
cially in the Northwest: "The most hardy 
tree is liable to suffer by a severe Winter if it 
is not thoroughly prepared for the trial. That 
is, if its growth is not completed and its wood 
fully ripened before Winter sets in. Three 
causes often operate on our plums to jirevent 
tills thorough preparation. One is a blight 
which causee them to shed their leaves in e.arlv 
Autumn ; another is an excessive crop of fruit, 
which so enfeebles the tree that it can not pre- 
pare for Winter; another and more common 
is a luxuriant Autumn growth, only checked 
by severe frost, which finds the wood soft and 
full of sap. Any of these causes, if the Win- 
ter is severe, are sufficient to ruin the tree. 
The native stock will do much to prevent the 
last named ; for proof of this we have only to 
remember that the native plums in our groves 
always ce.a.se growing and are thoroughly ri- 
pened very early in Autumn, and of course this 
influence helps the graft to do the .same. With 
native .stocks, and the assistance we can give by 
.stopping cultivation at midsummer and pinch"- 
Jng'the growing points in August, there is little 
danger of too late growth. The great and early 
bearing qualities of the native, are also strong 
reasons for using it. Then it is accessible to 
all, and great results may be attained by plant- 
ing trees from the woods, one or two inches in 
diameter, and grafting them at about two feet 
from the ground; such grafts will bear fruit 



17 



258 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



the lliird season, and tlinugli tliey may ulti- 
mately overgrow and break off they will pay 
expenses nnd compound interest. 

]n some portions of the Northwest, recourse 
is had to the wild native varieties, selecting those 
in the Fall whose fruit lias proved good, sweet, 
and juicy, transplanting them in the Spring, 
cutting them b:ick and pruning them, and in 
the course of three or four years they will bear 
plentifully of improved fiuit. 

The Miner Egg Plum, evidently an improved 
Soulliern wild plum, is proving hardy and suc- 
cessful in portions of Wisconsin where it has 
been cultivated. 

In a paper read by George P. Peffer, be- 
fore the Wisconsin Horticultural Society, in 
February, 1869, he gave it as his opinion that 
plums can be easily grown in all parts of that 
State; and named the following that will stand 
certain degrees of cohl, and will fruit in some 
seasons, hut not in others, when the cold is too 
great: 

Those that will stand from twenty to twenty- 
five degrees below zero are the Lombard and 
its seedling.s, Bleeker's Gage, Imperial Gage, 
Duane's Purple Gage, German Prune, and the 
While and Blue Damson. 

Those that will stand from si.xteen to twenty 
degrees below zero are the W'liite, Yellow, Red, 
and Purple Magnum Bonuni or Egg Plum, 
Coe's Golden Drop, Iluling's Superb, Eeine 
Claude de Bavey, French, McLaughlin, Man 
uing's Long Blue Prune, Hor.se Plum, Bing- 
ham's Gage, Green, Red, and Purple Gage, 
Fotlieriiigliam, Blue, White, and Red Per- 
di igon. 

Those that will stand only from fourteen to 
sixteen degrees below zero are the Washington, 
Jefferson, Farly Royal, and Peach Plum. 

Among the desirable varieties, adapted to a 
milder climate than the Northwe.'.t, nuiy be 
naiucd, River's Early Favorite, Smith's Or- 
leans, Drapd'Or, Lu.scomb's Nonsuch, Prince's 
Imperial, Nectarine, Schenectady Catherine, 
Blue Gage, Roe's Autumn Gage, Flushing Gage, 
Blue Imperatriec, Kirk's Plum, and Yellow 
Gage. 

There is a secret, says Colman's Rural 
World, about plum raising. " We have dis- 
covered it in traveling over the country. We 
never visited a large plum orchard in all our 
life that we did not find plenty of the fruit. 
And we never visited any place with eight or 
ten trees and found a good crop of this fruit. 
Now these facts set us to thinking; and the re- 
sult of our thoughts is this: That it is very 



ea.sy to have all the plums you want to eat and 
sell. The secret connected with plum raising 
is to plant plenty of trees, so as to give fruit to 
the curculio and to yourself also. If you will 
plant fifiy or a hundred, or two hundred tree.s, 
you will have fruit enough for everybody. 
Every such' orchard that we ever visited had 
plenty of ripe fruit. Some even complained 
that the I'urcnlio did not thin out the fruit 
enough — that the trees were overloaded." 

Plums should beset near the frequented por- 
tions of the house and yards, where fowls and 
pigs run, if practicable, as the curculio is said 
to be shy, and often frightened away by people 
passing and repa.ssing. Besides, the chickens 
and pigs are apt to destroy them or their eggs. 
The natural life of a thrifty plum tree is from 
twelve to thirty years, and we should study the 
proper conditions to promote its longevity. 
Owing to the curculio, says Mr. Peffer, many 
trees are robbed of their fruit before its matu- 
rity ; and, of con.sequence, the trees make an 
extra effort to produce their species, and so 
they will set so full of blossom buds, for the 
next year, that they are killed by this effort to 
produce fruit. During our sunny days in Win- 
ter, these trees, overloaded with buds, evaporate 
what little sap is left in them before Spring ar- 
rives, and so they are killed outright from over- 
exertion. 

In treating elsewhere of noxious insects, the 
curculio will receive proper notice. 

Quince^!. — In France stand quince trees 
nun-e (ban a hundred years old, and Hon. M. 
P. WiLPER says he knows of one in Massa- 
chusetts forty years old, which has produced 
ten bushels of fruit in a single year. The Ger- 
vmrtiown Telegraph says they can be raised 
as easy as apples and pears in this way: 
"Tiiere is no secret about it. Get the 'Orange' 
variety. See that they are entirely free of the 
borer before planting. Set six or eight feet 
apart in rich soil — seme recommend as much 
as fifteen feet. Bandage the stem with two 
or three wrappings of old muslin, or any kind 
of cloth, as far down in the ground as possible, 
as the roots start from near the surface. Let 
this bandage run six or eight inches above the 
ground, then pack the soil compactly n couple 
of inches around the bandage, and renew this 
early every Spring. Fine, large golden quinces, 
rivaling the largest oranges, will bless your ef- 
forts every year. 

" Should the borers, by any means, steal in, 
ferret them out carefully with a piece of wire. 



SEMI-TROnCAL FRUITS — ORANGE. 



259 



Sliould tliey, however, get the advantage of 
Toil, and yonr trees become honey-combed, set 
out again young trees, so that by the time the 
old ones are gone the young trees will be finely 
in bearing. 

"The quince is the richest of all the fruits of its 
class for preserving and drying. For preserving, 
it is expensive, requiring good sugar, pound for 
pound; but, in our judgment, it is much better 
dried, and then stewed as wanted for use, like 
apples; and in this form it is as cheap as ap- 
ples. It is a fruit whicli is very seldom dried — 
why we know nt^, for a dish of dried quinces 
stewed, with only a little sugar added, makes 
the richest and most relishing table sauce 
that can be imagined. It has all of the rich 
flavor of the quince without any of the tough, 
gummy qualities so common to quince pre- 
serves, and they should be cultivated wherever 
it is possible, far more extensively than they 
are, if only for the purpose of drj'ing." 

The quince may be grafted on the pear six 
or eight inches above the ground, and thus es- 
cape the borer, which works near the ground ; 
prune properly, keep the ground well spaded, 
scatter a peck of coal ashes around the roots 
of each tree, and from one to three pints of salt. 
Next to the Orange, Kay's Mammoth deserves 
cultivation. Quinces should never be budded. 

Mr. Ohmer, of Dayton, Ohio, who has had 
good success in raising quinces, says he spades 
the ground of liis orchard every Spring, and 
scatters a peck of coal ashes around each tree. 
He finds common salt the best manure on the 
cjuince, and applies about one quart to the 
ground under each tree, after the soil has been 
spaded, and another quart when the quinces 
are about half grown. He sold in one year 
three hundred bushels of quince.?, from his or- 
chard of three-quarters of an acre, at $2 50 to 
$3 per bushel. This fact is worth a thousand 
arguments in favor of planting and cultivating 
the quince. 

Fruit Culture in California and Oregon. — 
From an able paper on the resources of Cali- 
fornia, by n. D. Dunn, of San FrancLsco, in 
the United States Agricultural Keport for 18CG, 
we gather the.se facts : " Peaches grow well 
there, and are to be had of a size and a flavor 
that can not be surpa.^sed elsewhere. In some 
districts the curled leaf disea.se has prevailed, 
but has not so far caused great damage, consid- 
ering the large number of trees and their im- 
perfect culture. Quinces grow to a size and 
have a flavor not exceeded in any country. 
Plums are produced in great quantities, their 



abundance being so great as often to break 
down trees by the weigjit of fruit. Prunes of all 
kinds, so far as tried, have done well. Cher- 
ries are of extra size, the trees healthy, and 
great bearers, and are a most profitable fruit 
to raise. Nectarines and apricots, of unsur- 
passed appearance and flavor, are also pro- 
duced. The following are the largest speci- 
mens of fruits exhibited in San Francisco, viz.: 
.\pples (Gloria Mundi variety), 32 and 34 
ounces; pears, 84 ounces; plums, 7 ounces; 
apricots (Moorpark), 16 ounces; peaches, from 
one-third to one-half size larger than the same 
varieties cultivated in the Atlantic States. All 
of these fruits are free from the ravages of in- 
sect life." 

Oregon, is also an excellent fruit country. 
Apples sometimes attain a weight of two 
pounds, and AVinter pears from two to three 
pounds. Peaches, plums, cherries, and grapes 
do well They do not attain quite the size of 
the California product, but are much larger, 
and the yield more reliable, than in the At- 
lantic and Central States. California excels 
Oregon in grapes and peaches; but her fruits 
there do not keep as well as those of Oregon. 
Apples raised in California will not keep be- 
yond Autumn; while the Winter varieties 
raised in Oregon are good keepers, and go far 
to supply the deficiency of California. 



SEMI TROPICAL FRUITS. 

Orang^e. — The culture of the orange tree 
in this country is mostly confined to California 
and Floiida — in the latter State it grows wild, 
and is transplanted, and budded, and each tree 
soon bears from five hundred to twenty-five 
hundred sweet oranges. Nearly one hundred 
thousand trees were set out in Florida, in one 
single year since the war, of which one-third 
were planted on Flint river alone. The total 
increa.se of newly-planted and budded trees 
since the war can be scarcely less than five 
hundred thousand, showing a large increase in 
orange growing and its commerce. The trees 
are usually set out twenty feet apart, or about 
one hundred trees to the acre. Before the se- 
vere frost of February, 183.5, which destroyed 
nearly all the orange and other semi-tropical 
fruits of Florida, to the ground, there were 
trees there of a hundred years old. Tliere are 
trees in the Tuilleries Garden, Paris, that have 
attained from three lo seven hundred years of 
age, and still produce large yields of fruit. 



260 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



There are other semi-tropical fruits, which Fruit raised from Malaga and Sicily seed grows 
succeed well in Florida, and probably in other, to an enormous size, compared with tluit which 
regions bordering on the Gulf of Mexico — i is imported. Specimens of the Sicily variety 
bananas, citrons, date palms, limes, lemons, have been grown averaging twelve and thirteen 
pineapples, and pomegranates; and among ounces each, taken indiscriminately from boxes 
nuts, the almond, Madeira nut, Brazil, pecan, on sale. The Malaga variety is also of large 
and Cocoa nuts. These fruits and nuts will size, but somewhat smaller than the Sicily, 
soon, doubtless, become important articles of i The crop of 1806 was about forty thousand, all 
production and commerce. from the vicinity of Los Angeles. Limes are 

We cite farther from Mr. Dunn's paper the of twice the size of the average imported fruit, 
following observations on the semi-tropical ; Many specimens have been had this season, 
fruits of California: "Oranges of fine size and weighing four and five ounces each. The total 



flavor are had in all parts of the State, ripening 
from November to April. The crop is a most 
favorable one, as the trees bear unusually full, 
while the fruit finds a ready sale at remunera- 
tive prices. Lemons of three varieties are 
grown in the southern coast district, viz.: the 
California, or native lemon, which is of large 
size, and apparently a cross or hybrid with the 
citron, having the ihick rind of the latter with 
the flavor of the lemon ; and t1ie Malaga and 
Sicily lemons, grown in the sante district, from 
the seed, produce unusually large and fine 
fruit, and bring profitable jj^ices. Limes of 
unusually large size and good'flavor are pro- 
duced in the same localities. Citrons of un- 
surpassed excellence and size are to be had in 
the south coast district, l)ut are as yet only val- 
ued lor their perfume or aroma and beauty. It 
would be an easy matter for California, say in 
eight or ten years, to supply the entire Union 
wiih the preserveil citron of commerce, if 
proper eflforts were made to do so. The fruit is 
of unusually large size and perfectness. For 
the purpose of giving some idea of the cultiva 
tion of the above semi-tropical fruits, I give 
the statistics of the crop of 18G6, and size of 
specimens brought to San Francisco: Oranges, 
about two hundred and fifty thousand. As 
many new trees have just been set, and others 
are coming into bearing, parties well informed 
in the trade estimate that the crop of 1867, un- 
foreseen drawbacks excepted, will be at least 
double the above quantity, all from the vicinity 
of Los Angeles. For richness of coloring and 
flavor these oranges are not equaled by any 
fruits imported from the Hawaiian and Society 
Islands, Lower California, Mexico, Central 
America, or Panama. The total consumption 



crop for 1866 was about sixty thousand, which 
will probably be doubled in 1867, as will also 
be the case with the Malaga and Sicily lemon. 
Of citron not over four thousand to five thou- 
sand have been marketed this year. Those 
sent to San Francisco ranged from twenty to 
forty-.six ounces each. 

"Kaisins have been made in considerable 
quantities in the State during the last fouryears. 
Those produced from the Feher Szagas, or 
Fiber Zagos grape (Hungarian), are considered 
by good judges as superior in every respect to 
the imported or Malaga fruil, with the excep- 
tion of size of berry and deep bloom. The 
Fiber Zagos raisins are of a light red color and 
white bloom, of medium size, have a Ihin skin, 
tender pulp and seed, are of pure, sweet flavor, 
and free frora the musky taste that is common 
in all imported fruit. This grape was brought 
from Hungary to California in 1853 by a native 
of the former country. From two small cut- 
tings, or roots, at that time, the culture has 
spread until they are now probably fifty thou- 
sand bearing vines, and at least three hundred 
thousand cuttings and roots planted, all of 
which will be in full fruitage in 1870. The 
vine is a most prolific bearer, averaging, in the 
largest vineyard in the State, from thirty to 
forty pounds per vine, at six years of age. 
Prior to 1862 the grape was confined mostly 
to one vineyard, situated in the edge of EI 
Dorado ccmnly, about a mile from Mormon 
i.sland, a noted gold-mining locality in earlier 
days. In that year, E. N. BuGBY, ex-sheriflf 
of Sacramento county, saw the grape, and, 
drying it, found as the result, raisins of a very 
superior quality. Purchasing the vineyard, 
he at once commenced propagating the vine. 
of this fruit in 1866 was about three million.! In 1863 he made the first public exhibition of 
California-grown oranges range from six to raisins, and from two hundred boxes, or five 
twelve ounces each. Lemons of the three va- thousand pounds, in that year, increased the 
rieties, of which the native lemon, although of amount to one thousand five hundred boxes, or 
large size, is the poorest and little used, range tbirly-seven thousand five hundred pounds, in 
in weight from eight to sixteen ounces each. 1866. The vine is trimmed — like others in 



SMALL FRUITS — THE GEAPE. 



261 



California — in the shape of a low busli or tree, 
the main stalk not averaging eighteen inches 
above tlie ground. The young wood is staked 
up to about four feet high, and the runners 
pinched in during the Summer so as to throw 
out lateral shoots, the leaves of which protect 
the fruit from the rays of the sun. The total 
criip of raisins and dried grapes for 1866 is esti- 
mated at about forty tons weight, nearly one- 
half of which were from the Fiber Zagos grape. 
As this variety is a most excellent keeper, 
besides its other good qualities, it is being 
propagated largely in all portions of the State. 
From present appearances, it seems probable 
that California will be enabled to supply the 
entire Union with raisins before the close of 
the present century." 

Tlie olive thrives well in California, and 
gives promise of becoming an important item 
of culture. The almond, the Madeira or Eng- 
glsli walnut, and pea-nuts, are largely and 
profitably cultivated. The hazel and other 
wild native nuts are quite common in the 
country. 



SMALL FRUITS. 



With the large fruits and the small, every 
family, especially every farmer's family — may 
enjoy the luxury of fruit to form a part of 
eveiy meal throughout the year, for such is 
their complete sucession with which our Heav- 
enly Father has favored us, that we may have 
these healthful and delicious luxuries if we 
will but resolve to do so. 

Said N. J. CoLMAN, of the Rural World, in 
an address before the Illinois State Horticul- 
tural Society, in December, 1866; "See what 
a succession of small fruits is here afforded. 
First conies the blushing, lowly, delicious 
strawberry. What a gift from God was this to 
man 1 How incomparable in flavor! How 
highly prized by king and peasant. And yet, 
lunv easily produced. The humblest individ- 
ual, with twenty feet square of ground, can 
enjoy them in abundance. And for a month, 
nearly, can we daily partake of them. Then 
follows the raspberry, another most delicious 
fruit. So many varieties of the raspberry have 
been introduced, some ripening earlier, some 
later, they can now be enjoyed till frost. The 
ever-bearing varieties we have seen cut down by 
frost, heavily laden with fruit in various stages 
of maturity. The gooseberry and currant suc- 
ceed the raspberry, and afford a most health- 



ful acid, which regulates the tone of the stomach 
and wards off many diseases to which we are 
liable in the Summer season. These are fol- 
lowed by that prince of fruits, the glistening 
blackberry, of which we can partake for a 
month or longer, to our heart's desire, with 
the greatest sanitary benefit. Then comes the 
juicy, luscious grape, which has received prai.se 
and admiration t'rom all nations and ages, to 
which the Holy Scriptures so frequently allude, 
and it can be partaken of, not only during the 
Autumn, but during the whole Winter. By 
packing away carefully in boxe.s, they are as 
easily preserved as apples. And yet how few 
of us have a single vine of this highly admired 
and delicious fruit, whose glory poets sang, even 
before the birth of our S.vvioi'R. The vine is 
as simple and as easy to (ilant and cultivate as 
an apple tree." 

The Orape. — .\s far as the darkness of 
antiquity nuiy be penetrated by the light of 
history and tradition, the grape vine was the 
first plant cultivated by man. The preference 
was deserved, for tile field of choice was proba- 
bly not large — the strawberry being one of 
Nature's delicious after-thoughts. Every man 
who owns a rod of land should set a good vine 
upon it, and give it attentive care ; he will 
surely have his reward, not merely in the grat- 
ification of appetite and in profitable financial 
return if he enlarge his vineyard — hut in the 
substantial con.sideration of improved health, 
which is better than both. 

Grapes, in a small way, have long been grown 
In our country. In 1823, John Adltjm pub- 
lished at Washington a treatise on the cultiva- 
tion of the vine, and he not only introduced 
and experimented with many foreign varieties, 
hut collected all the best native ones, and did 
much in attracting attention to the subject, 
and giving a new impulse to the culture of 
the grape. Herbemont, Dufouk, WillIj^m 
Prince, and Coxe were at work in the same 
cause; and, finally, the sending of a Catawba 
grape to Nicholas Longwortii, of Cincinnati, 
marked an epoch in American grape culture. 
In 1856 the Delaware grape was introduced, and 
this was a most important event, for it jn'oved a 
very excellent, and popular grape, and greatly 
stimulated others to the development of new 
varieties — the Hartford Prolific, Diana, Rogers' 
Hybrids, Ion a, Israella, and others. The de- 
mand for the Delaware, particularly, was im- 
mense, and set people to talking and thinking 
about grapes; and thus even the Catawba, Nor- 



262 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



ton's Virginia, York, Maderia, Isabella, Con- 
cord, and even some wliicli were so old and 
abundant tliat nurserymen scarcely tliought of 
propagating more than a few hundred vines 
annually, were suddenly called for in such num- 
bers that the scienlific propagators could not 
produce them in sufficient quantities to meet 
the increasing demand. So that the call for 
the new and the old varieties has resulted in 
the growing of millions of vines, where there 
were only thousands ten years ago. But the 
Delaware, which was the immediate cause of 
the excitement, has fallen behind, and some of 
its predecessors, like the Concord, have gone 
far beyond it in the numbers anmially planted. 

The Healthfulness of Gropes. — "Every farm- 
er," says Dr. Warder, "every cottager, every 
householder or houserenter, .should plant a few 
grape vines. It is a very simple affair, requir- 
ing no great amount of skill or labor to plant, 
train, or trim a grape vine, and its productive- 
ness of fruits that everybody, young and old, 
can appreciate, is proverbial. Who has not 
lieard of the famous grape cure — bijtter than 
Homeopathy, Allopathy, Hydropathy, or any 
other pathy? AVIio can object to trying it? 
Certainly not he who has planted and trained 
his own vines." 

This fruit- is among the best and most whole- 
some of medicines. Its use as an article of food 
is much recommended in cases of consumption. 
Grapes contain a large quantity of sugar, the 
kind which most nearly resembles milk-sugar 
in ils character and composition, which is also 
useful for con.^umptives, it having a great at- 
traction for oxygen, and readily affording ma- 
terials for respiration. 

In the vineyard districts of France, Spain, 
and other wine-growing countries, the medical 
qualities of the grape are known and highly 
prized. Ripe grapes have cured epidemic dys- 
entery ; and in vine countries they speak famil- 
iarly of the "grape cure." The free use of this 
fruit has a most salutary effect upon the animal 
system, diluting the blood, removing obstruc- 
tions of the liver, kidneys, spleen, and other 
important organs, giving a healthy tone and 
circulation, and generally augmenting the 
strength of the animal economy. In diseases 
of the liver, and especially in that monster 
compound afBicllon, dyspepsia, the .salutary 
and potent influence of the "grape diet" is 
well known in France. 

The inhabitants of the vineyard districts are 
never aflSicled with these diseases, which fact, 
however, alone would not be conclusive evi- 



dence of the medicinal qualities of the fruit 
of which they freely partake, since peasant life 
is rarely marred by this class of ailments, but 
hundreds who are thus afflicted, yearly resort 
to the vineyard districts for the sake of what 
is known as the "grape cure" — and the result 
proves to be a cure, except in very long, pro- 
tracted, and inveterate cases, which are beyond 
the reach of medicinal remedies. The invigor- 
ating influence of the ripe grape, freely eaten, 
upon the feeble and debilitated, is very appar- 
ent, supplying vigor and the hue of health in 
the stead of weakness and pallor, and this by 
its diluting property which enables the blood 
to circulate in the remoter ves.sels of the-skin, 
which before received only the serous or wa- 
tery particles. These remarks apply to the 
fruit when perfectly ripe — when unripe, like all 
other unripe fruits, it deranges the digestive or- 
gans, and those dependent upon and sympa- 
thizing with them. 

How to Eat Grapes- — Few people know how 
to eat grapes. Some .swallow pulp, seeds, and 
skin ; others swallow on/i/ the pulp, ejecting 
both seeds and skin. Dr. Underhill advises 
that it would be well to observe the following 
rules, namely: When in health, to swallow onZy 
the pulp — when the bowels are co.stive and you 
wish to relax them, swallow the seeds with tlie 
pulp, ejecting the skins. When you wish to 
check a too relaxed state of the bowels, swal- 
low the pulp with the skins, ejecting the .seeds. 
Thus may the grape be used as a medicine, 
while, at the same time, it .serves as a luxury, 
inisur[iassed by any other cultivated fruit. A 
man or woman may eat from two to four 
pounds of grapes per day with benefit. It is 
well to take them with, or immediately after, 
your regular meals. 

The Importance of Grapes. — There is no doubt, 
says the Country Gentleman, that by the next 
twenty years, the grape will be universally 
admitted to be second only to tlie api)le in its 
importance to the American people — referring 
simply to its uses as a fresh fruit only. 

There are now a large number of new grapes 
raised both by cross fertilization and other- 
wise, that promise to extend the period of ripe 
grapes to a greater length than at present. 
That period is now only preceded by the ap))le 
and pear. The apple now reaches through the 
whole yearly circle. Tlie pear ripens from 
midsummer till Spring; but it is hard to get 
good pears much later than 'he first of the 
year, while grapes are kept as easily ;is V\iiit<;r 
apples, although in a different way. The peacli. 



i 



THE GRAPE. 



263 



in the Xorth, continues to ripen scarcely two 
months at the farthest — the plum about tlie 
same — while neither will keep long in a fresh 
state. The hardy grape will yet give us a deli- 
cious fruit, remarkable for its wiiolsomeness, in 
unlimited quantity if we desire it, scarcely it' 
ever failing with seasons — not less than eight 
out of the twelve months of the year. The 
" grape fever " will not, therefore, subside quite 
yet. 

The Productiveness and Profit of Grape Cul- 
ture. — William S. Carpenter stated in the 
Gardener's Monthly, that it wai* possible to make 
an acre yield ten tons of grapes, which at four- 
teen cents per pound, would make $3,000, or 
at seven cents per pound, would realize SI, 500. 
The editor of that journal fully corroborates 
this statement, .s.iying that there are 43,500 
superficial feet in an acrS; and a vine trained 
to a single stake can be grown upon four feet 
of ground, or ten thousand vines per acre, 
which at two pounds per vine would yield ten 
tons. We doubt if tliis extreme yield will 
ever be practically realized; though there it is 
certain that a vineyard properly cared for, in a 
6ecti(jn adapted to the maturity of the grape, 
will yield a far better profit than any kind of 
grain. 

William H. Mansfield, of Waterberry, 
ever be practically realized ; though it is cer- 
tain that a vineyard properly cared for, in a 
at from thirty to forty bushel::. It is trained 
fourteen to sixteen feet wide, and eighty feet 
long. There is a famous vine at Santa Bar- 
bara, California, now sixty-five years old, trail- 
ed over eighty feet in circumference, witli a 
trunk twelve inches in diameter, rising clean 
fifteen feet from the ground. Some years it 
lias borne six thousand bunches of ripe sound 
grapes, or nearly eight thousand pounds, and 
has become the wonder of even that wonder- 
fully prolific country. There was near Peoria, 
Illinois, a few }-ears since, a vine which mea,s- 
ured forty-one and a half inches in circum- 
ference. The late A. J. Downing said that he 
had seen an Isabella vine produce three thou- 
sand clusters in a single year. 

The extent and progress of the business of 
grape growing is shown by statistics, from 
which it appears that not less than twelve 
thousand acres of vineyards were set in the 
State of Ohio at the close of 1867, of whicli 
about one-fourth, or three thousand acres, were 
planted within the years 1S66 and 18ti7. 
About one-half of the whole area is located 
iu what is termed the Lake Shore district, and 



the rate of increase is greater here tlian in the 
other parts of the State, and the amount of 
product per acre of the bearing vineyards is 
also greater, as shown by the assessors' returns. 
The following statistics of the vineyard pro- 
ducts of 1867, of the islands and region around 
Sandusky, were presented by Mr. Lewis, at 
the Lake Shore Grape Growers' Association, in 
February, 1868, as the result of very c^irelul 
inquiry : 

Pounds of Table Grapes shipped from Sandusky. ..l,S22,0O0 

Win.-Grapi-s " " " ... 2™i.(«0 

" ^Vine Grapi-s pressed 4,r>)j<(,uj(j 

Total Grape Crop of 1S67, (3,311 tous,) lbs 6,rK>2,rig() 

Wine pressed from the above on Kelley's Is- 
land, Bass Islands, Peninsula, and at Sandusky, 
400,000 gallons. Brandy manufactured, 1,500 
gallons. Tlie average price realized for table 
grap&s was 12J cents per pound; for wine 
grapes, 6 cents. The wine is estimated to be 
worth SI 25 per gallon, and the brandy $5, .so 
the cash value of the crop stands thus : 

Value of Table Grapes, l.S2L',OI)0 lbs., at U'ic $227,7.10 

Wine Gnipes sold. 2W.(«(| ll.g., at fie \h,HM 

*' ^\ ilie. 40t(.)H*0 gal'uns, at SI 25 5UII,WH) 

•' Brandy, 1,510 salluna, at S5 7,300 

Total value of crop 8750,851) 

As near as can be estimated, the yield per 
acre of bearing vineyards, in fair condition, 
averaged two tons per acre, making in value, 
two hundred and twenty-.seven dollars per acre 
as the average. The great bulk of the grapes 
were of the Catawba variety, though a few 
others were produced for both table and wine. 

A correspondent of Kelley's Island, writing 
about the grapes of Lake Erie, in 1868, says: 
"To secure a good crop the ground must be 
well ploweil, cultivated and hoed, keeping it 
free from all weeds and grass. The price of 
grape land is three hundred dollars per acre, 
and when a vineyard is in full bearing, after a 
few years' growth, it is worth one thousand 
dollars an acre. The average net profit from 
one acre of grapes is three hundred dollars, 
but as high as eight tons of grapes to the acre 
have been raised — which, at the low figure of 
eight cents a pound, brings the snug little sura 
of one thousand two hundred and eighty dol- 
lars. The Concord, Delaware, and Catawba 
are the grapes raised liere. One thon.sand 
acres of grapes are now in training, mostly on 
North Bass, Middle Bass, or Put-in-I5ay, and 
Kelley's Island, which together contain about 
six thousand acres. Immense quantities of 
pure native wines are also made on these is- 
lands; the amount last year was one hundred 
thousand gallons." 



264 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



George Husmann, of Missouri, speaks of 
fifteen tons from an acre, or enough grapes to 
yield, if pressed, 2,500 gallons of wine. This 
is clearly an exceptional case. The evidence is 
that, as a rule, the Concord yields from five to 
eight tons per acre. Eight tons of Concord 
grapes have been raised on an acre in Massa- 
chusetts, and si.x tons is an average crop from 
vines five or six j-ears old. Concord grapes 
sold at Boston, in 1864, at from twelve to 
twenty cents per pound, Isabellas at twenty-five 
cents, Dianas at thirty, and Rebeccas at forty; 
while Deliiwares were selling that year in New 
York at from forty to sLxty cents a pound. At 
a meeting of the fruit growers of western New 
York, at Rochester, in 1859, no cultivator gave 
iu a return of le.ss than five hundred dollars as 
the result from an acre of grapes, and in some 
ca.ses profits of from one thousand to fifteen 
hundred dollars an acre were reported. One 
grape grower in western New York, during a 
period of six successive years, raised an aver- 
age of nearly six thousand pounds from an 
acre, which at fifteen cents per pound, brought 
nine hundred dollars a year. He considered 
three cents a pound as covering the expense of 
manual labor and interest on investment. 

Take the empire of France, which produced in 
1868, 1,100,000,000 gallons of wine, and which 
.seldom falls under 830,000,000, where grapes 
sell for two cents a pound, and where the wine 
pressed out of the grape at the vineyard is ta- 
ken at twenty-five cents a gallon, to be ripened 
in due season ; and then take the returns of the 
Minister of the Interior, in regard to the aver- 
age value of the grape crop per acre, and we 
find it readies one hundred and thirty-four 
dollars. Even at that low price, we can see it 
is more profitable than the ordinary liusbandry 
of our country. 

The grape crop of the United States is stead- 
ily on the increase. "But we have not yet got 
a grape apiece for our population," .said Hon. 
M. P. Wilder, in 1868 — "certainly not a 
bunch." Though this may be somewhat un- 
derrated, yet it is true that probably not one in 
a hundred of the farmers and laboring people 
of our country enjoy the luxury of the culti- 
vated grape. California, in 1866, had some 
30,000 acres of grapes in bearing, and fully 
50,000 in 1868; Ohio, in 1866, had 12,000 acres; 
and it is doubtful if, at (his time, there are to 
exceed 150,000 acres in bearing in our whole 



to have averaged two ton.s to the acre. In 
Ohio, the average of bearing vineyards was 
about two tons to the acre iu 1867; but in Cal- 
ifornia, and some other sections, the yield was 
doubtless much larger, taking one year with 
another. 

Propag^atin^ Grapes.— We are in- 
debted to the Counirt/ Gentleman for the follow- 
ing account of raising grape plants, designed 
for tho.se who are inexperienced in the busi- 
ness, and who ni.iy wish to rai.se them for their 
own use. Layering will be found to be the 
easiest mode of propagation. 




Taking layers from bearing vines always in- 
jures them more or less by exhau.sting their 
vigor; but one or two may he taken every other 
vear from a very strong j'oung vine that is al- 
lowed to bear but little. Two diflerent times 
in the sea.son are chosen for doing the work — 
Spring and early Summer. The latter is usu- 
ally the most convenient. As soon as the new 
shoots have grown some feet in length, and 
have ceased to be soft in the wood — generally 
not far from the end of June — dig a depression 
or hollow under the shoot near the middle, so 
that it may be bent down into it, and buried 
with three or four inches of soil, leaving the 
part next the piirent vine, and also the growing 
end, uncovered. If the weather becomes dry, 
mulch the surface to keep the earth moist. 
Young roots will be thrown out from each joint, 
and by the termination of growth in Autumn, 
every layer will have a copious supply, as indi- 
cated by Figure 1. If the soil has been kept 
moist, and the shoots are fairly vigorous, this 
mode of obtaining roots will never fail, and is 
therefore just the thing for new beginners who 
wish to propagate but few plants. After the 
leaves have dropped in Autumn, the above 
layer is severed from the parent vine, taken 



country. Mr. F. R. Elliott, at the close of up, and cut into well-rooted plants. 

1867, estimated the amount of land in vine- To propagate on a larger scale, select good 

yards very much higher, and allowed the crop I layers from vines usually of two or three years' 



GRAPES — TROPAGATING OF. 



265 



growth, of sufficient size and vigor; and dur- 
ing; this period, they sliould be cut back and 
trained to about two sh^c!s Then select for 
the layer, a shoot or cane eight or ten feet 
long, cutting all off save six or eight of the 
buds nearest the root. Bend the cane down 
just as the new shoots are starling, and place it 
in !i trench of about five inches deep, and fasten 
it by pegs or stones, and cover with good com- 
post, as represented in Figure 2 : 



a bed in Autumn, and covered with a thick 
coating of straw, manure, or leaves. 




Figure 2.— Shoots Springing fiiom a Layered Stem. 
Caution is necessary not to apply the earth 
or compost too early nrir too high up on the 
young sterns, which might cause the rotting of 
the soft wood; dampened moss laid over the 
layer awhile answers a fine purpo.se, and then 
apply the earth or compost. Some of the 
shouts will outgrow others, and should be 
pinched back, so as to equalize the growth. 
If any appear feeble, they should be pinched 
off, and give additional growth to the others. 
These new plants will soon become well rooted 
and should be taken up, separated as repre- 
sented in Figure 3, and heeled in or covered 
with earth for the Winter; some protection 
from freezing being afforded by covering the 
surface with manure or leaves; or they may he 
packed for the Winter in boxes of damp moss 
in the cellar; or even left in the ground where 
they grew, covered with litter, to be taken up, 
separated, and transplanted in the Spring. 

While these new plants are forming from the 
layered cane, one, two, or three shoot.s, accord 
ing to the strength of the plant, should be 
traine<l to a stake for the next season'.s work, 
the cane having been properly cut back for 
this purpose. 

To propagate by cuttings the cuttings should 
be taken from shoots of one year's growth, of 
full medium size, usually about seven or eight 
inches long, each one having two or more buds. 
Where the Winters are severe, the cutlin 
should be made 'late in Autumn, packed in 
slightly moist eaiC!:, or, what is much bettei 
in damp moss iu boxes, in the cellar. In mild 
climates they will keep well by being placed in 




These cuttings should be planted in the 
Spring, in a trench, as represented in Figure 4i 




Figure 4.— Mode of Planting Cuttings. 
nearly perpendicular on one side, and sloping 
on the other, standing about three inches apart, 
so that the upper bud shall be about an incli 
above the level surface. Fill the trench to the 
upper bud with rich, mellow soil, pres.sing it 
with the foot around the cutting, leaving it 
more loose and mellow toward the tup. Some 
cultivators are more successful by covering the 
surface with an inch or two of line manure for 
the retcnlion of moisture iu the soil. 

A A'eio 3Iode of Propagating Grapes. — A. 
ToWNSEND, of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, gives 
the following as his experience in growing 
grapes : " Propagate your vines in lattice boxes 
or split ba.skets, holding three pecks. Have 
them nine or ten inches deep ; layer ripe, vig- 
orous wood, of last year's growth that did not 
fruit; do not allow them to strike root too 
soon, or the motlier vine will rob the new 
plant ; for as soon as Ciine wood is changed to 
root, the flow of sap is reversed and flows to- 
ward the mother plant. Vines grown in this 
way receive no check ux shock by being re- 
moved to garden or vineyard, because the 
earth in which they grew is not removed from 
the roots, leaving them as nature planted them 



266 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



(no human hand can do it as well). If well 
propagated, they are as well able to bear fruit 
the, first season as the best of vines from cut- 
tings in the third or fourth year, and are sure 
to produce large clusters and berries. One 
such vine is worth ten of the be.«t cutting.s' 
plants ; for it does not need watching and nurs- 
ing for three or four years, as it is able to take 
care of it.self. Every man should grow his 
own vines. 

Hoot Orafling — Tiiis mode may be briefly 
al lulled to, as one extensively adopted for prop- 
agating on a large scale. It is done early in 
the Spring by taking a portion of the shoot 
with one bud, as shown in the 
annexed figure, and in.serting 
a piece of root, cut wedge 
form, into a cleft in tlie lower 
end of the cutting. Grafting 
plasters bind the parts to- 
gether, but they are left open 
below for tlie emission of 
roots. The Figure (5) repre- 
sents more fibers than are de- 
sirable at first, or when the 
work is performed. Varie- 
ties which furnish long and 
smooth roots, are most conve- 
nient, of which the Concord 
is one of the best. The 

T.- . !.„„, f..i,^ grafts should be cut in the 
Fig. 5. — Root Graft. o 

Fall, and kept fresh in the cellar till wanted. 

By tlie last of May, or early in June, the vines 

will be in full leaf; then is the time to engraft, 

as they will not bleed. 

Soil and l,ocation.— The soil for the 
vineyard should be light and warm — one 
largely composed of clay is preferable ; sandy, 
gravelly, or loamy soils have, in some localities 
produced fine grapes. The soil on Kelley's Isl- 
and, and about Sandusky, Ohio, is chiefly a 
black, peaty loam, of moderate depth, resting 
on a thick stratum ofstifl' clay, underlaid with 
limestone. The most successful vineyards in 
our country have been those on limestone soils, 
as those in the Ohio Valley. 

In an address by Dr. Kibtland before the 
Ohio Horticultural Society, in 1867, upon the 
grape soils on the southern border of Lake 
Erie, that eminent fruit grower made sugges- 
tions of general application. The analysis of 
Professor Emmons of the wood and bark of 
grapes was read, and Dr. KiRtland said that 
according to Professor Liebig's theory, no veg- 
etable growth could be had on soil in which 




any element found in the vegetable was ab.sent. 
Grapes, therefore, could not be grown on any 
soil which did not possess all the elements 
found in the vine by such analysis. Dr. Em- 
mons found in ashes of the grape vine about 
twenty-five per cent, of potasli, thirty-five per 
cent, of lime and pho.sphate of lime, a little 
chlorine, soda, sulphuric acid, silex, iron, and 
magnesia, with thirty-five per cent, carbonic 
acid. In the fruit, the percentage of potash 
and sulphuric acid is much larger than in the 
vine. 

The soil about Cincinnati had enough lime 
and potash to sustain grape vines for a few 
years ; but after some years' cultivation the 
vines began to show signs of starvation. Then 
mildew or .some other disease attacked tlie half- 
starved vines. On new land, the healthy vines 
might have resisted the attack. "Tliere are 
places — .some of them in this vicinity," said 
Dr. KiRTLAND, " where the grape vines will 
last after we are dead and gone. There are 
others where a few years will see the vines 
growing sickly and unprofitable, and dying." 

The soil about Cleveland contains plenty of 
lime; he had found a bed of plaster of Paris 
on his own farm. Every one hundred pounds 
of the shale of the lake shore contains from 
seven to fifteen pounds of potash in the mica, 
which forms about half of tlie shale. Chloride 
of .sodium (salt) was found in the old deer licks 
all along the lake shore. Sulphur plays an 
important part in the nourishment of the grape, 
and it is found here in great quantities— so 
much that it is now contemplated in this city 
to get sulphur from the shale of the lake shore, 
insteiid of importing it, for making sulphuric 
acid. 

Of underdraiiiing in clay land, he said such 
land should not be touched until perlectly un- 
derdrained — the drains sunk three or four feet, 
and not more than thirty feet apart. This con- 
verts the clay land into a vast absorbing sur- 
face, to receive ammonia and gases. This is 
the way the Dover Bay lands are prepared, 
which some years ago were worthless, almost. 
Now, they are among the best for grapes to be 
found, and they will be permanent. There is 
but one soil — the cliiy soil— for grapes. If you 
have sandy land, put on a dressing of about two 
inches of broken shale. 

From Professor Emmons' analysis of the graiie 
vine, any one moderately conversant witli the 
components of soil can readily see what is re- 
quired for his vines, burying the refuse cuttings 
and leaves, sprinkling on plaster of Paris, .sup- 



GRAPES — PKOPAGATINQ OP 



267 



plying freely the soap-suds and wash-water of 
tlie family, witli animal manures and wood 
ashes, asiiie from the specific application of 
potash and hone dust. 

A chiy soil, says F. K. Elliott, sufficiently 
light and I'ertile to grow good corn, and with a 
gond supply of lime and potash (which can be 
applied if there is a deficiency), is capable of 
producing grapes of the best quality; if inter- 
mixed with gravel or sliale, it is all the better. 
If llie water does not shed naturally, the soil 
should be well drained. 

Most fruits reqiyre more or less of the potash 
salts, as is shown not only by a chemical analy- 
sis of them, but by the lact that their health 
aud productiveness are promoted when they are 
manured with ashes, or when the soil they grow 
in hiis received the emptyings of the wash tub, 
particularly if soap made from ashes has been 
used in washing. Of all fruit.s, no one kind 
is, perhaps, as great a potash feeder as the grape, 
therefore llie soil for a vineyard ouglit to con- 
tain the potash minerals. By going to the 
original source from which all plants have de- 
rived this substance, we will be enabled to save 
the expense of purchasing a costly article. Tlie 
principal potash minerals are /eWspar and mica, 
and these are mainly contained in granite, 
gneiss, and mica slate. Soils, therefore, that 
are derived in a good measure from these rocks 
are the richest in potash, and tlierefore, other 
things being equal, the best for vineyards. 

Judge J. G. Knapp, of Wisconsin, expressed 
the opinion at the meeting of the Wisconsin 
Horticultural Society, in February, 1869, that 
there is a great want of salt in the grape soils. 
In New Mexico, where he resided several years, 
and ill California, where they have a soil more 
impregnated with saline properties than in any 
other country except Persia, which possesses 
just such a soil — some of it so salt that corn 
will not grow — there they produce grapes and 
quinces in the greatest perfection. " The grape 
robs the soil of more salt than any other plant 
except the cabbage." 

At a late meeting of the Pennsylvania Fruit 
Growers' Society, Mr. Meehan, the noted hor- 
ticulturist of Germ^ntown, launched the follow- 
ing dogma concerning grape land : " To have 
good success, a soil could scarcely be too warm, 
loo dry, too shallow, or too rich." The enun- 
ciation of this radical platform occasioned 
some surprise; but not more so when it was 
found the experience of nearly all the speakers 
confirmed it. Rev. Mr. Colder said that at 
£Iarrisburg, his Concords on low land did 



poorly ; on dry land they did well. Mr. Kess- 
LER found just the same experience at Reading. 
Mr. Reist reported the same of Delaware 
grapes in his vicinity. The best Clintons Mr. 
Kessler ever saw were grown on an old stone 
heap. Dr. Gitoss did not approve of shallow 
soil, but found it best not to dig deep, but to 
fill up on the surliice. Mr. Hildrup, of Har- 
risburg, has had great success by planting on a 
very dry soil well enriched with .stable manure; 
he had made last year fifty gallons of wine 
from four hundred vines. Others gave similar 
experience. 

The location of a vineyard is important — it 
should be exempt from late Spring and early 
Fall frosts. In Italy and in Sicily the very 
finest and sweetest grapes grow on the rocky 
rubbish of volcanoes, and those that grow on 
loose rocky soils or along hill-sides covered with 
rocks, are often the best. These facts ought to 
teach us not to select the richest soils, and not 
to stuff" them with organic matter. 

The past season, says the American Journal 
of Agriculture, was a very peculiar one — wet 
and cold; and the grapes in many localities in 
the East failed to ripen. While this was gen- 
erally true, it was rather refreshing to observe 
at one of our horticullnral exhibitions, splendid 
specimens of a well-known variety, apparently 
fully ripe, wliich we found, on inquiry, had 
been grown near a ledge of rocks. Some years 
ago we visited a place where we observed simi- 
lar results from a similar cause. The whole 
secret of the thing is that the rocks absorb the 
heat of the sun by day, and give it off at night; 
keeping the roots of the vine warm, and tlie 
temperature about it more fully equalized. 

Our attention was once attracted to this same 
.sulyect by observing that the melon vines in a 
hill, around which some stones had been placed, 
were much larger at the end of a few weeks 
than those in the hills that had not been so 
treated. The same principle is observed in 

'cities, where grape vines are trained in front 
of brick walls, which absorb the heat by day, 

' and reflect it when most needed by the vine. 

j We propose to test more fully the value ot 
such treatment for the vine, by placing stones 
about the roots of several bearing vines, in dif- 
ferent parts of the vineyard where they failed 
this year to ripen a single grape. 

The finest t'oncords we ever saw, said J. F. 
C. Hyde, in his address before the Massachu- 
setts Agricultural Society, in 1868, were raised 
in Waltham, beside ledges of rocks, where they 
had the benefit, not only of shelter from cold 



2G8 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES ; 



winds, but tlie direct and reflected heat by day, 
and the warmth evolved from the rocks at 
night. Few persons who have not tried the 
experiment have any just idea of the advan- 
tages to be derived in this climate from plant- 
ing griipes beside rocks where the vines can 
have " warm feet." 

An elevation of only a few feet will often be 
the means of saving the entire crop. Elevated 
positions, with a free circulation of air, for 
warm climates; and elevated, protected ones, 
for a cold latitude, with a Southern slope, is 
always preferable, and sometimes indispensa- 
ble. Trenching will be necessary on gravelly 
hill-sides. Deep trenching is not advisable in 
New England, or elsewhere, where the soil 
does not get heated, during the short Summers, 
sufficiently for the healthy growth of the grape, 
to a greater depth than one fool; if, therefore, 
the roots of the vine are coaxed down into the 
lower cold stratum of .«oil, the wood and buds 
are not properly ripened, and the next year's 
crop will be enfeebled and ripen later. In 
portions of the West and Northwest, where the 
rainfall is less than the evaporation, deeper 
trenching seems essential. 

But we must never lose sight of the fact, that 
the grape needs much heat to insure its perfec- 
tion. " If we can ripen the grape in August," 
says Mr. BuLl^, of Massachusetts, " we get rid 
of the pulp. That is no longer a problem. I 
have done it. I have grapes without a particle 
of pulp, and of great delicacy of flavor, which 
ripen in August; but I have not a late grape 
which does not have some pulp; and this year 
(1867), which was cold and wet, the Concord 
liad more pulp than I ever saw before. The 
pulp melts away, in other words, in those cli- 
mates where the season is long enough to ripen 
it to perfection, and where Nature is no longer 
put to the expedient of surrounding the seed 
with it to acconiijlish her purpose of reproduc- 
tion. The Concord grown at, Jacksonville, 
Florida, has no pulp at all, and is of exquisite 
quality, and more agreeable to the taste than 
the Haniburgs grown there." Then, when we 
at the North shall have grapes early enough to 
ripen in the heat of the season, at a time when 
the climate is lij<e that at Jacksonville, they 
may attain the same quality here. 

WlLLlAN S.^UNDEBS says, that he holds two 
undeniable facts in grape culture; 1, That the 
best fruit is produced on the strongest and best 
ripened shoots; and, 2, that the shoots pro- 
duced from spurs never ripen so thoroughly as 
those from terminal buds. Further, that prop- 



erly ripened fruit will never be produced from 
unripened wood. Fruit apparently well col- 
ored, may be seen on green growths, but such 
fruit does not possess the characteristics of a 
well-ripened bunch of grapes. 

Planiimj. — Grapes may be set out in the way- 
places, trained to a stake or trellis, or be made 
to climb beside the walls of out-houses, cover- 
ing their bare sides with foliage and fruit. 
Plant in the Spring or the Fall — the latter 
has many able advocates — if early in the Fall, 
strip off every leaf, set in holes five or si.x* 
inches deep, spreading out the roots carefully 
in their natural position, and covering lightly 
with gpod soil. Mulch your ground; and to 
every vine put down a small stake three or four 
feet long, to which to tie the vine during its 
tirst ye.ir's growth. If planted in the Fall, hill 
the rows up as you would corn, covering the 
vines entirely, otherwise the ground will settle 
around your vines and form a basin, which will 
hold too much water, and injure if not destroy 
the vines. 

Clip the roots to prepare them for planting, 
leiiving none over fifteen or eighteen inches, 
because it is important to get fibrous roots 
.started near the main trunk. In planting, if 
in Autumn, set the roots about five inches 
deep, leaving the cane a foot or two long, 
which should be cut away in Spring level with 
the earth. Grow but one cane the first year, 
which — of strong growing sorts — will reach ten 
feet in length. Cut this cane down to four eyes 
in November, and allow the two lower ones to 
grow next Spring, and train them upright. 
These two canes are to be cut back in Novem- 
ber to about five feet, and next Spring are to be 
bent down in opposite directions, and each 
shortened to four feet and tied to stakes or 
wires, or slats of a trellis, to grow fruit-bear- 
ing canes. Plants being set just eight feet 
apart, the ends oi the arms from each will meet 
and fill all the space. If the vines are of the 
short-jointed varieties, every other bud may 
grow, and every one upon long joints, thus giv- 
ing five or six uprights to each arm. The third 
year from planting, each upright may ripen two 
bunches, say twenty-four bunches to a. vine. 
Next March cut back each upright to two buds 
and grow two canes. Afterward cut the upper 
one of these two, and so on of others, entirely 
away, and cut back the lower two buds, which 



»Somi-iif tlie pxpc-ri.-ni-ml urap- srowcrs nf th.' North- 
IV. St ^oiil.nil tlmt plants iiiiist-«li.,6c ivols tai. livput 
Inwn ilef'p— be fully ft fout from the #iirtii('f. un<l tnou 
tii-v mil (r„t s./t Uilkil BU ra-i.y l-y lla- lol.l. I'ur tllia 

:Iim It", Biy til y, give tis plums f;ouilung cuuiug^ liist— 

lie.\t Kv. I l.iyers. 



GRAPES — PLANTING AND PRUNING. 



2G9 



are to grow two canes. This keeps the bearing 
wood flown to a low head, the arms being 
trnineil to any height desired. A well estab- 
liflied vine will produce fifty to seventy-five 
bnnches a year npon a trellis only four feet 
liii;h, which allows rows to beset .si.x feet apart, 
or nearer, npon very valuable land. Some 
prefer arms three feet Ion?, and two tier of 
trellises. 

Some discretion must be u.sed as to the dis- 
tance apart with which to plant the vines, hav- 
ing reference to the kind of grape to be 
planted. If dwarfish varieties, such as the 
Delaware, Diana, br Rebecca, four by five feet 
is a good distance; if Norton's Virginia seed- 
ling, Concord, and other large kinds, eight to 
ten feet is not too far apart. An experiment in 
phuiling Concords only four feet apart, re- 
suliecl in lessening the size of the fruit about 
one-liair, but the loss was fully comiiensated in 
its u'reutly improved richness and flavor. 

Summer Pmninr/. — Grape vines must be 
pruned to get a fruit that will not shame its 
cultivator. Pruning in the Spring, when the 
vines bleed, is iiijurions ; if done in the Au- 
tumn, some contend that the vines do not 
bleed, but the wound sonn dries up and hardens 
over, while others declare that if the sap is not 
permitted to escape, it returns to the roots, 
causing them to rot — but experience does not 
confirm this rotting theory. Autumn pruning, 
however, induces a superabundant growth of 
wood the following season. Moderate pruning 
in midsummer tends to check this overgrowth. 

Judicious .Summer pruning, says Dr. War- 
der, in in<leed one of the most important ojier- 
ationa to be practiced upon the grape vine. 
Undoubledly, it has been much abused, and 
when improper!}' practiced it has produced dis- 
astrous results ; but it is not right to make 
Summer pruning the scapegoat upon which to 
saddle all the evil results of climate, incompat- 
ibility of the soil, and other circumstances and 
abuses which have caused failures of the vine. 
A judicious Summer pruning will produce in- 
creased vigor in the shoots, and improved size 
and quality of the fruits which are left, so that 
there results a stronger not a weaker plant, and 
the next year's crop of fruit is often much in- 
crea.sed by this kind of judicious Summer prun- 
ing. This treatment, however, is to be judicious 
and seasonable, and is to be performed, not 
rashly and blindly, but in a proper manner, 
guided by skill and based upon simple physi- 
ological laws, done with the thumb and with 
the finger-nail, and not with the pruning-hook, 



nor with the grass-knife, by cutting and slash- 
ing, which has well been styled "Summer 
slaughtering." When this is done at midsum- 
mer, after the plant has expended its strength 
in making all this growth, before the reflex ac- 
tion of the vine and its roots has been fully 
performed, it mu.st indeed be a debilitating pro- 
cess ; but this is not what the careful vigneron 
means by Summer pruning. On the contrary, 
he endeavers so to time and so to perform his 
operations as to spare tlie vine any such loss ; 
to this end he begins the process very early, by 
rubbing out the superfluous shoots with his 
thumb, so soon as he can discover which it is 
desirable to preserve either for fruit or for 
wood. At the same time he begins the pinch- 
ing process upon all bearing fruits that may 
have extended beyond the last bunch of grapes, 
and reached the length of about si.x inches. 
The effect of this kind of pruning is marvelous. 

The Gardener's Chronicle, of England, states 
that vines pruned in September — which is reck- 
oned as one of the Summer months in that 
country — while the leaves are on, will have the 
efTect of ripening the succeeding crop fifteen or 
twenty days earlier than other vines pruned in 
November, all other circumstances being equal. 
Several years experiments have produced the 
same results. In relation to this singular ef- 
fect of early pruning, the Gardener's Monthly, 
another able English horticultural magazine, 
says that the fact has a particular value to the 
.American grape grower, from the circumstance 
"that a few days of earliness is of immen.se im- 
portance to him, not only in getting his grapes 
to market, but in getting grapes in localities 
where the season is too short to ripen some de- 
.sirable kinds, or, indeed, any kind at all. If 
early pruning is to hasten maturity in this way, 
there are very few localities in the Union where 
the delicious Maxatawney will be too late to be 
worth growing, and so of other things besides 
grapes." 

Very much has been written, says the Horti- 
culturist, on the subject of Summer pruning of 
grapes, the pith of all being that it is desirable 
to have as little extra wood as possible, and yet 
maintain a healthy growth of vine and matura- 
tion of fruit. I 

Prune always, said Mr. Hyde, in Novem- 
ber, if po,ssible, and lay down the vines, un- 
less, like the Concord, they are very hardy. 
Always avoid severe Summer pruning, which 
has a tendenc}' to check the growth of the vine, 
and induce disease. 

My experience, in almost every respect, 



270 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



said Mr. BnLL, of Concord, corroborates Mr. 
Hyde's views — that too close planting, too 
close pruning, and Summer pincliing, are per- 
nicious to the grape, and that to avoid mildew 
and blight, and other grape diseases, you must 
give them room according to their strength. 
His position is, that the American grape, the 
hardy grape, niu.st have extension; and be has 
adduced the fact that vines growing in apple 
trees gnjw vigorously,, and give hundreds of 
pdunds of grapes. In the town of Woburn 
griiW3 a grape vine which covers the whole 
front of a bouse, which bore, in 1SC6, eight 
bushels of perfectly ripe grape.s. 

Ilovey's Magazine gives substantially the fol- 
lovving general rules for grajie pruning, after 
recommending grape growers to be free in the 
use of the knife, followed by the remark, that 
where one vine is pruned too severely, nine are 
not pruned enough. 

1. No shoots should be nearer than one foot 
of each other. 

2. Prune back to within one eye of the old 
wood, every Fall and Spring, about one-half 
of the usual shoots — the remaining eyes pro- 
ducing canes to be retained for bearing next 
year — when the old bearing wood is in turn to 
be cut oul, to make room for new shoots. 

3. Disbud or rub ofT, as .soon as they appear, 
all shoots not wanted as bearing wood. 

If Fall pruning be practiced, let it be done 
immediately after the gathering of the fruit. 

Whatever mode of training is adopted, says 
the Connlry Oenlkman, the following general 
rules should be observed: 

1. Allow no shoots to grow nearer than about 
one foot of each other. 

2. Cut back each bearing shoot at the close 
of the season to one strong eye, as near the old 
wood as practicable, to produce bearing shoots 
another year. 

3. Eub off as soon as the)' appear, all shoots 
not wanted. 

These rules may be observed for different 
modes of (raining, whether vertical, horizontal, 
or in the fan form; but the following will com- 
monly be found the simplest and easiest in 
practice : 

After the two caiTes have been formed the 
third year on the young vine, they are to be 
cut off to within about four feet of the base, 
ajul spread out in opposite directions horizon- 
tally, to form the arms. As buds always tend 
to break into shoots soonest, when bent back 
from an upright position, and also from the 



extremities or tips of the canes, these arms, if 
brought out straight as in Figure 6, will produce 




Figure fi, 
shoots irregularly, the buds on the middle por- 
tion of the arms not breaking at all, while the 
others may have grown several inches. To 
prevent this difficulty, bend them in curves, as 
shown in Figure 7 — the middle portions being 
the highest, will strike shoots equally with the 
other parts. As soon as these shoots are well 
under way, the arms inay be brought into a 




straight horizontal position. If trained to the 
vertical wire trellis, each shoot shouhl have its 
appropriate wire, and all others rubbed off. If 
the horizontal wire trellis is used, each shoot 
should be tied to the second wire as soon as 
they have grown sufficiently to reach it. This 
wire being placed nearer the base for this pur- 
pose, when the young »hoots have reached a 
few inches above the top of the trellis, they 




should be kept pinched back to this height for 
the rest of the season. Each one will probably 
set two or three bunches of fruit, and if the 
canes are strong enough, these may be allowed 
to remain and ripen, and will pre.sent in Au- 
tumn the appearance shown in Figure 8. 

If the vine is intended to be laid down and 
slightly covered for Winter, the pruning may 
be done at any time after the fall of the leaf. 
Or, if it is desired to use the wood that is cut 
away for propagating new vines, the pruning 
should be done before the shoots are severely 
frozen. As all pruning in Autunui increases 
the liability to injury by the cold of Winter, 
one or two extra buds should be left on the 



GRAPES — TRELLIS FOR. 



271 



slump, to be cut down the following Spring. 
If llie pruning i.^i not done in .\utumn, it may 
be performed at any .subsequent period before 
Spring. 

Grape Trellis. — Tlie wire trellis i.s very 
largely used, both in lliis country and Europe — 
the size of the wire preferred is No. 16, and 
but two wires are generally used, except in 
cases of very large vines, in which three are 
u?ed, and sometimes four. They are stretched 
on strong posts set twenty feet apart, passing 
intermediately tljrough holes in smaller posts 
or stakes. On the lower line, about eighteen 
inches above the ground, the fruit-bearing wood 
is trained, while the upper line, about eighteen 
inches from the other, supports the new wood. 
Many in Europe prefer to allow the fruit-bear- 
ing cane to do service two years, instead of one 
only, as is the practice in America. There is 
no doubt that with wire trellises the pruning, 
lying, pinching off, etc., can be much more 
cheaply done than where the training is to 
sialics; and t'rom the waj' the clusters depend 
from the horizontal cane, it is easy to see that 
there must be also a superior access of sun and 
air, and a greater ease in gathering the fruit. 

Another mode of wire trellising, somewhat 
different from the preceding, is as follows: At 
each end of the row, say one to two hundred 
yards apart, a chestnut post, eight inches diam- 
eter, is planted four feet in the ground, and six 
or seven above. The intermediate posts are 
not quite so large, and not always so deeply .set. 
They are of the same durable limber, and will 
last thirty years or more, probably. They are 
set from eight to fifteen feet apart, .supporting 
three lines of No. 11 wire, attached by nails. 
The first wire is three to four feet from the 
ground, and the space above equally divided — 
some lines of posts being seven feet high. The 
cost of posts averages about twenty cents each, 
and trellising an acre, $260 to $300. 

A. S. Fuller suggests that the cheapest and 
best way to make a trellis is by nailing two light 
slals to light po.sts, very much as you would for 
making picket fence — one near the top, and the 
other a foot from the ground; then place light 
upright wires between the slats at each cane, 
fastened by winding the ends around the slals — 
these wires should be galvanized ; they cost 
from three to five cents per pound more than 
the common annealed wire, but their lasting 
qualities are so much greater that it fully com- 
pensates for the additional expense. Nos. 14 
and 16 are large enough for the perpendicular 



wires on such trellises as described; Nos. 8 and 
10 are the sizes used when put on horizontallj'. 
The number of pounds of wire required for a 
given length of trellis may be readily ascer- 
tained by calcuhiting the number of feet neces- 
sary, and then dividing the amount by the 
number of feet in a pound, which is as follows: 
No. 8, thirteen feet to tlie pound ; No. 10, 
twenty feet; No. 12, thirty-lhree feet; No. 14, 
fifly-four feel, and No. 16, one bundled and 
two feet. 

The posts to be used in such a trellis should 
be of durable wood, of from four to six inches 
in diameter, and si.x and a half feet long; set 
them in the ground two and a half feet, and in 
a line with the vines, and eight feet apart — ihat 
is, if the vines are that distance apart; a post 
should be placed between each two vines at an 
equal distance from each. Then nail on the 
strips, two and a half or three inches wide, and 
an inch thick. 

With tender sorts, which it is desirable to 
lay down for Winter, tliis process would be to 
incline a single arm at an angle of forty-five 
degrees, and spur prune, as in the double-arm 
system. They can be readily laid down and 
covered in Winter. 

Dr. Jabez Fisher, an experienced cultiva- 
tor of Massachusetts, thus describes his trellis, 
built of posts and wire. The posts Wfre chest- 
nut, two by two, except one at each end, which 
was three by five, and braced in a fool. The 
posts were set ten feet apart, two and a half 
feet deep, and were dipped in gas tar before 
setting. I would now set them but six feet 
apart. Four .strands of No. 12, annealed, iron 
wire were attached to the posts by staples made 
of the same wire. The lowest wire is eighteen 
inches from the ground, and the others are 
placed at distances of fourteen inches, so that 
the lop wire is just five feet from tlie surface of 
the soil. These wires are coated with Paraffine 
varnish to keep tliem from rusting. 

J. II. Greenman described the following bow 
trellis at the meeting of the Wisconsin Horti- 
cultural Society, in February, 1869: Prepare 
stakes four feet long, and two inches or more 
in diameter; sharpen one end, and coat with 
coal tar half way up. Drive a small staple, 
near the top, on each side, making four staples 
to each .stake. The bows may be riven as for 
hoops, or sawed an inch wide by half an inch 
thick, and sixteen feet long. These are steamed 
and bent on a half circle of seven feet; the 
ends are sharpened to fit in the staples in the 
stakes. Drive the stakes eighteen inches deep, 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



and two feet in advance of each vine. Place 
one end of a bow in the first stake in the first 
row, and the other end in tlie second stal^e in 




the second row, and so alternately, the bows 
crossins; each other centrally between the rows. 
In this way the grapes may be cultivated with 
a horse, while the foliage is in the sun, and the 
grapes constantly shaded. 

The use of a stake driven in the ground beside 
the vine, with one or two slats or arms nailed 
across, so as to extend some two feet or more 
each way from the post, is a very common and 
cheap nioile of training the vine; but a good 
trellis, as soon as one can be secured, is far bet- 
ter and cheaper in the end. 

Spiral Tmininrj. — Dr. Hull, one of the most 
successful fruit growers in the West, s.iys : 

" The object of spiral binding and twisting the 
grape vine is to so place the buds that no two 
shoots emanating from them shall be compelled 
to compete for light or air. Set a stake close to 
the vine. Around this twist and bind spirally 
the fruit cane, and secure it by tying firmly at 
the top; if the work has been .skillfully done, 
the young shoots emanating from the fruit 
buds may at the time the second pinchin; 
performed, be bent out Iiorizontally so as to 
fully expose each leaf to the sun. The canes 
for the next season's crop of fruit are trained 
to a second stake, set in the row about two feet 
from the vine. Should the vine be a strong 
one, then a third stake is to be set on the oppo- 
site side of the vine, to which one or two more 
young canes are to be trained. In pruning the 
vine, cut away the cane that produced the last 
crop of fruit ; select the be.st young cane for 
fruit; cut this for the next season's crop to ten 
or fifteen buds according to strength, twist and 
bind to the central stake as before described. 
Also cut the remaining canes back to one or 
two buds each, and the young canes from these 
are to be tied to the outside slakes as before 
described. The treatment will be the same 
each succeeding year." 

manure and Culture.— "I prefer," 
Bays A. S. Fuller, "barn-yard manure, com- 
posted with two parts muck to one of manure. 



This compost, for sandy soils, is as good a ma- 
nure as has ever been invented. For a heavy 
loam or clay soil, the order might be reversed, 
and two parts of manure to one of muck, al- 
ways adding one or two quarts of bone dust to 
each vine at the time of planting." Fresh ma- 
nure will often cause disease and feebleness in 
tlie vine; and soils too highly manured, and 
ricji river bottoms, will produce mammoth 
vines, with diminutive worthless fruit. An- 
other recommends, that in putting out a young 
vine, open a large hole, and in filling it up, 
mix in from a peck to half a bushel of bones, 
with half as many ashes — the latter forming 
lye, and aiding in the decomposition of the 
bones. 

E. W. Bull, in some remarks made at a 
meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Agri- 
culture, in December, 1866, contended that a 
moist rich soil is not a suitable one for the Con- 
cord grape, but that a poorer, dryer soil will 
belter insure a fair crop of well-matured grapes. 
"I have a little vineyard," said be, "on the top 
of a hill, which is a gravelly loam, charged 
with some protoxide of iron ; during the whole 
time it has been in my possession, for twcnly- 
ty-nine years, has never had manure but once, 
and that was given to the crop preceding the 
planting of the grapes. I did not, at the lime 
of planting, believe it was a good spot for a 
vineyard. But a German grape grower, a gen- 
tleman of experience and culture, being at my 
place, recommended to me the planting of some 
Concords four feet apart. The Concord being 
a rampant grower, I had planted, before that, 
eight feet apart ; he thought they would suc- 
ceed better four feet apart. I look the German 
method, and planted that spot with vines four 
feet apart, because I supposed that, being a 
barren hill, they would not grow so rampant — 
that we could hold them in place easily. Let 
me say, that at one of our exhibitions, where I 
carried some large, handsome hunches to the 
fuests, a grape grower of Middlesex, and a gen- 
tleman of large experience, came to me and 
asked, 'What is the grape in the other room?' 
I said, 'the Concord.' ' I don't mean the Con- 
cord,' said he, 'but the smaller grape.' 'The 
Concord.' 'You need not tell me that is the 
Concord; it is a great deal better; it is one of 
your improved seedlings,' he said at once. 
When I told him the circumstancesj he said, 
'Then I don't know anything about grape 
"rowin"'.' I instance that to .show that manure 
is not necessary ; that the grape is so delicate a 
"rower that it does better where the soil is not 



GRAPES MANURE FOE. 



273 



manured; if oxide of iron is present, I should 
lliink it an advantase. Tliat vineyard gave me 
bunches liaU" the size of the hirgest bunches 
from otlier vineyards, but the quality was a 
great deal better, and tlie fruit makes a great 
deal better quality of wine, corroborating the 
opinion of Frencli wine growers, tliat you must 
nut manure a vineyard." 

Wlien the soil is trenched two feet deep, and 
manured in the lower "spitting," as it is called, 
the roots of the vine go down after ihe manure 
and the moisture, which they find there, in- 
stead of filling the proper soil of the surface 
with roots, as would happen in ordinary culture 
with the plow and cultivator. In this .substra- 
tum they rarely find more than fifty degrees of 
heat. They want eighty and one hundred and 
twenty degrees. As a cdnsequence the wood is 
not well-ripened, and the fruit, though it may 
be large and showy, is not of so good a quidity 
as that from the vines which get the greatest 
heat at the root; but this is not all the mi.s- 
chief, the immature wood has imperfectly ri- 
pened buds ; these weak buds give fruit which 
ripens later than the proper se.ason, and ihe 
case continuing, the evil becomes chronic. 
You may be sure, you will get the best fruit 
in the warmest soil and aspect, and I believe it 
would he better to plant in the immediate sur- 
f4te soil than in ground trenched to the depth 
of two feet. But if your soil overlays clay and 
is cold and moist, the draining and trenching 
is the only method by which you can succeed 
in growing grapes. In this way you can get 
rid of the water, and by giving access to the 
air, warm the subsoil to a certain extent. Do 
not, however, put manure into the subsoil, to 
invite the grape roots down into the cold; put 
it rather on the surface and work it in with a 
cultivator or harrow, and plant your vines as 
near the surface as is possible without impeding 
the proper cultivation of the soil. 

There is no better liquid fertilizer for the 
grape vine than sink water, or soap-suds, but 
this material is not safe to use upon all soils, 
unless the land is first prepared for it. A grape 
vine will not thrive in a mud hole, let it be 
ever so well supplied with the peculiar proper- 
ties that promote the growth of it. On rolling, 
sandy soil, the slops are filtered, and the water 
drained away from around the roots by an un- 
der course, and renovating elements left for the 
fibrous roots to feed upon. The same result is 
obtained on well underdrained clay soil, but 
caution should alw.ays be used when applying 
slops and ends around vines so situated that the 
18 



surplus water will not pa.ss ofT. Surface drain- 
ings will not do, for then no great amount of 
nourishment is imparted to the soil where it is 
wanted. 

In California a system is practiced by some 
scientific grape growers of enriching their vine- 
yards by cutting into fine bits the Spring prun- 
ings, and plowing in the same, thus returning 
the needed material for maturing the vine. 
This experiment has been carefully and success- 
fully tried, with good results, which are keep- 
ing the soil light and porous, and giving to the 
vineyard a wholesome look and a heavy crop. 

"The grape," says Mr. Bull, "requires very 
little labor, very little care. You plow in 
Spring and keep down the weeds in Summer; 
your vine is hardy ; 3'ou never take it down ; 
there is no tying up, it fastens itself there; you 
let it run into space. You do not put on much 
manure. You want a little dressing — lime, 
phosphate iu some form, wood ashes, and, if 
your vine grows weak, some nitrogenous ma- 
nure — perhaps guano and ashes would be the 
best." Summer culture, during the growth of 
the beriy, except to keep the weed.s down, is of 
doubtful utility, often resulting in tearing up 
the roots near the surface, injuring and weak- 
ening tlie vines, and unfitting them to mature 
their fruit. * 

On Thinning Out Orapes. — Another point 
in grape culture, says the Horticulturist, is a 
judicious and careful thinning of the fruit. 
Too much fruit not only exhausts the vine and 
enfeebles it so as to induce disease, but the 
quality of the fruit is so much impaired that he 
who buys for the market or wine will reduce 
the price accordingly. Two pounds of really 
large and perfect bunches will bring nearly if 
not quite as much as the three pounds of im- 
perfect ones, and the grower will find for the 
first a ready sale, while for the second the 
buyer will hesitate and haggle about the price. 

This thinning should be done with a pair of 
sharp-pointed scissors, cutting out from one- 
fourth to one-half the berries, taking them from 
difi'ercnt parts of the bunch, so that when it is 
fully grown it will be uniform, and the berries 
will not be any more crowded upon one part 
than another. It would scarcely be practicable 
to thin out the berries of all the bunches in a 
vineyard, and no one would think of cultiva- 
ting extensively a variety that required it; still, 
there are varieties which are highly recom- 
mended by some persons, that will seldom 
mature more than one- half the fruit that sets. 
The bunches of these should be thinned. Some- 



274 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



times it may he beneficial to remove wliole 
biinclies, but when the vines are properly 
pruned and trained, this will seldom be nec- 
essary. 

There is an evident mistake in stripping off 
tlie leaves to expose the clusters to the sun. It 
is not necessary that the cUisters receive the 
direct rays of the sun all day long — they often 
do belter without them, while it is essential 
that the leaves, or lungs, near the hunches be 
preserved. The shoot may be pinched off a 
foot or eighteen inches beyond the cluster, but 
all leaves between that point and the bunches 
should be left. When the vine is young and 
growing, a single duster to the spur is suffi- 
cient — or three clusters to two spurs may an- 
swer. The superior size of the rcmaing berries 
and clusters will more than compen.sate for 
those lenioved, to say nothing of the overtax ol 
the vine in attiinpiing to perlect so inucJi fruit. 

Grogs and Crops among Grapes. — It is an 
error to allow a sod to grow close about the 
stem along this border. The nourishment and 
moisture which should go to the roots of the 
vine are appropriated to the graB.s, and the 
vine is languishing in consequence. For the 
same reason growing crops, especially those 
which make heavy <lrafts upon the soil, should 
not be planted close to the grapes. And in 
feeding the roots, remember that they are no 
longer close to the main stem, but have pushed 
in each direction quite a distance. Let the 
fertilizer be applied there; keep the surface 
loose and free of weeds. 

Effect of Rinciing Grape Vines. — Repeated ex- 
periments show that the practice of ringing 
grapes — that is, cutting out circular .sections of 
bark an inch wide — increases the size of the 
berries over those on canes not girdled, and 
causes the fruit to mature ten days, or more, 
earlier than it would otherwise do; but all this 
at the expense of the flavor, the fruit on the 
girdled vines proving invariably sourer and 
less ripe than the others, though as highly 
c<d(ired. It might, perhaps, be said that the 
cutting off of the downward flow of the sap, 
somehow prevented the perfect elaboration of 
the saccharine element. The branch beyond 
where the ringing is performed is killed by the 
operation. 

Preservation of Grapes. — The fanners in cen- 
tral Pennsylvania have longjjracliced a method 
for preserving grapes, which has proved emin- 
ently successful. The process may be described 
as follows: Pick the fruit from the vines when 
fully ripe, rejecting those which show the least 



symptoms of overripeness or tendency to decay 
Let this be di>ne at a time when both fruit and 
vines are dry. A bright, sunny day is best. 
Take a keg — it need not be perfectly tight — a 
nail keg will answer; place on the bottom a 
layer of fresh, green leaves from the vine; j>n 
these put a layer of clusters ; then another 
layer of leaves, and another of clusters; and 
so on to the top, ending with a layer of leaves; 
so that the fruit may not come in contact with 
the staves or either head. Be cautious to han- 
dle carefully, to press but very slightly, and to 
move the keg gently after being filled and- 
headed. Next, dig a trench in the soil deep 
enough to sink the keg so that its upper head 
shall be a foot, or a trifle more, under ground; 
keeping the same end up as when being filled. 
Fill the hole or trench to the upper head, lay 
over a board, and then fill to four or five inches 
above the surface of the ground — packing the 
earth around the keg slightly, and that above 
the board closely. The finish should he such 
as to give water of rains ami melting snows a 
tendency away from the trench ; and if you 
wish to have access to the grapes during the 
cold of midwinter, a mulch of leaves, covered 
with straw enough to prevent their being blown 
aWay, sh.ould be applied to prevent the soil 
Irom freezing. The kegs need not be water- 
tight; and yet it would be safer if they were, 
as water, passing in, would undoubtedly spoil 
the grapes. But the operator, if he has a parti- 
cle of common sense, can more cheaply prevent 
this by giving the surface a slope off from the 
place, than by being at the expense of perfectly 
tight kegs. It is certain that no more wetting 
should reach the grapes than'would naturally 
proceed Irom a soil moderately moist. 

The method of C. Carpenter, of Kelley's 
Island, an extensive grape grower, is as fol- 
lows: The grapes must be fully ripe, well sup- 
plied with saccharine matter, very carefully 
handled, and have a cool, dry room, or cellar, 
to keep them in. They should also either be 
sealed up so as entirely to exclude the air, or 
have just air or ventilation enough to prevent 
molding. A little shriveling does not injure 
them so much as mold. In a dry day, take a 
broad basket into the vineyard, gather some of 
the dry fallen grape leaves, rubbing them in 
the hands to break them up somewhat, and put 
a layer of them on the bottom of the basket. 
Gather the best grapes, carefully cutting out 
of each bunch the unripe, decayed, and broken 
berries, with a pair of sharp scissors ; do not 
pick them off with your fingers, for by so doing 



GRAPES — CULTURE OP. 



275 



yoii will stiirl some good berries from the stem, 
(Mii>*in2; them to rot and injure others. When 
tiitiimed hiy ench cluster in the basket until 
one hiyer is complete, and then place layers of 
leaves and grapes alternately, finishing with a 
layer of leaves — not packing more than ten or 
twelve 'inches of fruit, lest the weight should 
break those at the bottom. The fewer hand- 
lings they receive the better. With all these 
{•ijiiditicms observed, they will keep good four 
rr iive monlhs; and the few varieties with the 
thickest skins and the most sugar keep best 
tliroii^'h the Winter — the Agawam or Rogers' 
No. 15, Catawba, and Diana, when well ma- 
tured, are among the best for the purpose. 

In England and France dried fern leaves are 
used very extensively for packing fresh fruit 
grapes especially; they seeming to possess, ir 
an uruisual degree, the property of preserving 
vej:etable and even animal substances for a 
long time. Dipping grapes in lime is objec- 
tionable, even if it should preserve them, which 
is ddulitl'ul. They may, however, be kept for 
months, if hung, stalk end downward, in a. 
cold, dry, dark closet. 

Covering Grape Vines in Winter. — Dr. Joseph 
IIoBBiNS, President of the Wisconsin Horti- 
cultural Society, gives this suggestion, founded 
on his ex|ierienee ; " Begin by haying down in 
the direction you mean to continue, and you 
will find, after the first year, yon will have 
little or no trouble in bringing your vine, how- 
ever thick it may be in the stock, almost close 
to the ground. Lay down in the same direction 
ecery year. Thi.s, to be done easily and without 
injury to the vine, or inconvenience to yourself 
from bad weather, should be done at the time 
of pruning. At such a time the vine bends 
more freely. With the stocky and older vines 
I sometimes use forked sticks, which are driven 
into the earth, forcing down the vine as near 
the surface as possible, which practice saves 
b(]tli labor and material in covering. Winter 
proteeticm is afforded, where there is plenty of 
Rpaee, by earth, and, where things grow pretty 
close to each other, by loose stable litter. I 
use the latter, putting it on from three to live 
inches, according to the exposure, or the more 
or less hardy character of the vine." 

"Where the plants can be bent readily to the 
earth without breaking," said the late E. B. 
QuiKER, " I have always found that the best 
covering was simple earth. Straw is objection- 
able on account of harboring mice, and maiuire 
is too heating. Some use old leaves or si rawy 
litter. The object to be gained is to prevent 



the alternate freezing and thawing iluring the 
Winter, and this is better accomplished by two 
inches of earth, Qr tan, where it can be pro- 
cured. Grapes said to be hardy will yield 
altogether a better crop for being covered. 
Fruit buds fully exposed to our severe Winters 
are weakened, if not entirely destroyed; and, 
although a partial crop may be had, yet it will 
not be equal to that from plants which have 
received protection." 

Dr. .J.VBEZ FisHEB, of Ma.ssachusetts, .says: 
"I have not usually given the Concord grape 
any WiiUer protection. It is generally so well 
ripened and so hardy in its nature as to endure 
(U'dinary Winter weather without protection; 
but in unfavorable seasons it is liable to be in- 
sufficiently ripened to withstand the influence 
of extreme cold without suffering, and in such 
cases there follows a partial or even a total 
failure of a crop. In fact the Winter of 1860, 
1861, showing a temperature of twenty-two 
degrees below zero on the 8th day of February, 
killed all the wood which stood above the snow 
line on that day. This might not have hap- 
pened, and probably would not, if the wood 
had been well ripened in the .\ulumn previous. 
The ,\iUumn of 1860 was very wet, and slightly 
cooler than the average of seasons, and the 
foliage of grape vines and even apple trees 
was killed by a Severe freeze on the 1st day of 
October, while still green and growing. Vines 
planted in the way I have described, can be 
easily laid down at a cost of not more than 
one day's labor of a man and a boy for an acre, 
which is a very cheap insurance, considering 
the risk of so valuable a crop. My vines are 
planted on the east side of the trellis, a foot 
fiom it, and are trained in a slanting direction 
to the lower wire. Above that point they are 
carried up on the west side of the trellis, so 
that when pruned, and the ties cut, they fall 
toward the ground on the west side by their 
own weight. A boy can hold them down, while 
a man throws three or four shovelfuls of soil 
upon them to hold them in place." 

In covering, the soil should be a dry or 
sandy one, a.s a heavy clay tends to too much 
wetness and injury to the dormant buds. Let 
the vines remain covered in a northern climate 
till the 15th of May. 

Even when grape vines are thrown down 
upon the ground, without any sort of protec- 
tion, they are less liable to injury than those 
fastened to the stakg or trellis, exposed to the 
bleak winds. It is better to cover them. 

Hon. M. P. Wilder, and his fellow-mem- 



276 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



liers of tlie Massachusetts Committee to the 
Paris Exposition in 1867, in tlieir report on 
the cnlture and products of tlie vine, ohserve: 
"For Winter protection it is^^ common 
practice in Europe to go throngli the vines 
with a plow every Fall, and throw up a good 
ridge of earth against the stalks. The Hun- 
garians have a more effectual way of guaran- 
teeing against the cold of their rigorous Win- 
ters, which is to lay the vines on the ground, 
(liver them with straw, and on the straw throw 
tlie eartli; without this it is said they couhl 
jiroduc^' no wine at all. Our native grapes are 
generally hardy, and will live wherever their 
Iruit will ripen, but occasionally there is a 
severe season which seems to touch the very 
heart of the wood, and so enfeebles it that it 
falls an easy prey to disease. It was noticed 
that the mildew set in with great destructive- 
ness after tlie two hard Winters of 18.54 and 
1856." 

Varieties. — Brief notices of the principal 
grapes cultivated in this country will here be 
given, as tested by the best American grape 
growers: 

Adirondac. — An excellent early grape, pre- 
ceding the Hartford Prolific in ripening, 
possessing a thin skin, and an agreeable deli- 
cacy of flavor. In some localities it succeeds 
well, and in such it proves exceedingly desira- 
ble for early marketing. Its liability is to rail- 
dew and tenderness. 

milieu's Hybrid. — A fine white grape, bunches 
hirge, shouldered and compact, and quality first 
best. Vine a little tender. "I like this vine 
and its fruit," says Dr. Hobbins, "better and 
better the older it grows; it has borne well and 
fruited well with me in Wisconsin." In Ohio, 
it is liable to mildew. 

Alvey, or Hagar. — This belongs to a class of 
Southern grapes, that have not, on the whole, 
been very successful at the North, yet it ap- 
pears to be quite hardy in protected situations, 
and fully ripens. The fruit is too small for 
table use; Dr. Warder commends it for the 
Ohio Valley as "fiiifi and vinous." 

Black Hank. — This is a seedling of the Con 
cord, commended by Dr. Wakder as among 
the hardy, healthy, and productive varieties, 
early and sweet. Both the Black Hawk and 
Martha, says the Ohio Pomological Report for 
1866, have the sterling good qualities of their 
parent — vigor, hardiness, and perfect health. 

Casmdy. — A Philadelphia seedling; berry, 
medium, greenish-white, covered with a whitish 



bloom; fruit, juicy, pleasant, vinous, but not 
rich. Kipens the last of September. 

CaU u'6o. — One of the oldest grapes in culti- 
vation in this country, with its large, round, 
thick-skinned, deep-red berries, covered with a 
lilac bloom. It will not bear manuring. Up 
to 1860, there were about a thousand acres of 
the Catawba vineyards in the vicinity of Cin- 
cinnati, yielding, in favorable seasons, two hun- 
dred gallons of wine per acre. But owing to 
its uncertainty, on account of the rot, it is now 
in many sections, especially at the North, be- 
ing discarded, and more reliable kinds substi- 
tuted. In localities where it will mature, and 
is not eflected by the rot, there are few better 
varieties. At Burlington, Iowa, are several 
large vineyards, cultivated by Swiss and Ger- 
man vine growers, where an excellent Catawba 
wine is made, closely resembling the "Rud- 
esheimer Berg" of the Rhine. 

Clinton. — This isoneof the hardiest of grapes; 
and in many localities it does well, producing 
a brisk, .spicy, vinous fruit ; is a perpetual 
bearer, and generally healthy, though in some 
regions in the Northwest it suffers from tlirip 
and mildew. It appears to succeed best when 
permitted to ramble over a tree. The fruit 
makes good sauce and jelly, and, if kept until 
after midwinter, its sharpness becomes so soft- 
ened as to render it pleasant. It should be 
planted on rather a poor soil, as it is naturally 
a rampant grower — otherwise it will become 
almost uncontrollable. 

Concord. — This is ilenominated the farmers' 
grape — the grape for the million — the grape 
for the whole country. It possesses the several 
characteristics of great hardiness, productive- 
ness, freedom from disease and showy appear- 
ance, while its bunches are large, berries large 
and purple, and of a sweet aromatic flavor. 
Time of ripening, about ten days earlier than 
the Isabell.i. It does best on a sandy land, and 
poorest on hea*'y clayey soils ; high feeding 
would prove its worst treatment. The Ameri- 
can Pomological Society have placed it highest 
on the list of grapes most widely diffused and 
approved in the country. It was awarded the 
LoNGWORTH prize as the best wine grape for 
Ohio, and the best table grape for the whole 
country; and the (jreeley prize as the best 
grape for general cultivation. 

George Husmann, of Herman, Missouri, a 
practiced vine dresser, of many years' experi- 
ence, who has written an able work on the 
Culture of the Grape, claims, in the Horticul- 
turist, the Concord as the best grape for everybody. 



GRAPES — VARIETY OF. 



277 



"This," lie continues, "is a bold position to 
t:ike for any fruit, but I take it after trj'ing 
this grape for seven successive j-ears, and after 
comparing it with about sixty varieties I have 
in bearing, and also after due consideration of 
pros and cons. Now letns see wliy: 

"1. The vine is a strong, healthy grower, 
and will succeed in any soil so as to give a fair 
criip under any treatment. 

"2. It is entirely free from disease, and en- 
tirely hardy. 

"3. It is, under proper treatment, a great 
bearer, and always ripens its fruit well. 

" 4. It has a fine, large, handsome bunch and 
berry, which sells readily in market. 

"5. It is a good wine grape, as it makes a 
wine equal to the best Catawba, if not superior, 
and we pretend to know here what good Cataw- 
ba is, having grown it for sixteen years. It 
also makes more of it than any other grape I 
know of, to tl^ acre, as it is nearly all juice." 

Mr. Bull, of Concord, Massachusetts, the 
originator of this grape, states; "For sixteen 
Rnccessi%'e years it h.os not failgd to give me a 
remunerating crop;" that one acre of well- 
established, healthy vines will give about seven 
tons of grapes, worth at wholesale, on an aver- 
a;;e of the last four years, fourteen cents per 
pnund, or about $2,000; and this amount, large 
as it is, has been exceeded in many cases; but, 
if you reduce the result one half, you still have 
one of the most profitable crops known to our 
liushandry; that no other farm crop requires 
R(i little manure as the grape — that he has vines 
wliicli give him annual crops of one hundred 
and iwentj'-fivc pounds each, which have had 
no manure for ten years, having given them 
forty loads of light compost per acre to pro- 
mote the formation of roots the first year. 

Creveling or Catawissa. — A black grape of 
good quality, and so hardy that it succeeds quite 
well in the Northwest. Ripens early in Sep- 
tember, with bunches of medium size, fruit 
moderately juicy, sweet, not high flavored, but 
good. At the meeting of the Wisconsin Hor- 
ticultural Society, in February, 1869, it was 
said that the Creveling produced more in quan- 
tity than any other variety, and was better in 
•bat latitude than the Hartford; and President 
IloBBiNS added, that he ranked the Creveling 
.■unong the very best grapes; "it is hardy, not 
being injured by the drought of Summer or the 
cold of Winter; and that man who wants a 
grape for the palate should get a Creveling." 
It has been objected to on account of its tendency 
to straggle and make loose bunches; this E. 



A. Thompson, of Hillside Vineyard, near Cin- 
cinnati, insists, is altogether owing to its '-eing 
deficient in inflorescence, which he remedies 
by |>lanting^|in alternate rows with the Con- 
cord and Hwlford Prolific, from which varie- 
ties it is fertilized by impregnation. It seems 
destined to take the place of the Catawba as a 
table grape; it is an excellent bearer, vinous, 
and makes a good wine. 

Cunningham. — A fine wine grape raised in 
Missouri and farther South; will not succeed 
north of Missouri, as it barely ripens there. 

Cynthiana. — The fruit of this variety is de- 
scribed by Fuller as "small, black, or blue- 
black, i50ur, and worthless." Yet George 
HusMANN says it is a dangerous rival to the 
Norton for a wine grape, making altogether the 
best red wine we yet have, resembling, but far 
surpassing, the best Burgundy. 

Delaware. — Very hardy, productive, and gen- 
erally free from disease; bunches small and 
compact; berrie.s small, translucent, with a pink 
tinge, and very sweet and delicious. It should 
be planted on a rich, dry soil to do well, and 
requires high feeding. It is a rich grower, and 
ripens in different localities from the first to the 
end of September. Succeeds moderately well 
in the Northwest, and is popular in all sections 
of the country. 

Diana.- — -A red grape, a seedling from the 
Catawba; bunches large and compact; the 
thick skin of the fruit makes it eminently a 
grape to keep well till Spring, with very little 
trouble, and its peculiar musky flavor disap- 
pears after it is kept awhile. It is very pio- 
ductive, and ripens with the Concord, about the 
20th of September; and keeps improving for 
nearl}' a month, if permitted to hang so late. 
When fully ripe, it is luscious. It should be 
planted on a light, dry, warm soil or sandy loam ; 
does poorly on heavy soils, and will'not bear ma- 
nuring. Experience lias proven that it is not 
well suited to the Northwest, as it is apt to 
winter-kill, and does not ripen evenly; yet in 
some localities, in Wisconsin, it has succeeded 
very well. The Diana improves in bearing 
with increased age. 

EUinbiirgh. — A small black grape, with large 
and somewhat loose bunches, berries small, 
thin skin, a sweet, vinous flavor — excellent for 
the table. Too small for vineyard planting; 
as hardy as the Isabella, and ripens a few days 
before it. 

Golden Champion. — This is a grape culti- 
vated in Great Britain, and as yet not much 
known in this country; it appears destined to 



278 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



hold about tlie same rank in that country that 
tlie Concord does in this. It is :i white grape, 
and is remarkable for its wonderl'ul size and 
exqnisite flavor. The HorticuUurMmvea a tif;ure 
of ii, by wbich a single berry measures full an 
inch and three-eighths in diameler one way, 
and an inch and five-eighths anollier, justify- 
ing what is said of it — a " magnificent berry." 

Gulden Clinton. —This is a seedling from the 
common Clinton; perfectly hardy; free grower; 
and a great bearer. Ripe 15th of September ; 
sUin thin; flesli very sweet and juicy, with no 
pulp. .\ nice wliite grape, and considerably 
cultivated in the State of New York. 

Hartford Prolific. — A very productive bearer, 
hardy, and requires severe pruning, and check- 
ing of the young bearing canes in Suunner, or 
the liuiiclies will be loose and the fruit sltake 
off' quite early. Has not generally succeeded 
well in the Northwest, the quality of the fruit 
being regarded as insifiid; while in a milder 
region it proves a valuable table grape on ac- 
count of its early ripening qualities, b^ng fit 
for market, as raised on the hill-sides near Cin- 
ciJinati, as early as the fifth of August, and 
elsewhere about the 1st of September, the fruit 
being sweet, juicy, somewhat foxy in flavoi — in 
quality only passably good. 

Jlerbeinunt.—X ery prolific, bunches large, ber- 
ries small; color dark purple; a late bearer; 
but while best adapted to the South, it ripens 
in the Ohio Valley, where it wsis many years 
since introdnced from South Carolina. It is 
generally unsuiied for the Northern States.' Il 
is a fair table grape, but chiefly valuable for its 
wine properties. The bunches require to be 
properly thinned. 

JuHii. — A seedling of the Catawba; bunches 
large and compact ; berries large, round, .semi- 
transparent when they begin to ripen, but grow- 
ing opaque as the color deepens, becoming dark- 
red when fully ripe, about the middle of Sep- 
tember; sweet brisk flavor, excellent, but not 
quite equal to the Delaware. It is hardy, and 
will succeed where the Concord and Delaware 
will. It requires a dry .situation, and in any 
soil approaching wet, muck, or rich peat, its 
roots are invariably luihealthy. In some sea- 
sons it has defoliated badly in portions of the 
Kast and 'West 

Isabella. — This is an <dd, well-known variety, 
now largely superseded by earlier and better 
sorts. It bears well, and the fruit is good. It 
is still cultivated in portions of the Northwest. 
It is liable to mildew, except when permitted 
to run into trees. 



hraella. — This is pronounced tho best flavored 
of the early grapes. It is a valuable acquisi- 
tion to our varieties, combining earliness with 
good quality and great productiveness. It can 
be kept till Spring with little trouble. Bipena 
about September fir.st, or same time as Hartford 
Prolific. Bunches large, compact, shouldered. 
Quality good. Hardy, and its thick skin give 
it a superiority for distant shipping, which will 
no doubt cause it to rank as our best early 
market grape when it becomes better known. 
Very desirable where it succeeds well ; but in 
portions of the 'West its foliage has not been 
found able to withstand the attacks of the mil- 
dew, 

Ives' Seedling. — Bunches large, and very pro- 
lific; vine hardy and free from disease; RUC- 
cends well in the Ohio Valley; Dr. Warder 
attributes to it vigor, health, and productive- 
ness. It ripens early in September, and is con- 
sequently never injured by earl}» frosts. E. A. 
Thompson, of Hillside V'iueyard, near Cin- 
cinnati, who has over sixteen acres of this 
variety, considers it the mo.st profitable grape 
in cultivation. It received the Longwouth 
prize as the best wine grape for the whole 
country. 

Janesville. — This is a new hardy variety, pro- 
duced at Janesville, Wisconsin, adapted to 
many localities, in the Northwest — ripening its 
wood and fruit well in Wisconsin, standing the 
Winter where the Concord and Delaware have 
failed; and though in quality its fruit can not 
be placed at the head, yet its great hardiness, 
and ripening in August, will be likely to ren- 
der it a valuable acquisition for the northern 
borders of our country. 

Josephine. — A seedling, raised by Dr. HoB- 
BINS, Presi<Ient of the Wisconsin Horticultural 
Society. It is a hardy, strong, vigorous grower, 
and bearer of good fruit; berry and bunch fair 
size, rather Isabella-like in shape and color. It 
is healthy, and promises well for the North- 
west. 

King. — JosiAH Slater, of Kochester, New 
York, represents this variety as very hardy; a 
free grower, and an abundant bearer; bunch and 
berry small to medium; berry roinid and black, 
good, with rather thick skin, which makes it 
a good keeper. Ripens last week in August — 
Mr. Slater preserved a bunch, picked 2d of 
September till 16th of March, when they had 
become "pretty fair raisin.s." 

Lenoir, or Louisville Seedling. — A black grape, 
healthy and vigorous, much cultivated in the 
South, suitable for wine; fruit medium to large, 



GUAPKS — VARIETV OF. 



279 



jiiiry, with little pulp ; second quality ; ripens 
middle of September. 

Logan. — Vine of moderate growth, healthy, 
and very hardy; only moderately productive; 
bunches medium, generally loose; berries full 
medium, oval, black, with little bloom, early ; 
sprightly, vinous, good flavor. 

Liingwnrth. — Described and recommended by 
Dr. Warder as a new, very fine, small juicy 
grape. 

Lijdia — A new variety raised by Mr. Car- 
penter, of Kelley's Island, Lake Erie; a large 
white grape that promises well ; of excellent 
quulily, althongh not a heavy bearer. Tolcr- 1 
ably hardy; a supposed seedling of the Isa- 
bella, and ripens early, ahout with the Concord. 

Lyrium. — Described and recommended by Dr. 
W-VRDER as a healthy, hardv, productive, and 
late grape. The vine is remarkably thrifty ; 
fruit medium size, dark blue or black, and full 
of sweet juice. 

Main. — The Magazine cj Horticulture de- 
Bcribes the Main grape as three weeks earlier 
than the Concord, but of a diti'erent variety ; 
while others express the belief that it is identi- 
cal with the Concord. The original vine at . 
Concord, New Hampshire, produces five or six 
hundred pounds, annually, of fruit of a supe- j 
rior quality, 

Martha. — A seedling of the Concord, ripen- ] 
ing from six to ten days before the Concord ; its 
hardiness for the Northwest not yet sufficiently 
tested. Bunches medium; berries large, round,! 
pale yellow; sweet, juicy, slightly foxy; qual- 
ity very good, most of the berries containing 
only a single small seed. Hardy, healthy, a 
(strong grower, and promises to be quite pro- 
ductive. "Taking hardiness," says Dr. War- 
der, "healthiness and all other good qualities 
. . . I 

into consideration, I regard it as of more value i 

than all the rest of the white grapes put to- 
gether." It is, says George W. Campbell, 
the most valuable white grape yet introduced, 
and is emphatically a grape for the people; 
and the vine is just as healthy and hardy as the 
Concord, and will grow any and everywhere 
that any grape will succeed. It gives nuicli 
promise as a white wine grape, yielding a must 
or juice of great richness. 

Miles. — Charles Downing has brought this 
variety into notice as one of really early ma- 
turtiy of fruit — ripe and sweet a week before 
the Hartford Prolific. The fruit is not of 
large size or bunch, but the vine is hardy and 
productive; berries black, sweet, rather buttery, 
and good. F. R. Elliott says it ripens earliest 



of all, and commends the Miles and the Mot- 
tled to the grape growers of the North and 
West as hardy and desirable. 

Mottled. — As a table grape it is not equal to 
the Delaware, but it is very hardy, the fruit 
excellent, and regarded as good for wine. 

Xortlwrn Muxcadine. — Dr. Hobbins says : 
" My vine, eight years old, has never done so 
well as this year (1867). Its crop, excellent 
has never been surpassed by any other varieiy. 
I think more and more of it every year. I eat 
more and more of its fruit every year, and I 
can not help thinking that this vine is greatly 
underrated. I know its history; it is a lowly 
one. I know the opinion concerning it enter- 
tained by men called the best judges. I know 
also aliout its proneness to drop — 'the ripest 
fruit first falls' — and its peculiar flavor, but all 
this <^es not prevent me from speaking of it as 
I find it, and I could strongly and confidently 
recommend the general planting of it in Wis- 
consin. The Concord ims the abused grape, 
the Northern Muscadine is jioic the abused ; I 
am not afraid nor ashamed to predict its in- 
creasing reputation in Wisconsin." The Ga7'- 
dener's Monthly also commends it very highly. 

Norton's Virginia. — This is one of the Clin- 
ton sort, hardy, and free from disease, with 
small, very compact bunches; fruit of good 
size; suitable to the Southern region ; esteemed 
in Missouri as one of the best and most reli- 
able wine grapes. 

Rebecca. — A sweet, good, white grape ; pro- 
bably a seedling of the Isabella, but ripens 
ahout a week earlier; rather a shy bearer until 
it gels well established ; vine is rather tender, 
and liable to sun-scald, yet has succeeded quite 
well as far north as central Wisconsin, protected 
by strong growing vines on either side. 

Rogers' Hybrids. — E. S. KoGERS, of Salem, 
Massachusetts, has, at the request of the Lake 
Shore Grape Growers' Association, and other 
horticulluri.sts, given distinctive names to the 
most approved varieties of his hybrid grapes. 
lie thus describes, in Tilton's Journal of Horti- 
culture for May, 1869, the twelve varieties 
which have been selected as most worthy of 
names : 

" Gaithe, No. 1. — Though this variety is per- 
haps more unique, and shows more of the char- 
acter of the European species than any of the 
other sorts, the vine is one of the hardiest, and 
very free from mildew. It produces large 
crops ot beautiful clusters and berries, free from 
rot or imperfection of any kind. The bunch 
is large, shouldered; berry large; in shape 



280 



FRCIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



long, oval, resembling the Malaga; of a yel- 
lowish-grepn toward the sun; skin thin; flesh 
tender and melting throughout, very sweet and 
delicious, with a pleasant and peculiar aroma. 
This variety is so late as seldom to ripen here, 
but, as far south as Washington and St. Louis, 
is considered one of the most valuable. 

" Manmsoit, No. 3. — Bunch of medium size, 
rather short, with shoulder; berry of medium 
size; color red; flesh tender and sweet, with a 
slight trace of the native flavor when fully ripe, 
tlunigb not so much as to be at all objection- 
able, but, on the contrary, rather pleasant. As 
it is very early, this is one of the most valu- 
able for cultivation at the North. 

" Wilder, No. 4. — Bunch large and showy, so 
much resembling Black Hamburg as to be 
hardly distinguishable in appearance; berry 
globular, large; color black; flesh tender, with 
a slight pulp. The fruit ripens as early as, 
and frequently earlier, than the Concord, and 
can be kept a long time. It has become the 
most popular of all, and is one of the^most 
profitable for market purposes, its size and 
beauty being equalled by its vigor, hardiness, 
and productiveness. 

"Lindley, No. 9. — This, together with all those 
numbered from 5 to 14 inclusive, was hybrid- 
ized from the Chasselas; wliile the remaining 
numbers were fertilized with Black Hamburg. 
Vine of very vigorous growth, making rather 
long-joinled wood, but .sometimes very fruitful. 
The foliage when young is of a reddish color. 
The bunch is long, compact; berries globular, 
reddish ; flavor sweet. It resembles the Grizzly 
Frontignac in appearance of bunch and flavor, 
and has scarcely a trace of pulp. It ripens 
among the earliest. 

" Gcertner, No. 14. — Bunch above medium 
size; berry from medium to large; skin thin; 
color light red, with a pleasant aromatic flavor. 
The vine is productive, and the fruit ripens 
early. 

" Agawam, No. 15. — This variety has been 
here considered the highest flavored of the 
series. Bunch large, somewhat loose, should- 
ered; berry large, globular; skin thick, of a 
brownish-red color, like the Catawba; flesh 
tender and juicy, free from tough pulp; flavor 
very rich and pleasant, having a peculiar aro- 
ma, thought by some to resemble the Black 
Hamburg. The vine is the most vigorous of 
all, and very productive; but in unfavorable 
seasons and soils the fruit is somewhat inclined 
to rot. 

" MoTimack. No. 19. — The bunch is gener- 



ally not as large as the majority of the black 
varieties; berry large, globular; skin black; 
flavor sweet and rich. Ripens early, and is of 
uniformly good quality, even in unfavorable 
seasons , vine very vigorous, and a good bear- 
er. This may be classed among our best early- 
grapes. 

" Requa, No. 28. — Bunch large, shouldered ; 
berry of medium size, roundish ; skin thinner 
than most of the collection ; color red ; flesh 
tender and sweet, having in some seasons a 
trace of the native flavor. 

" Essex, No. 41. — Bunch of medium size, 
shouldered ; berry somewhat flattened, in this 
respect resembling the native parent ; flesh 
tender and sweet, with a high aromatic flavor, 
excelling on this point most of the black vari- 
eties. Ripens early. 

" Barry, No. 43. — Bunch rather short, broad 
and compact; berries roundish to oval, much 
like Black Hamburg, in general appearance; 
flesh delicate, sweet, and tender; skin thin; 
colo" black. Ripens as early as the Concord, 
and is one of the best black grapes. Vine very 
vigorous and productive. 

"Herbert, No. 44. — Bunch rather long and 
loose; berry of medium size, round, or some- 
times oblate; flesh tender, sweet and rich. 
Early and productive. 

Tfie Sukm, or No. 53. — We append Mr. 
Rogers' description of his Salem grape, named, 
as he says, from the place of its origin: "This 
is a variety considered not only superior to any 
of the former well known numbers, but also to 
any hardy grape at present before the public, 
combining as nearly as possible every quality 
desired in an out-door grape, being one of the 
hardiest, healthiest, and most vigorous of vines, 
and producing enormous crops of beautiful and 
high-flavored fruit. 

" Like other well-known kinds, Nos. 4 and 
15, this is a hybrid between a native and the 
Black Hamburg, bunch large and compact ; 
berry large as Hamburg, of a light chestnut or 
Catawba color, thin skinned, perfectly free from 
hard pulp, very sweet and sprightly, with a 
most exquisite aromatic flavor ; not equalled by 
any other out-door grape for wine or table ; as 
early and hardy as Delaware or Hartford, hav- 
ing never failed to ripen its fruit in the most 
unfavorable season, for the past six years* 
Taking all its qualities into consideration, ear- 
liness, hardiness, and great vigor of vine, size 
and quality of fruit, it is pronounced by the 
best judges who have tried it, to have no equal 
among all the numerous varieties now before 



GRAPES — BEST VARIETIES FOR DIFFERENT oTATES. 



281 



tlie public; ami I can willi confidence recum- 
nicnd it as tlie best uf all uiv coUfcliun." 

Mr. KoGEKS lias never been consiiieied by 
those who know him, as extravagant in his 
stalemcnts, and this, after thorough testing, was 
his careful description of the Salem grape. 

It was said of these grapes, at the meeting of 
the Wisconsin Horticultural Society, in Febru- 
ary, 1869, that several of Ihem are almost as 
sweet as the Delaware, and sweeter than the 
Cuncurd, and begin to color about August 15lh; 
and that they keep belter than any other grapes 
in that latitude — and that the Agawani, No. 15, 
could be kept, it was believed, till April, as 
good as whin gathered. It ripens ten Jays 
before the Concord. 

Scuppernong- — It was first brought into notice 
at Scuppernoug, North Carolina, and is pecu- 
liarly adapted to Southern culture. Dr. War- 
DEK has seen it grow vigorously as far north as 
AVashington City, but rarely producing fruit. 
It is lung-lived, never fails to bear, never mil- 
dews, never rots, and matures early in southern 
latitudes. It needs no pruning, nor training. 
The fruit is sweet and refreshing, and is re- 
garded throughout the South as the Poor Man's 
Friend. There are three varieties- white, 
black, and goldeu-hued. The vines at matur- 
ity yield from twelve to fifty bushels of grapes 
each, and from thirty-five to one hundred and 
fifty gallons of wine — a bushel of grapes ordi- 
narily making three gallons of wine. It has 
been estimated by Mr. Van Buben, a Southern 
vine grower of e.xperience, that one hundred 
vines, planted on three acres, will yield every 
year five tliousand two hundred and fifty gal- 
lons of wine, or one thousand seven hundred 
and fifty gallons per acre; while M. F. Ste- 
phenson .says this estimate is entirely too low, 
that one liundred vines will yield twice as 
many gallons at ten years of age, and three or 
four times as much as they grow older. The 
celebrated chemist, Dr. Jackson, of Boston, 
analyzed thirty-eight of the best wine grapes of 
America, and says: "Scuppernoug wine may 
be made so fine as to excel all others made on 
this cdutinent." 

The White Scuppernoug variety, says I. M. 
D. Miller, makes a beautiful pale amber-col- 
ored wine ; sweet, rich, luscious, fragrant, very 
pleasant, and everywhere the ladies' favorite — 
so says the President of the Memphis and Little 
Kock Railroad, who has been familiar with it 
for many years. Mr. Buntner, of North Car- 
olina, a celebrated vinist, says its efl'ervescing 
quality will render it the champagne grape of 



this continent. The Black Scuppernoug makes 
a darker colored wine, somewhat stronger and 
heavier than the white variety. A mixture of 
the two makes a wine superior to either. 
Colonel Rose took the premium in Georgia 
for this mixed wine. The third variety, ripen- 
ing much later, makes an exceedingly strong 
drink, which readily induces intoxication. 

Taylor's Bullitt. — Originated in Kentucky ; a 
rampant grower; productive in that latitude; 
fruit, medium size, pale, greenish-white, vinous, 
and of good quality. 

To-Kalon. — The To-Kalon is one of the finest 
grapes. When well ripened it is perfectly 
sweet and luscious, with a very agreeable aro- 
ma. Flesh very delicate and tender, the seeds 
leaving it as freely as from any foreign variety. 
Berries an inch in diameter; bunch large; 
color, dark amber, inclining to black ; quite 
hardy; strong grower; with peculiar beautiful 
foliage, and moderate bearer. The fruit is 
subject to rot, yet succeeds in .some localities. 

Uii^oii Village. — A splendid giape, as large 
as the Black Hamburg, showy and beautiful, 
resembling the. Isabella, probably a seedling of 
that variety, and scarcely better in quality, 
though of nearly double the size. Bunches 
very large and compact; berries large, thin 
skin, covered with blooui, quite sweet, but not 
rich, very little pulp. Ripens early in Octo- 
ber. Vine a vigorous and coarse grower. 

Be.«jt Varieties for DiTferent 

Slates. — The American Pomological Soci- 
ety, in 1SG8, proclaimed that, of the hardy 
varieties of grapes the Concord, the Delaware, 
llartlbrd Prolific, and Diana, are widely dif- 
iiised and approved. 

2\'eu) Enyland. — Concord, Hartford Prolific, 
Delaware, Diana, Rogers' Hybrids, .\llen's Hy- 
brid Rebecca, and others. In 1867, the Mar- 
tha, the Black Hawk, and the Clinton suffered 
least from mildew in Massachusetts, of all the 
grape varieties. 

New York. — A vote taken at a Fruit Grow- 
ers' Society, recently, at Rochester, for the 
twelve best varieties — twelve varieties being 
voted for on one ballot, and thirty-eight votes 
being cast, resulted as follows, viz.: Diana, 38; 
Delaware, 37 ; Concord, 33 ; lona, 31 ; Crevel- 
ing, 30; Adirondac, 26; Israella, 26; Roger.s' 
No. 4, 22; Isabella, 23; Rebecca, 26; Hartford 
Prolific, 27; Catawba, 13; Rogers' No. li), 15; 
Union Village, 7; Clinton, 7; Allen's Hybrid, 
6; Ives' Seedling, 2; To-Kalon, Rogers' No. 
44, Rogers' No. 39, Perkins, Maxatawney, Nor- 



282 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



tori's Seedling, Corielle, and Cuyahoga, one 
earli. 

F. C. Beehm, tlie well-known Vineyardist 
of Waterloo, New York, furnishes the Rural 
iVeic Yihker with tlie following dates of the 
full ripening of diflerent varieties in 1868 
nartf(iid Prolific and Israella, September 10th ; 
C'reveling and Rogers' Hybrid, No. 4, Septem 
ber I61I1 to 20lh; Delaware, Allen's Hybrid, 
and Kebecca, September 20th to October 1st; 
loiia, about the same time; Concord, barely 
got ripe ; Union Village, Diana, Catawba, 
Anna, and other late varieties failed to get 
ripe in consequence of the heavy frost of Oc- 
tober 1st. He adds that the Israella, Rogers' 
Hybrid No. 4, and C'reveling are varieiies 
more particularly worthy of |)ublic favor, be- 
ing early, productive, and good shipping 
grapes, standing carriage well, and not drop- 
ping olT, like the Hartford Prolific, or bursting 
open like the Con'cord. They are good in qual- 
ity and good keepers. They are hardy, except 
the Israella, which should be covered during 
Winter. Rogers No. 4 proves to be as hardy as 
ttie Concord, and as productive, while it is ear- 
lier and of much better quality. The lateness 
of the past season prevented the Diana from 
ripening fully — were it ten days earlier, it 
would be prelerred to any other. 

Ifew Jersey and Pemisylmnia. — Concord, Dela- 
ware, Diana, Hartford Prolific, Rogers' Hy- 
brids, Martha, C'reveling, Elsingburgh, Maxa- 
tawney, and others. 

Ohio. — Concord, Delaware, Creveling, Cataw- 
ba, lona, Black Hawk, Hartford Prolific, Ives' 
Seedling, Diana, Rogers' Hybrids, Martha, Isa- 
bella, Mottled, and others. 

Indiana — The Hartlord Prolific, as every- 
where in the West, appears to be cons[iicnous 
as an early, hardy, and reliable grape. Ives' 
Seedling is reported to be rather a slow grower, 
but a great bearer. Rogers' No. 9, and Irina, 
are said to be about of equal value. The Con- 
cord and Delaware both succeed finely. 

Illinois. — Concord, Delaware, Hartford Pro- 
lific, Creveling, Diana, Catawba, Isabella, Clin- 
ton Improved, Perkins, Blood's Black, Ives' 
Cliristine, Dracut, Amber, Martha, and Ives' 
Seedling. tirapes sold in Chicago, during 
181)8, at from fifteen to twenty-five cents a 
pound. 

Missoui-i. — Concord, Hartford Prolific, Nor- 
ton's Virginia, Ives' Seedling, Delaware, Clin- 
ton, Taylor, Northern Muscadine, Arkansas, 
Herbemont, Catawba, and others. 

Kaiusas. — A correspondent of the Prairie 



Farmer, residing at Fort Scott, Kansas, says 
that most kinds of fruit succeed well in that 
legion. The Concord, lona, Delaware, Isabella, 
Rebecca, Catawba, Allen's Hybrid, and others, 
all remained tlirouuh the Winter of 1867 8, 
on the trellis where they grew, without any pro- 
tection. They occupied three- fourths of an acre, 
and not one vine was injured by frost, nor in any 
other way — no mildew — and all bore good crops 
and ripened well. The owner, atler keeping 
what be wanted for his own use, sold over seven 
hundred dollars' worth. The soil is underlaid 
with limestone. 

Kentucky. — Delaware, Clinton, Hartford Pro- 
liiic, Logan, Venango, Concoid, Diana, Klsing- 
burgh, Catawba, Lyman, Taylor's Bullitt, 
(tolden Clinton, Marion Port, Anna, Alexan- 
der, and others. 

The Norlhvesl. — Concord, Delaware, Hart- 
ford Prolific, Northern Muscadine, Creveling, 
some of Rogers' Hybrids, Isabella, Josephine, 
Janesville, and others; require to be laid down 
in October or November with a covering of two 
or three inches of dirt, by which fine crops of 
luscious grapes will be secured. They requite 
a warm exposure, moderately deep preparation 
of soil, no manure, good underdrainage, and 
protection from southwest winds. 

Mr. tiEEENMAN, in an able Essay on Grape 
Culture, read before the Wisconsin Horticult- 
ural Society, in February, 1869, observed : "The 
selection of varieties, especially in the North- 
west, is an important matter. This will depend 
more upon the location than the soil, as the ag- 
gregate amount of heat dillers materially in 
the same latitude, and their adaptability, can 
only be approximated by a clo^e observation of 
the amount of heat required by the different 
varieties, to bring them 10 perfection. From 
observations taken at Waterloo, New York, in 
1862, and reported in the Ilurticullurisl, I find 
that it requires an average of 53° of Fahren- 
heit to bring the Delaware to leafing, which 
occurs about the middle ot May, and an aver- 
age temperature of 59° for a period of lorty- 
five days, or a total of 2678^ Fahrenheit liom 
ihe breaking of the leaves to the se ting of the 
fruit ; ami requires a period 01 122 days, with 
an average of 68^, or an aggregate tempi la.ure 
of 7927° from leafing to the ripening ol its fiuit; 
while the Concord requires about 500° more 
than the Delaware, to bring it to per;eiti(ui ; 
and the Isabella needs 10,000°, while the Ca- 
tawba can not do with less than 11,000^, and 
requires about 142 days from leafing to ripen- 
ing. At Janesville, Wisconsin, for a period of 



GRAPES — GRAPE WINE 



283 



six years, the Summer mean temperature av- 
eraged 71° Falirenlieit, and at Prairie du Chicn, 
for nineteen year'^, tlie Summer mean corres- 
ponds to 72° Falirenlieit, while at Green Bay, 
for four years, the Snmnier average was 68°. 
From this I conclude tliat llie Delaware and 
Concord may he safely jdantcd in southern 
Wisconsin, and that tlie Delaware will ripen at 
Green Bay; while near large bodies of water, 
or on high ahiludes, where the September mean 
temperature extends into October, without in- 
tervening frosts, the Isabella, Catawba, lona, 
and some of Rogers' Hybrids, with other late 
ripening varieties, will succeed. I therefore 
further conchide, that no varielie.s should be 
extensively planted, that requires an aggregate 
Summer temperature of over 8,000° Fahrenheit, 
while near lakes, as at Madison, Wisconsin, or 
on the bluffs along the Mississippi, or near 
Baraboo, Wisconsin, the late ripening varieties 
may he planted with expect.itions of success." 

The South and Sotilhnest.— Dr. P. J. Berck- 
MANS, of Augusta, Georgia, the highest au- 
thority in the South on grape culture, speaks 
highly in favor of the Scuppernong, indigen- 
oi'is to the country, which thrives healthily on 
hill or bottom, requiring no experienced hand 
to trim it. Its capacity ol production is fabu- 
lous, when compared with other vineyard va- 
rieties. Instances of a single vine covering one 
acre of ground are numerous, and sixty barrels 
of wine its product in a single season. These 
are exceptions which vine growers must not all 
expect to realize. But they are merely given 
as an evidence of wonderful fertility. The next 
best wine grape for the South is the Clinton, 
which though of Northern origin, improves as 
it is carried .southward — it is prolific, and makes 
a heavy-bodied claret. Other wine varieties 
are coming into notice, among them the " Tres 
Seedling." 

Our good table grapes, says Mr. Berckmans, 
are becoming numerous. "First comes the 
Delaware, which seems to thrive everywhere 
South. The Isarella bids fair to excel the 
Delaware; its quality is superior to any of its 
class; so far it has not decayed, although, from 
the short time since its introduction South, we 
can not decide, but we have decided in opinion 
as to its ultimate behavior; still, two years' 
fruiting, during which it bore perfectly sound 
crops, and this during a period when many 
other varieties, of like recent iiUroduclion, de- 
cayed, is a fair beginning, and likely to end 
well. The Hartford Prolific is as yet our best 
very early grape. As a profitable market fruit, 



it stands first in order. The bundles and ber- 
ries are large, of fine appearance, fair quality, 
and stand carrying to market better than any 
other variety. It is not so liable to drop its ner- 
ries as in Northern States. Its earliness will 
always make it command a high price. The 
Miles is better in quality, fully as early, but 
not .so fine in appearance." 

Grape Wine. — Jefferson recorded his 
opinion, that "no nation is drunken where 
wine is cheap; and none sober where the dear- 
ne.ss of wine substitutes ardent spirits as the 
common beverage." For its excessive use, or 
tor the excessive use of tea and cofl'ee, and their 
consequent deleterious effects, there can be no 
justification. Pure wines, and similar difl'usive 
stimulants, are frequently employed for medi- 
cinal purposes, and it is wi.ser to have them 
produced by well-known wine growers in our 
own country, than to have the villainous com- 
pounded poisons which so often find their way 
to the bedside of the sick. 

Says F. K. Elliott: "In thetilder porticms 
of the Union, North and South, East and West, 
the grape is destined to play an important part 
in contributing to the food of man and promot- 
ing his general health, and in hiriuing a nujd- 
erately stimulating dinik as a tonic beverage, 
for let us say what we will, man ever has and 
ever will have some stimulus to replace the ex- 
hausted energies of the system caii.sed by a se- 
vere practice of physical labor. I have no 
disposition to take up a discussion on the ad- 
vantage or evils of the practice, I only speak 
of it as one of early origin and continued use, 
and with no probability of being abandoned. 
So viewing it, and looking to its continuance, I 
piefer wine of the grape to whisky of the corn, 
and therefore would advise the planting of 
such varieties, as, while contributing cf their 
fruits for eating, to the pleasure and health of 
all men, may furnish a surplus to be made into 
a wine which shall stimulate but not easily 
intoxicate." 

At the meeting of the Massachusetts Agricul- 
tural Society, in December, 1867, Professor 
Agassiz said: "I was born, and have lived 
two-thirds of my life in a grape-growing conn- 
try, and I feel deeply interested in the question, 
how the grape shall be grown here success- 
fully. But I think it can not be grown with 
perfect success until a prejudice which exists 
throughout the whole country is overcome It 
is because I know that it is a prejudice that I 
would openly speak about it. Wine growing 



284 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



countries are the regions where temperance 
prevails; where there is no driin1<enness. They 
are countries where the traveler is helped to a 
glass of wine to warm 'and strengthen liimj 
they are countries where the clergyman holds 
it to be an act of charity to give a glass of wine 
to him who needs comfort. That is the charac- 
ter of wine-growing countries. Here, the use 
of wine is considered a sin, and men who use 
it iire considered men not deserving to be in 
the company of gentlemen. Now, I will say, 
that before I came to this country, now twenty 
year.s ago, I had never taken a glass of water 
over a meal in my life; and I will say another 
tiling, that as long as I have lived, and I am 
sixiy, I have never been flushed by the use of 
wine; I will not speak of drunkenness. I know 
that my mother gave her children — myself 
among the rest — wine as soon as they were 
weaned, and I know that I have done the same 
with my own children. But, gentlemen, until 
you have overcome the prejudice which exists 
tliriiiigliout the country against the use of the 
pure juice ofHhe grape, as a daily beverage, 
yon will never bring the cultivation of the 
grape to its right foundation, and you will not 
receive from that crop the return you are en- 
titled to obtain. In countries where the grape 
is cultivated as the principal crop, the product 
from the sale of the grape is not the chief re- 
ward for the culture, it is the wine; and you 
will not be thoroughly successful, you will not 
have that variety of grape, yon will not have 
those diversified modes of cultivation, which 
will secure its production on a large scale, until 
you have introduced the use of wine as a daily 
beverage in every househohl, and as the most 
wholesome beverage that can be added to any 
other manufactured article of food." 

In Denman's work, on the Vine and its 
Uses, there are abundant quotations from emi- 
nent travelers, physicians, and others, in wine- 
growing countries, all going to prove that 
wliere the vine is found in most abundance, 
there is no intemperance; that the people are 
healthy, temperate, thrifly, and cheerful. 

E. W. Bull, of Massachusetts, says: "A 
clerjyman of this State, who passed two years 
in France for his health, going all over it, for 
the most part on foot, told me that in all the 
wine districts he found temperance, but the 
moment he got into those districts where tl.e 
grape could not be grown, where they drank 
beer and brandy distilled from the potato, and 
from beet-waste, there he found intemperance 
immediately. And that is the universal testi- 



mony. Now, all the world will have stimu- 
lants, for necessities; for debility arising from 
sickness or age, or that form of disease — if it 
is a disease — dyspepsia, where you can not 
digest your food. Physicians prescribe stimu- 
lants, and until an abundant supply of wine is 
made, these noxious drinks will be used. It 
seems to me that it is not only better for us to 
use wine, but better for the cause of temper- 
ance. Since it is certain that stimulants nuist 
be had, it would seem to be wise to .supplant 
those which we have, which lead to intoxica- 
tion, and have a wholly different effect upon 
the system from pure domestic wines, by wines 
made in our own land. They will be light. 
Wine can not be transported unless it is strong, 
and therefore the foreign wines are .strong." 

According to Mr. Husmann, of Missouri, 
although the Catawba, Clinton, Isabella, Con- 
cord, and many other varieties, begin to color 
pretty early in the season in the Northern 
.States, yet they are seldom permitted to hang 
on the vine long enough, on account of the 
early frosts of Autumn, for the acid center of 
the fruit to dissolve, and fully mature for good 
wine. "The longer a grape hangs on the vine 
the more its watery substance evaporates, the 
acid diminishes, and the sugar increases. Much 
of the Catawba, Clinton, and Isabella wine 
made at the North and East, wanting in this 
maturity, has an unripe taste, and but little 
flavor. They should, in those sections, confine 
themselves to such early ripening varieties as 
the Delaware, Creveling, and the Massasoil, or 
Rogers' No. 3, from which, I am sure, they can 
produce good wine." 

Inasmuch as the temperate zones of Europe 
produce the most highly-flavored wines — the 
fine Geruum and French wines, for their deli- 
cate fragrance, are the universal favorites of 
the civilized world — hence Mr. Husmann sets 
forth that the same rule seems to apply to this 
country; that he has not found the California 
wines of really fine flavor; that while the hot 
and arid climate of California and Mexico 
may yield a great quantity, yet in quality they 
can not compete with the West — Missouri, Illi- 
nois, Arkansas, and perhaps parts of Indiana 
and Ohio, which alone are destined to produce 
the wines that will be the pride and boast of 
the nation. 

AVith healthy varieties, which will yield a 
certain return every year, we can make wine 
so cheap that it will become the beverage of 
the masses. If we can count upon 1,000 gal- 
lons to the acre per year, we can much better 



GRAPES — GRAPE WINE. 



285 



afford to sell that wine at fifty to seventy-five 
cents per gallon, than we can sell wine of a 
variety which yields but 250 gallons at $1 50. 
The labor is nearly the same, and the capital it 
yields i.s larger. AVe want good wines for the 
laboring classes at low figures, and of these we 
should grow the greatest bulk. 

North and South, East and West, ours is 
destined to become an immen.se wine-prodncing 
country; and this is especially true of California 
and the Western and Southern States. The best 
varieties of European wine-producing grapes are 
being planted in California, and succeed well — 
such as the White Malaga, Black Prince, Black 
Hamburg, Muscat of Alexandria, Black Zin- 
findel, Red Traminer, Verdelho, Golden Chas- 
selas, JKoyal Muscadine, White Nice, and others. 
Not only will California and the Western States 
be able to supply the home demand for good 
wines, but they will, in time, come in vigorous 
competition with the wines of Europe in many 
foreign markets. At the great Paris Exposi- 
tion, when the Foreign Commissioners exam- 
ined specimens of wines made in our Western 
States, they had the liberality and honesty to 
say, " If you can raise such grapes and make 
such wines in your country, you want none 
from us." 

The census of 1860 shows that over 1,600,000 
gallons of native wine were then made in this 
country — fully twelve times as much as was 
made in 1840. It is said that the Buena Vista 
vineyard, in Sonoma county, California, is the 
largest in this country, if not in the world — con- 
taining 6,000 acres, with 722,000 vines planted 
previous to 1865, and 75,000 additional ones in 
1866. The yield of that vineyard in 1865 was 
42,000 gallons of still wine, 60,000 bottles of 
sparkling wine, and 12,000 gallons of brandy. 
In that State about 1,000 vines are planted to 
the acre, and after four years these vines yield 
five to .six hundred gallons — while one hundred 
and seventy-five gallons to the acre are the aver- 
age annual product of the German States and 
France; and that of Italy four hundred and fifty 
gallons. The total yield of California in 1866, 
was, in round numbers, over three millions of 
gallons, the aggregate value of which was fully 
$10,000,000; while the planting of vineyards is 
going on at the rate of at least tliree millions of 
cuttings per year, and the wine product of that 
State will, it is estimated, in 1876, exceed in 
value that of wheat and all other cereals com- 
bined. Large quantities of wine are made 
from the native Mustang grape in Texas; and 
from the Scuppernong, Clinton, and other 



grapes in other portions of the South ; from 
the Catawba, Concord, Ives Seedling, Dela- 
ware, and others, in the Ohio Valley, Luke 
Erie region, Mi.ssouri, and Iowa. 

To make good wine, grapes must have the 
requisite quantity of saccharine matter, with 
its acid accompaniment, in a finely elaborated 
form; in the extreme North, where the grape 
does not i)roperly ripen, good wine can not be 
secured — in the tropics, the grapes contain too 
much sugar for the purpose. Te-ls made in 
the Sandusky region in 1867 show that the 
tmist, or juice of the grape, increased ten per 
cent, for wine purposes, from the 15th of Octo- 
ber to the loth of November. 

At the meeting of the Lake Shore Grape 
Growers' Association, at Cleveland, in Febru- 
ary, 1868, a committee reported as follows on 
tests of grape musts: "N. LoNGWOKTH says: 
' I would sooner pay seventy-five cents per gal- 
lon for must weighing 95, than five cents per 
gallon for must that only weighs 75.' He 
considered the percentage of must the great 
desideratum of grape growers who wished to 
make good wine. We certainly should admit 
the force of his argument until it is prover. to 
the contrary. Our tests have been made vltli 
care, and we hope the following report will be 
of interest to you all : 



-Dr. Dunham, Eutlid Kidg 
ISABELLA. 



Not. 1— Dover Bay Wjdc Co 

a-BoYD, Avon Point 

11-D. Nkwton, Oatnwl.a Islanii 
12-pr Dunham, Euclid Kiilge... 



Oct. 26— John Hoyt, City 

Nov. I-Ueokob Leick, Euclid Bidgc, 



Not. 1— Dover Bay Co 



O-r 


<£ 




? 










« "^ 




ta 


21.07 


ItA 


2(i.ll4 


111 


2:').07 


11(1 


2.i.lW 


1J4 


Zb.OO 


-fi 


17.0S 


SO 


1S.03 


84 


I9.W 


m 


21.04 


7ti 


17.02 


a-i 


22.02 


K>. 


21 .(H 


m 


21.07 


IIKI 


23.04 


lot 


23.M7 


as 


21.07 


101 


23.07 


91 


21 .02 


w. 


22.05 


97 


22.07 


au 


2:1.02 


S7 


20.02 



While such facts as these, showing the rela- 
tive saccharine and acid properties of the dif- 
ferent kinds of grape.s, are important, it is also 



286 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



important to approximate tlie qii;intily of wine| 

that can be iimHuceil li-om tlie ;;i;niea grown 

upon an acre. It wonkl be difficult to ciie an- 

» I 

otiu'r case like llie single Souppernong, cover- , 

ii.g iin acre, Irorn wliicli sixty barrels, or eight- 
een liunilred and sixty gallons, of wine are said 
to have been made in a single year; yet we 
have ilie good anllioriiy of A. K. Thompson, I 
of Hillside Vineyard, near Cincinnati, who has 
sixty acres of vines, tliat the Concord will yield | 
from eight to ten hnndred gallons to the acre;| 
Ives' Seedling from five to seven hnndred gal-| 
h)ns ; and the Delaware from three to fonr! 
linnilred gallons. The wine prodnct of three 
acres of IVEs' .Seedling and the Delaware, sold at 
four dollars and twenty-five cents per gallon, at 
Cincinnati, orover twotlionsand dollars peracre. 

The f(dlowing recommendation was made by 
Drs. .1. A. W.VRDER and H. Schroeder, at 
the Illinois Horticultural Society, in 1862: 
" We beg leave to present the followii% list of 
grapes for the preparation of wine witlnmt 
sugar — except in Northern latitudes, if abso- 
lutely needed: 

Catawba, for White Wine, of liigh flavor. 

Delaware, for White Wine, of very delicate 
and delicious diameter. 

Ilerbemont, for White and Red Wine, ot 
high character. 

Norton's Virginia, for abundance of a very 
rich Red Wine. 

Clinton, for abundant dark Red Wine, of 
great promise. 

Concord, for a Red Wine in great quantity, 
and of fair quality — promising very well. 

George Husmann, of Missouri, gives the 
specific gravity of the must, from the following 
different varieties of grapes, according to the 
Must Scale; and, it may be added, that from 
seventy to one hnndred degrees, varied by the 
Beas(m and kind of grapes, is a very good must, 
and will make excellent wine, if rightly han- 
dled during the fermenting process, and after- 
treatment : 

Arkansas. — Closely resembles the Cynthiana, 
and will make superior wine. 

Brown. — Makes a red, light, but pleasant 
wine. 

Cassad'j. — Must, 95 to 105; a delightful wine, 
of p de straw color, great body, and exquisite 
flavor; the best purely white American wine 
I haveycl tasted —equal to the best Hock wines, 
if not superior. As this variety has considera- 
ble aciility, about a gallon of water and two 
poinids of best cru.shed sugar should be added 
to each pailful of mashed grapes. 



Catawba. — Must varies from 75 to 95, accord- 
ing to season; makes a good siill wine, resem- 
bling Hock, liui with strong native flavor, and 
a good deal of astringency. The be.st nieihod 
is lo add to the gripes, after they have been 
mashed, about one-third waier — that is, fifty 
galhms of water to one hundred gallons of 
juice, and at the rate of two pounds best 
crushed sugar to a gallon of water — if the 
grapes be very ripe, add less; if very unripe 
and acid, add more sugar and water. 

Clinton. — This grape contains a great amount 
of acidity, and also a great deal of sugar. It 
needs water and sugar, about like the Catawba; 
it will make very good claret, with a peculiar 
frost-grape flavur, which many like. Specific 
gravity 98 to 105. 

Concord. — Must 78 to 90; makes a very agree- 
able light wine, of a brilliant color. It very 
nearly resembles some of the Hungarian red 
wines, and has become a universal favorite. 
The best wine is made from it by adding one- 
third water, and sugar as in the case of the 
Catawba and Clinton, making a light red wine 
of pleasant strawberry fl.ivor, which will much 
improve by age. This wine can be produced 
.so cheap that it nniy become the laboring man's 
drink, in place of whisky and beer; it is very 
palatable, and imparls a peculiar invigorating 
effect upon the .system. 

Crcvding. — .\ small sample made of this 
grape has given me a very high opinion of its 
quality for wine. It supplies a want long felt 
among the wine-drinking public of a wine in- 
termediate between the Concord and Norttm, 
and of more delicate flavor. It resembles the 
choice clarets of France, with perhaps not so 
much astringency. I do not think this needs 
any maniimlalion to produce a good wine. 
Specific gravity 88. 

Cunnivijham. — Must 100 to :12; makes a del- 
icate wine, which often remains sweet after fer- 
mentation ; it is a heavy, spicy, fragrant wine, 
of a dark yellow color, which many preler to 
the Delaware. One-third addition of water, 
with sugar, will, I think, improve it. 

Cynthiana, or Red River. — Must 110 to 125; 
it closely resembles Norton's Virginia; wine 
not quite so dark ; it is of the same or even 
greater body, delightful aroma, spicy, and much 
smoother than the Norton — and altogether the 
best red wine produced in the country. 

Delaware. — The must of this grape is gener- 
ally so rich, and the proportions so evenly bal- 
anced, that it will make a first class wine, of 
great body and fine flavor, without manipula- 



GRAPES — aUAPE WINES. 



287 



tinn or adJilion. It is, perliaps, the perfection 
of the Hock or Rlieiiisli wine type iiniongoiir 
native^;, and will compare witli any of tiie im- 
ported wines, if well and carefnily made. Must 
105 to 120. 

Diumi. — Said to make very line wine; never 
tried i;. 

Girthe, or Rogers' Hybrid No. 1. — Tliis makes 
an excellent white wine here, where it fully 
ripen.s, although at the East it would hardly 
do so. It h.is a <;ood deal of flavor, a good 
deal of pulp and acidity, and therefore needs 
Gallizin;; about like the Cas.sady. If thus 
managed, it makes one of the finest wines we 
liave, ofvery delicate flavor, smooth and rich. 
As it is also very productive and healthy, it 
will liecntiie a very popular wine grape here. 
Specific gravity, 78. 

Hartford Prolific. — This, if well made, reseni- 
hles the Concord closely, and though hardly a 
true wine grape, can still be made into wine 
advantageously where the fruit can not be niar- 
ke;ed well. It may be treated like the Concord, 
and will then make a fair red wine. 

Hcrbeiuont. — Must, about 90 ; makes a very 
delicate white wine, if the grapes are pressed 
without being mashed ; and the pure juice, if 
treated in this way, more nearly resembles a 
delicate Klienish wine than any other we may 
have; it has a good deal of body, and is aro- 
matic and .spicy. 

Isubella. — Makes only an apology for wine. 

/res' Seedling. — I can not speak from experi- 
ence in regard to this variety, as I have never 
made wine from it; and altliou^;h I have tasted 
a' good many samples made in Ohio, I have 
bfeii unabie to accord it the high rank our 
Ohio friends claim for it. It has a pleasant 
flavor, but a great deal of acidity and harsh- 
ne.'S, an unripe taste, if I may so express my- 
self, which is not at all pleasant to me. Per- 
haps by Gallizing judiciously — that is, adding 
sugar and water — a better wine may be made 
fi'om it than I have yet seen. So far, I can see 
nothing in it which should induce me to prefer 
it to good Concord, and it certainly does not 
produce as much per acre, from all I can learn. 

Lenoir. — Must, 9o to 105 ; makes a fine, brill- 
iant red wine, of great body, and Madeira 
flavor. 

Lindley, or Rogers' Hybrid No. 9. — This also 
makes an excellent wine; does not, perhaps, 
need Gallizing to the same extent as the Gcetlie, 
but an addition of one-third will much improve 
it. It is an excellent substitute for the Cataw- 
ba, and, as it is healthy and hardy and very 



produciive, it will, doubtless, soon take its place. 
Specific gravity, 80. 

Lotiisana. — Must, 95 to 105; makes an ex- 
cellent pale, red wine, very heavy, with a de- 
liyhlful aroma. 

Martha. — This i.s, perhaps, onr most valuable 
grape for white wiiie, as the vine has all the 
g<iod qualities of its parent, the Concord, and 
makes a delightlul white wine of line flavor 
and good body. It seems to succeed every- 
where, and Would make a fair wine, even far- 
ther north, as it ripens early. Should be Gal- 
lized one-half. Specific gravity, 92. The first 
wine made of it last Fall has far surpassed my 
expectations, and as it is very productive it will 
soon become one of our leading wine grapes. 

Mdxatumney. — But little wine has been made 
of this, our be.st healthy out-door grape of white 
or rather amber color. AVIiat little 1 have 
made leads me to the belief that it will make a 
very delicate white wine, without Gallizing, 
and as it seems very productive, and ripens 
thoroughly here, it will, no doubt, be largely 
planted for that purpose. Specific gravity, 82. 

North Carolina Seedling. — This is another 
very decided native, which may perhaps prop- 
erly be called Muscatel. It has a tough, acid 
pulp, and strong flavor; but will, if Gallized 
one-half, make a wine which has met with uni- 
versal favor and brings a high price in market. 
It is very healthy, a strong grower, and im- 
mensly productive. Specific gravity, 84. 

Norton's Virginia — This wine has already 
acquired a world-wide reputation, and is, no 
doubt, the best wine lor medicinal purposes We 
now have. The juice, when fully matured, 
will safely bear comparison with the best Port, 
having the advantage over the latter that it 
has no addition of alcohol. It is the great 
remedy here for dysentery, and diseases of the 
bowels, and even cases of cholera have been 
cured with it. It is of a dark color, resembling 
Burgundy, and improves with age. Specific 
gravity of must, 100 to 120. 

Oporto. — Not favorably impressed by it; think 
the Clinton is better. 

Rixlander. — This is not the German grape of 
that class, but as I think a Southern variety, 
closely related to the Herbemont and Cunning- 
ham. It makes a pale red, or rather brownish 
wine, of great body and fine flavor; should be 
about one-third Gallized. It resembles Hock. 
Specific gravity, 100 to 110. 

Taylor's Bidiitl.—'Slnxt, 90 to 100; makes an 
excellent white wine, which by many i.i pre- 
ferred to the Delaware, but is rather unpro- 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



(luctive. It may be treated in tlie same man- 
ner as tlie Delaware, having the same body, 
but a different flavor." 

At (lie Golden Bhiff Vineyards of A. H. & 
G. B. WoRTHEN, Hancock county, Illinois, 
October 1, 186G, the following specific gravily 
of must was tested; Delaware, 100; Clinton, 
96 ; Taylor's Bullitt, 90 ; Catawba, 86 ; Con- 
cord, 83; Oporto, 73; and Isabella, 72. 

At a recent New York State Fair at Buffalo, 
while the best out of a dozen samples of Ca- 
tawba marked 88, three specimens of lona 
reached respectively, 88, 90, 92 ; while five 
samples of Delaware ranged from 87 to 103. 

The Alcohol of Wines. — Wine calculated for 
daily use should not contain more than from 8 
to 12 per cent, of alcohol (spirit of wine), nor 
over 5 to 6 per cent, of acid ; and as one out of 
two parts of .sugar is converted by fermentation 
to alcohol, 100 pai'ts of the must of the grape 
should contain from 5 to 6 parts of acid, from 
16 10 24 parts of sugar, and from 70 to 79 parts 
of water. Many persons erroneously suppose 
that such domestic wines as are made from 
currants, gooseberries, or elderberries, are very 
innocent as compared with pure grape wines. 
We give the following statement of the amount 
of alcohol contained in several vinous and other 
drinks — varying somewhat in diSerent speci- 
mens, yet giving very nearly the average: Cur- 
rant wine, 20 per cent, alcohol; porter, 23; 
champagne, 12; gooseberry wine, 12; elder- 
berry, 9; cider, 7^; ale, 7; and the lighest 
Khine wines, 4.t. 

How to make Wine.— W. O. IIickok, 
of Harrisbnrg, Pennsylvania, than whom per- 
haps no person is better qualified to speak on 
this matter, gives the following method, which 
is only designed for home manufacture: "Pick 
the grapes off the stems when fully ripe, re- 
jecting the bad ones. Pass them through the 
wine-mill to tear open the skins, but not to 
bruise the pulp. Press moderately, then get all 
that remains in the must from which to make 
^/if brandy or an inferior sour wine. Strain and 
P fill into clean barrels; then insert a bent tube 
" tight in the bung, and let the lower (outside) 
end rest under the surfiice of water in a bucket, 
so that while all the gas shall escape, the air 
will not get into the wine. When it has done 
fermenting, rack it off into clean barrels, bung 
it up, and set it in a cool place — bottle it in a 
few months. The great secret of making good 
wine is (o select only the best grapes, and not 
press out the sour portion of the pulp. Noth- 



ing is here said about the numerous mixtures 
of water, sugar, and grape juice, which are fre- 
quently concocted, and sold under the name of 
wine, but onlj' of the pure juice of the grape, 
properly fermented. 

Dr. J. A. Warder, chairman of a commit- 
tee, reported at the Ohio Pomological Society, 
in 1866 : "The grape is par excellence the 
wine fruit, and the i-hubarb is as emphatically 
not what it has been called, a wine plant, and 
we hope never to be called upon to examine 
specimens of its preparations, miscalled wines. 
We are more than ever convinced of the abso- 
lute necessity of having our grapes perfectly 
ripened before making them into wine. We 
recommend the greatest attention being paid to 
perfect cleanliness in all the operations. We 
also wish to express our objection to the prac- 
tice of using any foreign ingredients in the 
prepa,ration of wines from our grapes. We 
think the grapes should themselves furnish suf- 
ficient sugar to make them strong enough ; and 
thai we should not aim to make strong wine.s, 
but rather light "ones, with spirit enough to 
keep them from acetous fermentation. Hence, 
all wine makers are encouraged to prepare 
these fluids in their perfect purity." 

On the other hand, Mr. Husmann thns advo- 
cates tlie process of using sugar and water to 
deficient must: "Shall the must be left as na- 
ture gave it, or shall sugar and water be added ? 
This question has of late called forth a good 
deal of di.scu.ssion ; one party claiming that na- 
ture makes the wine, and the juice of the grape 
should be left just as nature gives it, without 
any manipulation or addition whatever. Tlte 
other, that nature furnishes the raw material, 
but that wine is an artificial product, which 
requires all the skill, guided by reason, of which 
the maker is capable. 

"The latter is evidently the most reasonable 
view. My ideas about this question may be 
given in a very lew words. If nature furnishes 
me with the grapes, which I intend to make 
into wine, a juice which contains everything to 
make first-class wine, in the right proportions, I 
shall leave it so, on the principle, 'let well 
enough alone;' but if I think there are deficien- 
cies which can be supplied by adding to that 
which is already in the must, but not in sufJi- 
cient quantity, I shall do so, as my reason was 
given me by an All-wise Creator for the pur- 
pose of using it to the best advantage. All gr.ape 
juice contains, in larger or smaller proportions, 
sugar, water, free acids, tannin, gum-coloring 
matter, and fragrant, or flavoring substances. 



GRAPES — HOW TO MAKE WIXE — STRAWBERRIES. 



289 



A good wine should cniitain all these ingredients 
in due proportions. Tlie saccharoineter will 
show nie the amount of sugar contained in the 
must; the acidinieter, the amount of acid it 
contains. If I find that the must does not con- 
tain sugar enough, and an exeess of acid, what 
can be more natural tlian to add the sugar, and 
to dilute the acid by adding water? Both are 
ingredients of the grape ; where, then, can be 
tlie harm of adding them, until the proportion 
is attained? But this is not all. Many of our 
native grapes contain an e.xce.ss of aroma as 
well as an excess of acid. If, by a proper man- 
ipulation, this also can be toned down, so as to 
be pleasant inStead of offensive, it is an im- 
provement, not an adulteration, and such a 
wine is certainly pure, and more wholesome 
than the simple juice of the grape, with i(s ex- 
cess of acid, tannin, and aroma, would have 
been. 

"Let not the reader. misunderstand my posi- 
tion. We can only make the best wine in the 
best seasons. We can add sugar to the product 
of poor seasons, and dilute the acid by water 
so as to bring the must to its normal alcoholic 
standard ; we can thus always produce a pleas- 
ant and drinkable wine, but the exquisite /atior 
developed in the grape, in the best seasons, we 
can not make." 

The successful manufacture of grape wine on 
a large scale is an art not easily described, and 
not acquired in a single season. Grapes have 
different qualities — varying, more or less, in 
different localities, and different seasons — and 
hence, require different treatment to convert 
them into the best wine they are capable of 
making. Hence, general rules only can be of 
any material service; an experienced eye, and 
nicely discriminating taste and judgment, will 
be in constant requisition from the gathei-ing of 
the grapes, separating, mashing, fermenting, 
barrelling, and bottling, to its final ripening in 
the cellar. Mr. Husmann has described these 
several processes in detail in his work on 
"Grapes and Wine." 

A Grape Grower's Maxims. — Andrew S. Ful- 
ler, an eminent horticulturist, and author of 
The Grape Culturist, furnishes these practical 
maxims, with which we appropriately close the 
subject of grape culture: 

1. Prepare the ground in the Fall — plant in 
tlie Spring. 

2. Dig deep, but plant shallow. 

3. Give the vine plenty of manure, old and 
well decomposed; for fresh manure excites the 
growth, but does not mature it. 

19 



4- Luxuriant growth does not always insure 
fruit. 

5. Young vines produce beautiful fruit, but 
old ones produce the richest. 

6. Prune in Autumn to insure growth, but in 
the Spring to promote fruitfulness. 

7. Plant your vines before you put up 
trellises. 

8. Vines, like soldiers, should have good 
arms. 

9. Prune spurs to one developed bud, for the 
nearer the old wood the higher Uavored the 
fruit. 

10. Prune short, or learn how to climb. 

11. Vine leaves love the sun, the fruit the 
shade. 

12. Every leaf has a bud at its base, and 
either a bunch of fruit or a tendril opposite to it. 

13. A tendril is an abortive fruit bunch — a 
bunch of fruit a productive tendril. 

14. A bunch of grapes, without a healthy 
leaf opposite, is like a ship at sea without a 
rudder — it can't come to port. 

15. Laterals are like politicians; if not 
checked, they are the worst of thieves. 

16. The earliest grape will keep the longest, 
for that which is fully matured is easily pre- 
served. 

17. Grape eaters are long livers. 

18. He who buys the new and untried varie- 
ties should remember that the seller's maxim 
is, let the buyer look out for himself. 

Strawberries.— This is the only fruit 
which grows in every clime. Isaac Walton 
said : " Doubtless God could have made a better 
berry, but doubtless God never did." Mr. 
Downing says: "The strawberry is perhaps 
the most wholesome of all fruits, being ea.sy of 
digestion, and never growing acid by fermenta- 
tion, as most other fruits do. The oft-quoted 
instance of the great LlNNJLUS cui-ing him- 
self of the gout by partaking freely of straw- 
berries — a proof of their great wholesomeness — 
is a letter of credit which this tempting fruit 
has long enjoyed, for the consolation of those 
who are looking for a bitter concealed under 
every sweet." 

April and September are the two months in 
the year in which strawberries are usually set 
out, as may best suit the convenience of the 
planter. If set in the Spring, the blo.ssonis 
should all be picked off" tlie first season to 
prevent the plants from exhausting themselves. 
Choose a deep, rich spot, moist but not wet, 
and have, if possible, a northern exposure; for 



290 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



Strawberries, while ripening require an im- 
mense amount of water, and early frosts effect 
less damage on northward slopes. 

Some strawberry growers recommend the old 
plan of planting in beds, in rows a foot or fif- 
teen inches apart, and setting the plants twelve 
inches from each other in the rows; some con- 
tend tliat the rows should be two feet apart; 
and others, still, advocate putting them three 
fet-l apart, and the plants two feet asunder in 
t!ie rows. 

The plan of a strawberry heil, and its treat- 
ment, for many years most successfully tried by 
Dr. Joseph Hobbins, at Madison, Wisconsin, 
is worihy of imitation. His plan is I9 dig a 
trench two feet deep, for the dry climate of the 
Koithwest, and as large as may be desired. 
Place in the bottom a layer of some five or six 
inches of well-rotted, rich manure ; then put 
on the top soil, and fill up to the top with the 
subsoil dug from the bottom of the trench. 
Place in this the strawberry plants not less 
than eighteen inches apart both ways. Dress 
the bed twice, during the Fall between the rows, 
■with a coating of wood ashes ; and for Winter 
covering, put on an inch and a half of straw, 
with long sticks to keep it from blowing off' — 
thus giving proper ventilation, and not heating 
and destroying the plants, as a heavy litter or 
manure covering is apt to do. This straw may 
be removed from the plants in the Spring, and 
left as a mulch between the rows during the 
Summer. Or, what is mucli neater, rake ofT 
the straw in the Spring, and substitute as a 
mulch between the rows the first cutting of 
grass from your lawn, two inches deep, which 
not only serves as a mulch, but keeps down the 
weeds, and if properly placed aroinid the plant 
will keep the fruit free from dirt, and protect 
the clothing of those engaged in picking the 
fruit. Kunners should be carefully taken off 
as fast as they appear, that the strength' of the 
plants may not be wasted upon them. No top 
dressing is needed; but a new bed should be 
made in a new place every third year. Such a 
strawberry bed will yield a plentiful harvest. 
In 1865, the third year of bearing. Dr. HoB- 
BiNs' bed, twelve by fifteen paces in size, of 
Wilson's Seedling, produced nearly five hun- 
dred quarts — or at the rate of nearly 13,000 
quarts, or four hundred and six bushels per 
acre. 

Of late years, hill planting has been higlily 
Commended. A. M. PuBDY, the well-known 
nurseryman, of SouXh Bend, Indiana, says: 
'' We have heretofore strongly advocated the 



matted row system, but after careful and prac- 
tical comparisons, we are satisfied that tlie hill 
method is the best, one year after another. 
The fruit averages double the size — the crop 
double, and, on most soils, with less labor. In 
hills they form sHch stiong bushj' topij, that 
the fruit and blossoms are protected from severe 
late Spring frosts. Last Spring we had a late 
frost in May, that nearly ruined our planta- 
tions that grew in matted rows, while tliose 
grown in hills were but slightly damaged, and 
yielded a very heavy crop. Another reason is, 
that the heavy lops mat down around the crown 
in the Winter, and protect it from the action of 
tlie frost, while those grown in tlie matted row 
form but small tops and are not thus protected. 
Again, if the ground should be weedy, tliey are 
attended to with much less work and care than 
if allowed to throw out runners. The work 
can nearly all be done with tlie hoe and cul- 
tivator, while if in ma,tted rows, it must be 
done witli the fingers, which is very laborious 
indeed." He ad<ls, " that the only case iu 
whicli the matted row method is admissible, is 
where the land is quite free from weeds and is 
not liable to .severe frost iu Winter or Spring, 
and that while all varieties will do better 
grown in liill.s, some will not succeed in any 
other v,-ay. As soon as the hills are through 
bearing, rotted manure or compost is plowed or 
.spaded deep between tlie rows, and in addition 
to cutting off all the runners that are starting, 
the entire top of the plant is taken off' dose to 
the crown. This is deemed very es.sential — 
preventing the plant from remaining iu a dor- 
mant state for weeks, and causing new roots to 
be thrown out immediately, and making a large 
mass or stool by Autumn." In hill culture, 
sawdust and old tan-bark have been recom- 
mended as a Summer mulch between rows; 
and spent hops from the brewery, have been 
used with excellent effect. 

Where strawberries are raised on a large 
scale for market purposes, it can not be supposed 
that beds can be made as described by Dr. 
HoBBlNs; the plants must be put out in soil 
and locality best suited to them. Pardee's 
Manual on the strawberry advises that, "as the 
fruit is compo.sed of so large a proportion of 
potash, soda, and lime — sixty-two parts iu 
every hundred, as the analysis shows — we 
recommend that an application be made of 
twenty or thirty bushels of unleached or 
leached ashes, ten or twelve bushels of lime- 
either stone or oyster shell — with two or three 
bushels of sait, to the acre, thoroughly mixed 



STRAWBEERIES — CULTURE OF. 



2ri 



with the soil, if possible some weeks before the 
plants are set out, and the ground frequently 
worked with spade or fork, before planting, 
and stirring up with a long-toothed rake after- 
ward as Jong as it can be done without disturb- 
ing the roots. 

"About (he first of May, and again ten days 
or two week.s later, three times eacli Spring, 
liberally sprinkle your choirest beds with a 
solution in six gallons of soft water, of one 
quarter of a pound each of sulphate of potash, 
glauber salts, and nitrate of soda, with one and 
a half ounces of sulphate of ammonia. We 
would not represent tliis application to be es- 
sential to the production of good fruit, but the 
apparent effect seemed to be to arouse the plants 
from the torpor of Winter, and give tliem an 
early and vigorous impetu.s, which resulted in 
increasing the size, quantity, and superiority 
of the fruit. By this treatment the bed will 
remain in good condition much longer than it 
otherwise would." 

A Pennsylvania strawberry grower suggests 
that the land is generally made too rich for the 
production of this delicious berry, and says 
that more depends upon the kitid of soil and 
manure than upon the quantity of manure used. 
On a lean, tenacious soil, there is no danger in 
the application of too much barn-yard manure 
with a liberal mi.xture of wood ashes. On a 
sandy loam, characteristic of a great deal of 
our prairie soil, we should increase the pro- 
portion of ashes at the expense of the manure. 
On a black loam, rich in vegetable deposit, 
we should use ashes liberally with little or no 
manure. 

Strawberries, says Dr. Warder, have a pe- 
culiarity in their blossoms, from whicli they 
have been classified as pistillates, staminatcs, and 
hermaphrodites, or perfect flowered. In the first 
class the stamens are so defective that the 
flowers need the fertilizing influence of other 
kinds, which must be planted near them. 
These pistillates furnish many of our favorite 
varieties, especially those that are cultivated 
in beds — such as Burr's New Pine, Extra 
Red, Fillmore, Hovey's Seedling, Necked Pine, 
Kussell, and Superior. The next class, the 
staniinates, embraces most of those sorts which 
produce the largest berries, though their flow- 
ers are often so deficient in the pistils that a 
large percentage of them fail to produce per- 
fect fruit. This is particularly the case when 
these varieties are grown in beds, and allowed 
to multiply their runners. They are, however, 
quite productive when cultivated in hills, where 



they form large bunching crowns from which 
spring numerous trusses of flowers — of this 
class are the Austin, Dr. Nicaisse, Gohlen 
Seeded, Jucunda, Victoria, and AVashington. 
Besides the.se two classes, there is another, the 
hermaphrodites, in wliich the two .sexes are so 
evenly combined, and so well dL'veloped, that 
almost every flower is followed by a well formed 
and perfect fruit. This is a small class, as very 
few varieties of the strawberry, either wild or 
cultivated, beloug to it — amon^ them are the 
.\griculturist, Wilson's Albany Seedling, and 
the Longworlh. 

While LoxGWORTH and some others claim 
that the pistillate varieties are the most pro- 
ductive, others prefer the liermaphrodite .sorts, 
which fertilize themselves. 

Hybridization of Strawberries. — Strawberries 
never hybridize, or mix in varieties, when 
grown together. You may set any number of 
varieties side by side, and the fruit of each 
will be as distinct, from year to year, as if they 
were a mile apart. If hybridization can be 
effected at all, which i.s doubtful in our opinion, 
it can only be shown in seedlings. That is, by 
mixing the fructfying pollen of the blossoms 
of two varieties, and sowing the seeds grown 
from such varieties, and producing new varie- 
ties therefrom, it is contendeil by some persons 
that a hybridization does take place. If that 
be so, all seedlings are the result of hybridiza- 
tion, as honey bees lni.^c the pollen of varieties, 
in gathering it, as thoroughly as could be done 
by the hand of man. 

Mounds fur Strawberries. — An advantage cau 
be gained by those having only a small piece 
of ground, to raise mounds three or four feet 
iiigh for strawberries, and plant the vines upon 
them, and cover tlie spaces between the plants 
with thin flat stone.s, bricks, or something simi- 
lar, to prevent washing, and serve as mulching 
for the plants. Covered smoothly and evenly 
it would present a handsome surface, .similar 
to pavement; it would keep the soil moist about 
the roots of the plants, preserve the fruit clean 
from dirt, facilitate the ripening of the fruit 
upon the south side, and retard it upon the 
north, thus extending the strawberry stusun to 
a longer time. The picking would be more 
convenient than upon a level surface; the roots 
of the plants would have a deeper and Juore 
mellow 'soil to extend in, and thus combine 
many advantages, ornameuial and uselul, over 
the level culture. Mounds well paved over the 
surface would be likely to last many years. 

Fati Orowth of Straieberry Hoots. — After the 



292 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



fruiting season is over, dress the rows down to 
about six inclies in width, with sheep sliears, 
or a sharp wlieel run along the side of the row, 
and tlius prepare them for the next year's 
growth. Select a plant that lias just borne 
fruit, pull it up, and you will see that every 
root is dead. As soon as the berries begin to 
ri|icn, the roots did their very best, and gave 
all their life to the fruit. But the crown or 
lu'iirt of the plant enfolds the elements of a 
new set of roots, and with prompt and kind 
treatment, she will develop them into a healthy 
being; feed her as you would a generous moth- 
er, for this is her time of need. Unless the 
earth is rich enough to develop the new roots 
in the Fall, the next crop will come feebly to 
the birth, or not at all. This peculiar physio- 
logical condition of the strawberry plant, is 
the reason why the early Fall is the best time 
in the year for transplanting, as well as for 
working over the old beds. When the beds 
are put in order, give them liberal drafts of 
liquid manure, and a mulching of fine straw 
or spent tan-bark upon the surface, to prevent 
evaporation, and the plants will go right. ahead 
and establish themselves for next year's crop. 
Product of Strawberries. — In seven townships 
in New Jersey, where, in 1866, there were 
eight hundred and fifty-seven acres in cultiva- 
tion, the average yield was a little over twenty- 
nine bushels per acre, bringing, upon an averr 
age, $5 81 per bushel, or a little over §109 per 
acre. It was an unproductive year, some fields, 
however, yielding as high as seventy bushels 
per acre. Nicholas Oiimer, near Dayton, 
Oliio, having five acres of strawberries, chiefly 
Wilson's Albany, raised, in 1867, about one 
hundred and twenty-five bushels to the acre, 
realizing for the crop, $1,900. From half an 
acre of land, Mr. Ames, of Beaver Dam, Wis- 
consin, sold berries of Wilson's Albany Seed- 
ling variety of one year's product to the amount 
of $452 — getting, previous to July 5th, twenty- 
five cents a quart, after the 5tli, twenty cents a 
quart, and twelve cents on the vines. He 
mulched heavily with straw between the rows. 
A farmer near Ottawa, Illinois, picked from an 
acre of Wilson's Albany, between the 5th and 
30th of June, one hundred and eight bushels, 
besides what he consumed in his family, and 
realized $731 20— paid $69 12 for picking, 
leaving the net proceeds of the acre, ^62 08. 
Professor T. H. BuRGESs, of Ulster county, 
New York, stated at a meeting of the New 
York State Agricultural Society, that the Tri- 
omphe de Gand had sold at the highest rates 



of any strawberry, or over forty cents per quart ; 
that the product of the best plantations has 
been from fifteen hundred to two thousand 
quarts, and had yielded $800 or $900 per acre; 
that the heaviest product and largest sum he 
had known from a given area, was obtained 
from a small patch one plant to a square foot, 
the runners being well clipped — yielding a pint 
to each plant, and at the rate of about $4,000 
per acre. A prominent fruit grower of west- 
ern New York, raised thirteen hundred bushels 
of strawberries from sixteen acres of ground, 
or eighty-one bushels and a peek to the acre, 
selling them at an average price of twelve and 
a half cents per quart, realizing the total sum 
ef $5,200, or $325 per acre. Captain Ander- 
son, at a recent meeting of the Western Fruit 
Growers, at Cincinnati, stated that he had 
raised as many as seven thousand quarts per 
acre; that, under some circumstances, he had 
averaged one quart to the plant, and that they 
would realize from $2,000 to $2,-500 per acre. 
He practiced the stool or hill system, and 
planted two feet apart each way. O. J. 
Weeks, who had planted Wilson's Albany in 
rows three feet apart, and fifteen inches in the 
row, had raised about three hundred bushels 
per acre, or about nine thousand six hundred 
quarts. These various results show the dlfl'er- 
ence in soil, climate, location, and treatment, 
and should prove an encouragement to others 
to strive to emulate the most successful of 
these examples. 



PRINCIPAL STRAWBEREY VA- 
RIETIES. 

Agriculturist. — .\n admirable variety for 
sandy or poor soils, but not so good for rich 
ones ; succeeds well in the Northwest, and is a 
delicious fruit for home use. Very popular in 
all parts of the country; of a rich aromatic 
flavor. 

Barnes' Mammoth. — A new hermaphrodite 
variety ; as firm as Wilson's Albany, of mi.rcli 
larger size, about the same color; flavor, .spicy 
and rich. Very promising, especially for 
market purposes. 

Boston Pine— Staminate; requires high culti- 
vation ; fruit early, large, shining red, juicy and 
sweet. Early and productive. 

Boydan's No. 30. — A new seedling, by Setii 
BoYDAN, the originator of the famous Green 
Prolific — and claimed to be superior to that 



STRAWBERRIES — VARIETY OF 



2113 



well proved, reliable sort, in every respect — 
liigli praise. 

Brooklyn Scarlet. — Plant, hardy and vigorous; 
fruit, good size, bright scarlet, with long neck; 
flavor delicous and liighly perfumed. 

Briyhton Pine. — Only medium in .size, but 
one of the best market .sorts; hardy, early, and 
and prolific. 

Burr's New Pine. — A pistillate, of large size 
and fine flavor; hardy, vigorous, and produc- 
tive — too tender for market. 

Charles Downing. — A seedling from Downer's 
Prolific, claimed by all who have fruited it to 
be superior to that well-known and reliable 
variety. Originated with Downer, in southern 
Kentucki'. 

Colfax Strawberry. — A seedling, cultivated for 
fifteen years by Hon. Schuyler Colfax, at 
South Bend, Indiana; of vigorous growth, far 
more so than Wilson's, often taking a half 
bushel measure to cover a plant the second 
year; it is hardy and productive, yielding fruit 
of excellent size and flavor. It .seems to get 
along with less care than other varietie.s. 

Crimson Cone. A. pistillate; vine, vigorous 
and wide-spreading, productive; berry, beauti- 
ful in appearance, large size, fine color, and 
medium flavor. 

Crimson Favor. — Charles Downing ha.s 
said of this new variety, that he thought it 
would prove very large, very early, and of good 
flavor, but not very productive. 

Downer's Prolific. — Hermaphrodite; does ex- 
ceedingly well in many localities, adapting 
it.-elf well to soils and situations; ripening 
early, and bearing profusely, well up from the 
ground, rather acid ; but, being very soft, will 
not bear transportation. 

Dr. Kicaisse. — Fruit of enormous size, early, 
of a bright red color, very glossy, of the first 
<iuality ; some of the berries measuring six and 
a half inches in circumference, and weighing 
from one ounce and an eighth to an ounce and 
three-quarters. 

Early Scarlet. — Hermaphrodite; early, hard)', 
and prolific. Fruit bright scarlet, rich, and 
slightly acid flavor. It is a fine variety to 
servo as an impregnator of pistillate kinds. 

Early Washington. — Hermaphrodite; a fine 
market fruit, on account of its hardines.s, earli- 
ol'ss, and productiveness; fruit, medium size; 
flavor, fair; color, orange scarlet. 

Fillmore. — .\ pistillate; very productive, good 
flavored, red-fleshed berries, very near the 
ground; hardy in hot weather, the fruit hangs 



long, and carries well to market ; and is a good 
variety to follow earlier kinds. 

French's Seedling. — This is a fine, early va- 
riety, and produces well in the Northwest. 

Genesee. — Luxuriant, very productive, stout 
vines, supporting well the fruit, which is large, 
' dark crimson, and ripens late. 

Golden Queen. — Hermaphrodite; a great 
yielder of rich, golden-colored fruit, late in the 
season — similar to Trollope's Victoria, but far 
more prolific; very large, twenty choice ber- 
ries having filled a quart measure, and not over 
• fifty on an average. 

Golden Seeded. — It is distinct from the Tri- 
oniphe de Gand, though some have confounded 
the two; jjlant a little tender to the frost; ber- 
ries large and conical, on rather sharp stems. 

Green Pine Apple- — .\ vigorous grower, a poor 
bearer, of a very peculiar flavor. 

Green Prolific. — A fine, hardy plant, very 
productive ; stems high and strong ; fruit large, 
of a beautiful light orange-scarlet color, and of 
moderate flavor. The yield is enormous. North 
and South, never sunburns, and seldom winter- 
kills. An excellent market fruit, and suited to 
the Northwest. It is steadily growing more 
and more in favor. 

Hooker's Seedling. — Hermaphrodite; vines 
vigorous, hardy, and productive; fruit dark 
crim.son, sweet, rich, and e.xcellent, ranking 
with the best. 

Hovey's Seedling. — Pistillate; vines vigorous, 
and when well-fertilized and well-impregnated, 
is still a very desirable kind, and will yield 
immense crops of large, fine, sweet fruit. It 
requires a rich, deep, loamy soil. It is too 
tender for the Northwest. 

Hudson. — Pistillate; very largely cultivated 
in some localities; distinguished for its hardi- 
ness, and late period of maturity, together with 
its fine, rich, acid flavor, so valuable for pre- 
serving Succeeds well in the Cincinnati region. 

low a J or Washington. — Staminate; a wonder- 
fully productive variety, good size, and well 
adapted for the market. It lacks high flavor, 
and is yet a very early, and ve]-y good straw- 
berry. 

Jenny Lind. — This is regarded as better than 
the Early Scarlet, the two earliest in the .sea- 
son ; a hermaphrodite; productive; fruit a 
bright .scarlet, rather solid, tender, juicy, plea.s- 
ant subacid, and sometimes highly perfumed. 

Jenny's Seedling. — Pistillate; a rather late 
variety; fruit dark, rich, glossy red; vines 
hardy ; good for general cultivation, and de- 



294 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



sirable for preserving ; very proiliictive, 3,200 
pounds gathered from less than tliree-foiirtlis 
of an acre. 

Jucunda. — Ilerinnphnidile ; hile vnriety, com- 
ing lillly len d:iys :ifter the Wilson's are gone; 
large, showy, and of moderate flavor, ten or 
twtdve filling a pint measure, and they carry 
well to market. In the region of Rochester, 
Kcw York, and northern Indiana, and in Ohio 
;uul Peimsylvania, they have done well, also 
in portions of Wisconsin; but generally in the 
JJorthwest, when tlie berry has proved to be 
large, it has been hollow, and in cpiality and 
quantity not the best. This is the same 
"Knox's 700." 

Kramer's Seedling. — A seedling of Wilso 
Albany, originating in Iowa; liarily, standing 
the Winters tlierc without protection; fruit 
sweet and rich, ccpial to Ilovey's or Wilson's 
in size, with an unrivalled aroma. 

Lenninrfa WhUc. — Hermaphrodite; a hardy 
plant and excellent berry, and is suited to the 
Northwest— the best "white variety" known; 
very productive, highly flavored, and aromatic. 
Longworth's ProUfic. — Hermaphrodite; su- 
jierb — a kingly berry, eminently fit to be 
planted and eaten; berry large size, dark rich 
crim.son, subacid, good quality. Succeeds well 
in the Ohio Valley. 

McAvoy's Red. — An Ohio berry, large, beau- 
tiful, and very prolific; keeps well, medium 
quality, subacid ; plants vigorou.s and hardy. 
After twenty miles land carriage, and forty- 
eight hours' e.xhibition, it has remained the 
brightest and most showy of forty choice varie- 
ties in the Cincinnati market. 

McAvoyh Superior. — Originated by D. Mc- 
AvoY, at Cincinnati, in 1848; a pistillate va- 
riety, hardy, vigorous; fruit very large, often 
over five inches in circumference, rich dark 
color, tender, juicy, core rather open, and of 
coarse texture; too tender, except Ibr short car- 
riage distance. The Buffalo strawberry is so 
similar to McAvoy's Superior, as to be scarcely 
distinguishable from that berry. 

Mexican Ever-Beariny. — Hardy, vigorous, and 
not liable to winter-kill, hearincj from July to 
October. Said to have been brought from Mex- 
ico about 1861 — i>retty generally believed, how- 
ever, to be simply the old red Alpine, which in 
France is very profitable and bears the Summer 
through. 

Monroe Scarlet. — Remarkably productive. 



in circumference. It is a hybrid of Hovey'a 
Seedling and the Duke of Kent, very vigor- 
ous; pistillate; fruit good, fair flavor, a long 
bearer, good for market, and does well partially 
shaded. 

Napoleon Third — Fruit large to very large, 
irregular, flattened, varying from oval to cocks- 
comb sliape; color handsome rose-red, shading 
to darker in tlie sun, and waxy-blush in the 
shade ; flesh of snowy whiteness, firm, and 
sprightly, high fl.avor, with a delicate aroma; 
plant vigorous and healthy, and very produc- 
tive, in some localities exceeding even Wilson's 
Albany, flowers perfect. In season, it is later 
than the Wilson, succeeding it, and continuing 
long in bearing. 

jN'cki Jersey Scarlet. — This is probably the ear- 
liest kind of its large size; it comes into hear- 
ing all at once, very few being left for picking 
after the first — consequently popular with the 
markelmen. 

Kicanor. — Very hardy; fruit glossy, rich, 
sweet, and high-flavored ; having long, deep, 
strong roots, endures the changes of Summer 
and Winter with impunity, and is very prolific — 
cominences to rijien a few days before the Farly 
Scarlet, and continues fruiting a long time ; 
berries from one to one and a quarter inches 
in diameter. 

Peak's Emperor. — Hermaphrodite ; very sim- 
ilar to Agriculturist in appearance ; is hardy, 
and does not sunburn ; fruit very large, often 
measuring six and a half inches in circumfer- 
ence, firm, very productive, and flavor excel- 
lent. It continues longer in bearing than the 
Wilson. 

Perpetual Pine ( Gloede). — This is claimed to 
be a real perpetual strawberry, bearing a fine 
Spring crop, and also keeping up fruiting late 
in the Autumn. 

Pesident Wilder.— A new variety, hardy, ro- 
bust, vigorous, and very productive — produced 
from artificial impregnation of Hovey's Seed- 
ling with La Constante, the latter being one of 
the best foreign kinds ; the fruit large, many 
berries measuring over five inches in circum- 
ference, and weighing over an ounce avoirdu- 
pois; of a brilliant crimson scarlet; flavor rich 
and sprightly, inclining to sweet, with a distinct 
aroma of the Alpine variety. Strawberry of 
the highest promise. Season late. 

lied. Alpine. — Fruit small, bright scarlet, and 
of peculiar flavor. It continues to ripen for 



sometimes over three-score large ripe berriest, | long time, which is its chief value ; and by de- 
of good size, on a single year-old plant, at one stroying the Spring blossom.s, an Autumnal 
time, the largest measuring four or five inches crop may be secured — a fact worthy of more 



RASPBERRIES. 



295 



fjeneral knowledge and practice. The White 
Alpine varies only in color from the red variety. 

Romeyn's Seedling. — Hermaphrodite; this new 
variety has attracted great attention at the 
Kast, some claiming for it equality in ever}- 
respect with the Triomphe de Gand, and far 
more productiveness on all soils ; it has an 
immense root reaching down so deep that the 
drouth will not efTect it. It does not winter- 
kill in the region of New York; fruit large 
size, very solid, fine flavor, bright red color, 
and very prolific; a.s many as two hundred 
quarts have been taken from one hundred and 
twelve plants, and two quarts and a half trom 
a single planf, at two pickings! — the last being 
on the morning of the 9tli of July. Fruit 
stems from a single plant, exhibited at the 
New York Institute, in June, numbered six 
hundred perfect sets. Comes into bearing very 
late — two weeks later than tlie Wilson. 

Russell's Prolific. — A pistillate; very hardy, 
and gives the best satisfaction on rich soil, pro- 
ducing a very prolific crop of huge and beauti- 
ful berrie-s, borne near the ground. They com- 
mand a high price in market, and Dr. Hob- 
bins, President of the Wisconsin Horticultural 
Society, commends the Kussell as a fine variety 
for cultivation for home use in the Northwest. 
The fruit is tender, and sometijnes scorches 
under the rays of the sun. 

Triomphe de Gand. — Hermaphrodite; this is 
regarded as the best of the foreign varieties, 
large, generally very prolific, and good — rather 
blunt or cockscomb-shaped, borne on long fruit 
stalks. It is rather essential that it should be 
raised in hills or rows, and not in beds, and 
the runners kept clipped. It requires a richer 
soil than some other kinds, and seems not quite 
so reliable, though there are occasionally sea- 
sons wlien, with the right kind of treatment, it 
beats all others, not merely in the quantity of 
its fruit, but in the quality ; and it is, moreover, 
remarkable for its long-continuance in bearing, 
frequei tly supplying the table for five weeks in 
succession. 

Victoria. — Hermaphrodite, sometimes pistil- 
late; hardy, fruit medium to large, rich, and of 
a slightly acid flavor. 

Walker's Seedling. — A new variety, origina- 
ting with Samctel Walker, ex-President of 
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society; well 
indorsed as a hardy, vigorous, good staniinate, 
of excellent flavor, best quality, and produc- 
tive — of medium se.ason, and a "good honest 
fruit." 

Western Queen. — Pistillate; originated with 



Professor Kirtland, at Cleveland; fruit, a rich' 
dark glossy-red, juicy, subacid, and of an agree- 
able flavor. Season medium; bears carriage well. 

Wilson's Albany Seedling. — This is the "Great 
Commoner;" it seems to bear the same relation 
to strawberries that Napoleon's Old Guard 
did to his army — a reserve on which we may 
place the utmost dependence. It has, beyond 
question, been much more generally cuhivalod 
throughout our country than any other variety, 
and especially for market purposes. It is hardy 
— succeeding in the Northwest — prolific, vigor- 
ous, and reliable beyond all others; fruit, a 
deep crimson, tender, with a brisk acid flavor. 
It yields good crops, whether in hills, rows, or 
beds; it sometimes sunscalds in extreme hot 
weather, and hence it is doubtful if it will bear 
the heat of extreme Southern Summers. It 
requires Winter protection, as indee<l all kinds 
do, in the Northwest, and on the prairies. 

Strawberry Wine. — In years when strawber- 
ries are unusually abundant, or where they are 
too soft to transport to market, they can be 
made profitable by converting them into wine, 
adding to two quarts of juice two quarts of 
water, and two pounds of refined white sugar. 

Raspberries. — "A good loam," says Dr. 
AVardek, "well cultivated, is best adapted to 
the raspberry plant, and will give the largest 
results. The only preparation requisite is or- 
dinary plowing, but deep cultivation and ma- 
nuring are well bestowed upon the raspberry 
patch, and it should be kept clean by thorough 
Summer cultivation, or the surface may be cov- 
ered with mulching material. 

"The raspberry may be planted in the 
Fall, but early Spring-time is generally pre- 
ferred. The plants may be set about three feet 
apart, in rows that are from six to nine feet 
wide, or they may be planted in hills, five by 
five feet, or wider, for some of the larger kinds. 
Planting in rows is usually preferred, but the 
hills allow of cultivation in both directions, or 
cross-plowing, which saves hoeing, and also 
permits the pickers to get among the plants 
more readily. 

"Trimming the raspberry was formerly done 
only in the Winter, and consisted in shortening 
the canes, and removing the old dead wood and 
the surplus feeble shoots, so as to leave from 
two to four in each hill or plant. This work 
was done at any mild time between October aiul 
February, or Mai-ch. Fall pruning, if done 
too early, may prove very injurious, for when 
followed by mild growing weather the buds 



296 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



burst and grow at the expense of too niucli of 
next year's crop. Of conrse, it must be under- 
slood by the pruner, that all the species and 
varieties of this genus, including the blackberry 
and raspberry, produce shoots one year that 
become the bearing canes of the next Summer, 
and then die. These shoots start from the 
crown of the roots. An apparent exception to 
this rule exists in the Autumnal-bearing rasp- 
berries, which produce blossoms and fruit upon 
the cane shoots the season of their growth. 

"Summer pruning is now practiced by all 
good cultivators. This is a very simple opera- 
tion, and consists in pinching or cutting off 
the shoots so soon as they are two feet high, 
which causes them to branch out with strong 
liitcrals, and these are cut back, according to 
tlieir strength, in the Winter. All surplus and 
weak shoots may be removed at the time of the 
Slimmer [iruning, and, if preferred, the bear- 
in;,' wood may be cut away soon after harvest- 
ing the fruit; but no good results are obtained 
by this, except the improved appeara.nce that 
follows the removal of the dead wood, which 
can be more easily effected in the Winter, when 
we have more leisure. The Summer pruning 
makes the plants more stocky and bushy ; they 
resemble little branching trees, and they are 
able to bear enormous crops. This method of 
training obviates the necessity for any kind of 
support, such as stakes or trellis, and the sturdy 
little plants are able to stand alone. 

"We have two American species of eatable 
rasjiberries, the Strigosus, or red-fruited, and 
the Occidenlalis, or thimble-berry, the black- 
caps, all of which have their stems recurving 
till they meet the ground, where they take 
root. Besides these we have the European 
species, the Idceus, that furnishes many delicious 
raspberries, most of which are tender and need 
Winter protection." 

A cool aspect is of material consequence, 
and, to secure this, the north side of a fence or 
trellis, which will form a screen from the sun, 
is the most favorable; on the north side of a 
shrubbery, or a row of fruit trees, is also a suit- 
able place. If neither of these situations is to 
be had, an open spot in the garden may be 
chosen, always being careful to avoid the south 
or oast side of a fence. A temporary shade 
may be efi'ected in the open garden, by planting 
a row of running beans on the south side. 
Planting a raspberry under an apple tree has 
been suggested. 

The American red varieties are generally 
propagated by suckers — sometimes by seeds. 



The English Eeds and American Black-capa 
are propagated by rooting from the tips of the 
pendent branches. Of this class, Doolittle's 
Improved, is, perhaps, the best known, and 
doubtless many others, including native .seed- 
lings, are multiplied in the same way. The 
black-cap varieties throw up no suckers. 

Care nuist be taken in planting raspberries 
of the black-cap I'amily, that the young plant, 
which lias seldom more than one well-devel- 
oped germ, is not broken ofT. If broken in 
careless handling, it is not certain that the 
plant will die, but it is certainly put back in 
growth until another germ is formed, and a 
weak growth is the result. 

The Gardeners' Monthly cautions those who 
are about transplanting raspberries and black- 
berries, not to plant them too deep, as most of 
the failures result from this cause. Raspber- 
ries and blackberries will not root out from the 
cane, as most things will fiom their stems, the 
buds have to come from the crown or roots, and 
several inches of soil to come through is too 
much for the buds — tliey will sooner die first. 
Mulching is very desirable. 

Where trellises are required they can be 
cheaply made by a row of posts inserted in the 
ground on either side of a row of raspberries, 
with horizontal slats or strips nailed on the tops 
of the posts ; or good firm posts m.ay be placed 
in the ground, and two or three pieces of tarred 
rope, or annealed iron wire, coated with coal 
tar, stretched from post to post, to form a trel- 
lis upon which to fasten the bearing canes- 
Others simply tie to stakes. 

For manure, if the soil is rich in vegetable 
mold, use only a slight dressing of ashes or 
bone dust; if the soil is clayey, use plenty of 
well-rotted barn-yard manure, with some lime 
and salt. 

For Winter protection of the half-hardy 
varieties, and for all varieties in the North- 
west, bend down the stems before the ground 
freezes up, first placing a small mass of earth 
against the foot of the stems, over which they 
may be bent without breaking, and then cover- 
ing them with an inch or two of earth, tan or 
sawdust. Two stools may be bent toward each 
other, and covered at one operation. 

At a meeting of the New York Farmers' 
Club, it was the concurrent testimony that the 
red raspberry is generally indigestible, and 
hence undesirable for cultivation. Neverthe- 
less, the best fruit growers in every section of 
the country are highly commending various 
kinds of red raspberries ; and we nowhere 



EASPBERRIES — SUMMER VARIETIES. 



297 



hear of any confirmation of the objection 
mentioned, and can not but believe that these 
delicious berries were designed for the use and 
enjoyment of our race. 



SUMMER VARIETIES. 

Brinckle's Orange. — Large, prolific, rich or- 
ange color, luscious as a peach. It is hardy at 
Phihidelphia, where it originated, and does 
well in the Northwest with Winter protection. 
Chakles Downing regards this as the best 
ra.spberry of all the many varieties he culti- 
vates. 

Clark- — This new red variety has proved per- 
fectly hardy, where tested ; fruit large and firm, 
of a bright scarlet color, flavor the most deli- 
cious; a good bearer, and keeps fruiting a very 
long time. A seedling, raised by E. E. Clauk, 
of New Haven, Connecticut, probably from the 
Fastuir, is thought to be the finest of the Ant- 
werp tribe. It has stood the Winter when the 
cold has reached 25° below zero. 

Davidson's Thornless. — One of the blacU-cap 
varieties, and the earliest in ripening its fruit — 
a week earlier than the Doolittle, to which its 
fruit and habits are similar. It is thornless, 
and very desirable on that account. It is suc- 
ceeding well, where tried in the Northwest, 
even in Minnesota. 

Doolittle Black-Cap. — A hardy and fine mar- 
ket berry, has hitherto borne the palm of the 
black-cap varieties. It does well in the North- 
west. Some $600 worth of the Doolittle have 
been sold as the product of a single acre in a 
year. Davidson's Thornless, and the Seneca, 
bid fair to outstrip it. 

Fastolf- — An English red variety, probably 
a seedling of the Red Antwerp; fruit large, 
bright purplish-red, rich, high flavored, and 
productive, ripening in long-contiuued succes- 
sion. Too soft for market culture. Needs 
Winter protection. 

Franconia. — A fine red variety, resembling 
the Fastolf, but of rather more acid flavor, and 
ripening some ten days later than the Antwerps, 
producing abundant crops of fine fruit which 
bears carriage to market well. Needs Winter 
protection. 

French. — A seedling of Fastolf crossed with 
Yellow Antwerp; large crimson fruit, matures 
late, and deserves extensive culture. 

Garden. — Ripens next in order to Davidson's 
Thornless ; has a dark red or brown berry, as 



if red and black were mixed. By some tliis is 
highly prized as a garden berry. 

Golden-Cap. — If properly trimmed, it will 
yield heavy crops of large, deep golden-colored 
fruit — the largest and most productive yellow 
raspberry grown. From its tempting and at- 
tractive appearance it is one of the most desir- 
ble sorts for table use, and brings the highest 
price in the market. The birds, it is said, do 
not disturb them, probably supposing from 
their color that they are unripe. 

Kirtland. — A very hardy, desirable red sort, 
resembling the Clark somewhat, but bush not 
quite so rampant a grower; fruit not as hard, 
but markets in fine condition. 

Kneoett's Giant. — An English red variety ; it 
is more hardy than the Ked Antwerp, bears a 
much larger crop ; fruit a deep red, and of ex- 
cellent flavor. It needs Winter protection. 
The American Pomological Society recommend 
it for general cultivation. 

Mammoth Cluster. — This is diflerent from the 
M^imi Black-cap, Charles Downing, An- 
drew S. FuLLEK, and many others pronounc- 
ing it distinct from and superior to any of the 
black sort they have ever seen. It is won- 
derfully productive, the largest in size of 
the black -cap family; perfectly hardy, having 
tood the most severe Winter.^, with the mer- 
cury down to 28° below zero, without the least 
injury; and it comes into bearing just after 
other black-caps are done. It is cultivated 
largely by Purdy & Hance, South Bend, In- 
diana. 

Miami Black-Cap. — This is deservedly a fa- 
vorite of the Black-cap variety, generally re- 
garded as superior to the Doolittle, but a week 
or ten days later ; fruit very large, brownish- 
black, and almost entirely covered with bloom ; 
very productive, and perfectly hardy. 

Naomi. — A new variety, hardy, productive, 
large, of good color and quality, and for firm- 
ness the very best for transportation. It is 
highly commended by the Ohio Horticultural 
Society, M. B. Bateham, and Dr. Warder. 

Philadelphia. — This is one of the best of the 
American Red varieties ; it has proved per- 
fectly hardy and productive in Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, and northern Indiana; flavor, second 
rate; color, dull purplish-red; medium size; 
sends up very few suckers ; will bear shipping 
in quart boxes very well. 

Purple Cane. — An old tried, reliable, hardy 
sort, of the Black-cap variety; fruit almost 
identical, with the Philadelphia, but of better 
flavor. Profitable for a near market, and for 



298 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



family use lins few superiors. It makes Ibe 
best (if jams. Bushes last many years, and 
yield best wlien they become thoroughly 
rooteil. 

Red Anticfrp. —Tl\\e true foreign Red Ant- 
werp, of wliicb there are comparatively few in 
our Western States, is large, regularly long, 
conical, dull red, with a rich sweet flavor; this 
is somewhat different from the North River 
Antwerp, which is of large .size, fine flavor, 
productive, bearing carriage well, and has 
yieldtd as high as $2,800 to $3,000 per acre. 
The ciinnuon Red Antwerp has a small round 
berry. Tlie Cincinnati Red Antwerp has 
proved hardy and productive in the Northwest, 
standing the Winters unharmed, with thether- 
luouieter 30° below zero ; it suckers prodigious- 
ly, and these need hoeing down, as one would 
weeds among corn; berry is fine for table u.se 
and jams, but too soft for market purposes. 
All the Aniwerps do well in partial shade, and 
succeed in orchards. 

Sfneea Black-Cup. — This is a decided itu- 
provement upon the Doolittle, producing more 
and larger fruit, with canes more vigorous. It 
is very hardy, and succeeds well in the North- 
west. 

Yellow Antwerp. — Much resembles the Red 
Antwerp, e.tcept in color, and is a handsome 
and excellent fruit, but is often a long time in 
maturing. In the Southern Slates the Ant- 
werp varieties do not succeed. 



AUTUMN BEAEING VAEIETLES. 

Catawissa. — Is a native of Columbia county, 
Pennsylvania, and has a somewhat wild taste, 
yet the fruit is of good size, roundish form, 
dark red color, and quality really excellent. 
It produces abundantly on the young wood, 
ripening generally during August, September, 
and October, and until the snow flies. Que per- 
son, having forty hills, reported gathering frorn 
them a quart to a hill per week "from July 
until October." To secure a full Fall croji ex- 
perience teaches that the plants shouhl be 
mowed over level with the surface, early in the 
Spring, and tlie new shoots will bear abund- 
antly toward the end of Summer. 

Ohio Ever-Bearing, — Discovered near Lake 
Erie, in Ohio; it is a large, rich, pleasant 
fruit, of a dark color, approaching the black. 
Its fruit ripens the last of June, and continues 
putting out new blossoms and bearing till killed 



by the frost, if the weather is moist and favor 
able. Carries well to market; is cultivated 
considerably and profitably in New Jersey, and 
in the Cincinnati region; and both the Cata- 
wissa and Ohio Ever-Bearing are commended 
for cultivation in the Northwest. 

Dr. Warder states, in the Ohio Agricultural 
Report, for 1865, that the Ohio Ever-Bearing is 
simply a Fall-bearing variety of the Black- 
cap; but thinks it is apt to run out if plants 
are not renewed every third or fourth year. It 
needs good culture, and is then very produc- 
tive; he highly esteems it for family use. It is 
sometimes difficult to jiropagate these ever- 
bearing varieties, owing to the tips producing 
blossoms and fruit instead of .striking root. 

Dr. Warder also commends another Au- 
tumnal black variety — Luin's Eoer-Bearing — 
which resembles the common black, or Doolit- 
tle, but is more stocky, and not so tall ; a very 
profuse bearer; fruit large, black, and sweet — 
the Summer fruiting resembling the Doolittle 
in size, but is much larger in September and 
October. Before the first crop of berries is 
gone, new shoots come up, and thus keep up a 
succession of fruit till late in the Autumn. 
Many regard this as the best of the Autumn 
bearing raspberries. If the plants ai-e all cut 
down in the Spring, close to the ground — and 
so of the Catawis.sa, Ohio Ever-Bearing, and 
Griggs' Daily-Bearing — they will produce a 
large Fall crop, commencing to ripen the last 
of August. 

Griggs' Daily-Bearing Raspberry, which has 
been thought identical with the Ohio Ever- 
Bearing, upon comparison, presents some points 
of difference. The Griggs' seems larger, and 
of rather better quality, and to bear more fully. 
The canes are also smooth, with scarcely an 
appearance of spines, while the Ohio Ever- 
Bearing is pretty well supplied. 

Large-Fruited Monthly. — R. L. Pardee says 
this is a new variety that he has had bearing 
in his garden some years, and has often gath- 
ered a moderate amount of fruit from it in 
September and October, as well as in the early 
Summer. With good cultivation and thorough 
pruning, it produces full crops of fruit of the 
character but not equal to the Antwerps. To 
produce an Autumn crop, prune the canes in 
the Spring to within a foot of the ground. 

In the garden of General J. K. PROUDriT, 
at Madison, Wisconsin, a second crop of Fastolf 
raspberries was produced by whole clusters 
upon the topS of the tall new canes, among the 
withered stems of the first crop. 



BLACKBERRIES — VARIETY OP. 



299 



By procuring proper varieties — the earliest, 
the meilium bearing, and the hitest — we may 
liave a continued supply ol' raspberries for four 
or five months in the year, and in the Southern 
Slates mucli longer. Lovers of fruit tlirough- 
out our country should strive to encourage tlie 
cullure of sucb varieties as will longest extend 
the fruit-bearing period. 

Blackberries. — This fine fruit fills the 
gap after cherries and strawberries have passed 
away, and when raspberries and whortleberries 
are becoming scarce. In most of our Stales the 
better varieties are successfully cultivated ; and 
even in the Northwest the Kittatinny, Dor- 
chester, and Missouri Mammotli, hardy kinds, 
should be thorouglilj' tested, and if tltey fail 
witli Winter protection, the best of the native 
varieties should be substituted, giving them, in 
accordance with tlieir native habitat, partial 
shade and moisture by mulching freely, in the 
orchard or under fences, and, if possible, with a 
northern aspect. Plant in Spring or Autumn. 

Any rich, deep soil, says Dr. Waedkr, well 
plowed, will suit these plants, which should be 
allowed plenty of room, and may be set every 
four or five feet, in rows eight or ten feet wide. 
Tlie ground should be well cultivated or deeply 
mulclied, and the suckers must be removed by 
cutting them off with the hoe whenever they 
appear between the rows. Nor should- the 
jdants be crowded ; one plant every two feet in 
the rows, or two canes in a hill, will be sufli- 
cient, and will yield larger, finer, and better 
fruit than if more are left together. The black- 
berry being only another species of the genus 
Rtibus, or bramble, the remarks as to the liabit 
and pruning of the raspberry are applicable to 
this species, and need not be repeated, except 
to enforce the propriety of Summer pincliing, 
or topping and thinning out, so as to produce 
strong laterals and stocky plants. Tliis cutting 
may be done a little higher, say from three to 
lonr feet, according to tlie vigor of the plants, 
and the habit of tb.e variety. 

The most natural manure for the blackberry 
is a vegetable mold — if a thick coating, the 
better. A clay soil is unsuiled to this berry; 
too high manuring from the barn-yard does not 
seem to be favorable, but rather retards its 
success. 

leing ugly things to work among, it is best 
to train the blackberry to a fence or trellis — on 
the northern side of a high fence; and for trel- 
lises, wooden slats are better than wires. They 
should be mulched in the Fall with plenty of 



vegetable manure, forked in the next Spring. 
Bhickberries are pretty stiff to lay down well, 
but in the Northwest, if the Kittatinny, Dor- 
cliester, and Missouri Mammoth fail to stand 
the severity of the Winter, then care should be 
taken to bend the cane over a hill of earth, or 
bundle of straw or cornstalks, and cover with 
earth or evergreens. 

Varieties. — Crystal While. — This is a new 
Illinois seedling, entirely distinct from the old 
white blackberry, being free from spines. The 
canes are bright, clear, light green, vigorous, 
strong growers; hardy and very productive; 
fruit large, and when fully ripe, a clear rich ' 
white, juicy, tender, sweet, and high flavor. 
Ripens last of July to middle of August. 

Dorchester, — Hardier than the New Eochelle 
or Lawton, and nearly equal in size; more 
elongated in form, somewhat sweeter, and pro- 
ducing large crops of high-flavored fruit, some- 
times measuring an inch and a quarter in length, 
of a deep shining black color ; they should be 
fully matured before gathering. Ripen about 
first of August, and bear carriage well. 

Kittatinny. — This new variety, from the Kit- 
tatinny, or Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania, 
lias apparently proved the hardiest variety yet 
cultivated. The Kittatinny, says the Ohio 
Pomological Report, for 1866, is really a fine 
plant, very vigorous and productive, and a lus- 
cious fruit, superior in its qualites to the New 
Kuchelle. The Northern Illinois Horticultural 
Society, at its meeting in February, 1868, spoke 
of it as showing a hardiness and adaptation to 
the climate beyond any other in culture. It 
has tints far given more general satisfaction, 
especially in the colder regions, than any other 
variety. Fruit, large to very large; a glossy 
black, sweet, rich, and excellent ; is very pro- 
ductive, and continues in bearing four or five 
weeks. 

Missouri Mammoth. — C'olman's Rural World 
states that this new variety is much larger than 
the New Kochelle, or Lawton, and begins ripen- 
ing earlier than Wilson's Early, and continues 
fruiting late. The fruit is very black when 
ripe, of a sweet, vinous flavor, fat pulp, and 
does not turn red, like the Lawton, by standing 
after picking. The plant is said to have borne 
an exposure of twenty-eight to thirty degrees 
below zero, without the slightest injury ; if tliis 
be true, it would prove of immense value to 
the Northwest. 

New Roehelle, or Lawton. — More cultivated 
than all other blackberries. Is of a very vigor- 



; 



300 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES : 



ous growth, and exceedingly productive; very 
large and intensely black fruit, juicy, rather 
solt and tender, with a sweet and excellent 
flavor. It has proved exceedingly successful 
and (xipular in tlie Middle Slates and Ohio 
Valley, hut begins to show that it is somewhat 
lender and unfitted for the Northwest. When 
g.uliered too early, it is acid and insipid ; when 
fully ripe, it is too tender to ship to market. 
Si.Niy to seventy berries sometimes fill a quart 
measure; a single stalk or cane produces six 
hundred to a thousand perfect berries; and in 
New Jersey, they average eighty bushels to the 
acre — in some cases a hundred. They ripen 
about the first of August, and may be continued 
in bearing, by keeping the ground clear of 
weeds and cutting away the suckers, for five or 
six weeks. 

IScedham'a Improved White.^This is a great 
bearer, the fruit not white but with a blush 
cheek ; not of good quality or size, compared 
witli the Lawton. Some years it fails. In- 
stances have been given of single canes pro- 
ducing eight, ten, and even eleven quarts of 
fruit. 

I'liornless Blackberry. — Except an occasional 
prickle on the under side of tiie leaf, this busli 
is perfectly free from thorns; flavor of fruit 
very sweet, partaking of the Cap raspberry, 
size medium to small ; very productive. Orig- 
inated in Ohio, and is perfectly hardy, where 
tlie Lawton has been killed down to the snow 
line. It has borne good crops in Illinois. It 
has the advantage that it can be laid down as 
easily as the ras[iberry, which is not the ca.se 
with the New Rochelle; requires protection. 

]\'liite Cluster.- — It was first discovered in 
1S56, in Lycoming count}', Pennsylvania, grow- 
ing in a cold, exposed position in that region 
of the northern extremity of the Alleghany 
mountains; and in that severe locality it has 
never been known to winter-kill, and has 
always produced bountifully of fine fruit, 
"when lully ripe, mucli the color of goqd 
cream." J. H. Foster, of Kirkwood, New 
Jersey, testifies to its vigorous, hardy, and won- 
denully productive habits, where it has been' 
Iraiisfeired to New Jersey; and says that the 
plaiU is quite distinct from other white black- 
berries, which, as a general thing, have not 
proved hardy, many being also unproductive, 
and not a few failing to produce the desired 
wliitc Iruil. 

Wihou's Early. — This variety is being ex- 
tensively introduced in some regions of coun- 
try; fruit very large, oblong, black; quite firm, 



sweet, rich and good, ripening very early, the 
crop maturing within two weeks, thus render- 
ing it of the highest value as an early market 
variety. The earliness and uniform ripening 
of the Wilson, says Dr. Warder, will cause 
its rapid introduction into the market gardens. 

Mauiinotli Prolific Dewberry.— 

This is a hybrid between the Lawton black- 
berry and the dewberry, and was taken fiiim 
Maine to central Illinois four or five years 
since. It is said to be much hardier than the 
Lawton, requiring but little, if any, protection 
in tliat section of the West. It needs but little 
cultivation, and will bear fruit from year to 
year without resetting. The fruit is large, 
juicy, and slightly acid, but not so sour as the 
blackberry, and bears shipment well. It is 
said to be a prolific and perpetual bearer, yield- 
ing from sixty to eighty bushels to the acre. 
J. C. Bartle, Clement, Clinton county, Illi- 
nois, who had cultivated it largely, has shipped 
the fruit to New York in good condition. 

Gooseberries. — This delicious fruit sel- 
dom reaches that perfection in our dry, hot 
climate that is attainable in Great Britain, 
where the climate is cooler and moister. Goose- 
berries need a deep, rich soil, shade and moist- 
ure — partially shaded on the northern side of 
a high fence, or planted on ground with a 
northern a.spect, or in orchards, or in alterhate 
rows between grape vines. 

The Houghton, or American Seedling (which 
Dr. Sylvester, at a meeting of the Western 
New York Horticultural Society, regarded as 
practically identical) is very hardy, prolific 
and healthy, not subject to mildew ; fruit me- 
dium size, skin smooth, pale red, flesh tender 
and good. Downing's Seedling is an improve- 
ment upon it, and has given good satisfaction ; 
while the Mountain Seedling has larger fruit 
than the Houghton, fftlly as productive, other- 
wise simil|ar. The Shaker Seedling is a rank 
grower, prolific and good; and the Ohio Pro- 
lific bears wonderfully, and is valuable. "This 
fruit," say PuRDY & Hance, "is gaining in 
popularity and importance every year, and we 
hope may be so improved that we may have 
as hardy and productive sorts, and as free from 
mildew as the Houghton Seedling, with the 
size and flavor of Smith's White," or Wood- 
ward's White Smith — a large and excellent En- 
glish variety, fruit over an inch in size, grow- 
ing on a small tree, of erect habit. 

Dr. Warder says that notwithstanding the 



WHORTLEBERRIES — MULBERRY — CURRANTS. 



301 



liigh price of sugar, wliioli has lessened tlieir 
use, goDseberiies are just as valuable to the 
fanner's family as ever ihey were; and tlie 
cnllivation of the Houghton and American Red 
varieties is so simple, that they may be, and 
should be, grown in every household garden, 
and by the side of every cottage. 

It is a mistaken notion that because the 
gooseberry is often found wild in poor soils, it 
therefore needs no manure. With the writer, the 
treatment which ensures the best results is as 
follows : Give the plants a dressing of manure 
in the Fall, packing it in and around the roots 
in Spring. Keep the ground clean and open 
until about Tlie middle of May or first of June. 
Then, spread under the branches a layer of 
sti'aw five or six inches thick, letting it extend 
over the ground as far as the roots penetrate. 
This mulching should remain on the ground 
until the first of September, when it siiould be 
removed and the soil worked clean. The de- 
sign of this midsummer dressing is to prevent 
any check in the growth of wood or fruit, and 
to keep the air about the bushes uniformly 
moist and cool. In thi.^ simple way we man- 
age to get good crops, as often as five years out 
of seven. Persons near the sea-side might use 
sea-weed or salt hay for a nmlch. Tanners' 
bark is also used with succciis. 

I cultivate gooseberries, says Judge Knapp, 
of Wisconsin, jn the same manner as I do cur- 
rants, with this dift'erence; during the dry days 
and when the fruit is growing, I give them fre- 
quent watering over the top, after sunset, with 
washing suds, cold, and when I can not get 
that, I apply very weak ]ye in tlie same man- 
ner. It is well to scaUer a spoonful of salt 
around the bush in the Spring, say about six" 
inches from it. Bushes treated in this manner 
and well trimmed will not rust. Indeed, the 
Buds or lye will kill the rust after it has formed, 
and you may calculate on an annual crop of 
all the berries which the bushes can hold. I 
often have branches so loaded that the berries 
will hang in double rows a foot and a half in 
length. 

In the Nortliwe.st Hougliton's Seedling has 
thus far succeeded best, though latterly at- 
tacked by the borer; it needs Winter protec- 
tion i|i that cold climate. 

■Wborlleberries. — The decrease in the 
crop of wild whortleberries, or huckleberries 
as commonly called, caused by the cultivation 
of hitherto waste lands, together with increased 
consumjition, has so enhanced the value of the 



article that they latterly sell in the Eastern 
markets at from $5 to $11 per bushel. At such 
prices they will well repay cultivation ; and once 
set, they would remain permanent. Bushes 
have been known to yield a quart; but let them 
be set in rows three feet apart each way and we 
should have 4,840 bushels to the acre, and these 
estimated at a pint to the bush would yield 
over seventy-five bushels to the acre — and a 
third more bushes to the acre could be safely 
set, by placing them two feet apart in the row. 
This would allow the plow to be used between 
the rows. 

Picking them would be much easier than 
gathering strawberries, and much more pleas- 
ant than picking raspberries or blackberries of 
the common thorny varieties ; and, so hardy is 
the whortleberry, that no trouble about Winter 
protection would be necessary. Doubtless 
their cultivation, like the culture of other 
berries, would greatly increase their size, qual- 
ity, and productiveness. Mulching may be 
necessary to give them something like their 
native condition. In selecting from the wild 
varieties, reference should be had to their size 
and vigor, and they should be taken from open, 
bleak exposures, rather than from the woods or 
shady nooks. 

Mulberry. — Downing's Ever-Bearing 
mulberry is wonderfully hardy, and worthy of 
cultivation. The fruit is esteemed for cooking. 
A wild black variety is a prolific bearer, and 
the fruit, from June to September, is very 
profitable for food for hogs. The wild red mul- 
berry is a rapid grower for timber and pro- 
tective belts, and m'akes excellent posts. 

Currants. — In almost every log-cabin 
garden, says Dr. Warder, we used to find this 
he:ilth-giving fruit, which offers its agreeable 
acid in the heat of Summer as an antidote or 
preventive of the bilious eflects of our torrid 
season. But now, the currant is a neglected 
fruit. 

This being a Northern plant, it is thankful 
for a partial shade or protection from the 
scorching sunshine in latitude 40° or .south- 
ward. For this object it is well to plant the 
bushes on the north side of a fence or building, 
or on ground that is somewhat moist. Cur- 
rants have been found to do well in the shade 
of young orchard trees, and they sometimes 
contirue to do well for a long period, even after 
the apple trees have occupied and shaded the 
whole surface. 



302 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES I 



The ciinant delights in a deep, rich loam, 
and will thrive even where the soil is somewhat 
wet. The bushes should not be crowded, as 
they require about four feet space each way. 
Trimming may be done in the Fall or Winter, 
rather than in the Spring, as the buds swell, 
and the blossoms appear very early in the sea- 
son. The pruning should consist in shortening 
two or three of the strongest young shoots, cut- 
liiiL;- uway all the weaker ones, and removing 
only the oldest and exhausted bearing-wood. 
Unlike tiie raspberry, the currant does not 
fruit upon the young shoots of the previous 
year's growth, but upon little spurs that ap- 
pear only on branches that are two or more 
years old. 

The English, and some nice cultivators in 
this country, advocate training the currant in 
the tree shape, with a single stem a foot high, 
and then branched. This plan keeps the fruit 
well up from the ground, and the effect pro- 
duced is very pretty ; but the natural tendency 
of this plant is to produce shoots annually from 
tlic crown ; hence the suckers from the base of 
the stem are very troublesome, and if neglected, 
the little tree is soon spoiled and becomes a 
mere bush. 

The currant plantation must be kept cleiin, 
and free from grass and weeds. Alter the cul- 
tivation in the Spring, it is a very good plan to 
cover the soil with a heavy coating of old hay, 
straw, fodder, leaves, or other suitable mulch- 
ing material, which will retain the moisture 
and preserve the fruit a long while in a fine 
condition. It needs to be well manured, and 
docs the best in the rich alluvium of a brook, 
spring, or bog, which plainly points to the soil 
and nmisture most natural for its production. 

Nicholas Ohmee, near Dayton, Ohio, plant- 
ed about three acres of Red and White Dutch 
currants, which yielded enough to make tliirly 
barrels of wine, and he sold currants enough 
beside to pay for the sugar used in making the 
Avine, tuid the wine, which enjoyed an enviable 
local reputation, sold at a price which rendered 
his currants a profitable crop. 

Gathering CtiiTants. — Currants should also be 
gathered with their .stems; they should also be 
dry, and all leaves thrown out. Gooseberrie.', 
if for shipment, should be gathered dry, and a 
careful e.\pulsion of all leaves will cau.se them 
always to command the best price. Like the 
strawberries, care should always be taken not 
to e.vpose them to a hot sun after gathering, for 
such exposure soon gives them the appearance 
of being half-cooked. 



Currant Cuttings. — Cuttings of currants, goose- 
berries, etc., made in the Fall, form a callous, 
and are ready to strike root and grow as soon 
as Spring opens. When not convenient to plant 
them in the Fall, the Agriculturist advises iliat 
they be cut at once, dipped one-third of their 
length in mud, placed in a cool cellar, and 
kept moist by an occasional sprinkling of water. 

Varieties. — The Versailles was pro- 
nounced, at a meeting of the New York Farm- 
ers' Club, the best known variety extant ; the 
hunches are extraordinarily large, measuring 
from three to four inches in length, and the 
fruit handsome, productive, and of large size. 
May's Victoria, or Houghton Castle, is very 
hardy, fruit large, and very long bunches; late, 
and rather acid, good ; plant vigorous ; a mod- 
erate bearer. The White and Ked Dutch are 
the varieties mostly cultivated ; they are large, 
of good flavor, and productive — the White is 
the mildest, and very nice for the table. The 
Cherry is considered by .some as identical with 
the Ver.sailles, but they are evidently dilTerent; 
the latter is as hardy, and deciiledly superior 
to the Cherry in agreeable flavor. The Cherry 
is the largest of all red currants, quite acid, 
short clusters, good bearer, and C(msidered 
the best for jelly. The While Grape is con- 
sidered the finest white variety, size large, and 
of a beautiful transparent white; and Fertile 
d'.\ngers is very similar to the Versailles — 
both are French varieties. The Champaj;ne ia 
a pale red or flesh color, and a very acid cur- 
rant, is commended by Dr. Wakdek — good for 
jelly purposes. 

The Black Naples currant, very hardy and 
productive, deserves to be more generally cul- 
tivated than it is. "The black currant,'' say.') 
A. S. Fuller, "is a profitable fruit. It will 
grow on land too sandy for the red variety, as 
on Long Island and the pine lands of New 
Jersey. It is rather slower than the others, 
and comes in bearing on the third or fourth 
year, wliile the red comes into fruit the second 
year, and produces more. But the price of the 
black currant is about double that of the com- 
mon red. For five or six years the cidture of 
the black has been far more prevalent." 

The proper way of pruning black cyrrant 
bushes, of all ages, is to get rid of as much of 
the old wood as can be replaced with young 
wood ; and to cut but the very top parts from 
the strongest young shoots, unless it be on 
purpose to furnish young wood for the next 
season. 



CRANBERRIES. 



303 



The fruit of the black currant, made into a 
jelly, is regarded by many, as invaluable as a 
reuiedy for sore throat, quinsy, bowel diificul- 
ties ; and made into jam or dried, it is valuable 
for puildings and cakes. 

Cranberries. — The cultivation of this 
valuable fruit is steadily on the increase — and 
yet it is questionable if the increase equals the 
demand. They are extensively cultivated in 
Massachusetts, New York, Xew Jersey, Xorth 
Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where the 
prevailing rock is sandstone, the soil sandy, 
and the waters soft. It is doubtful if they will 
succeed to any extent in a pure limestone soil, 
with liard water. On peaty soils, with a cover- 
ing (if sand, they seem to do well. 

The cranberry is naturally a water plant, and 
so long as there are such large tracts of natural 
cranberry land, which can be profitably devoted 
to no more productive purpose, we believe it 
better that they should retain their own primi- 
tive soils. In marshy lands, flowed more or 
less by fresh water, in a loose .soil, they thrive 
wonderfully ; and as they are a fruit always 
saleable in their season, and largely consumed 
where they can be obtained, they will continue 
an object worthy the attention of those who have 
the proper soil for them. 

In 1867, the cranberry crop of Xew Jersey 
was forty thousand barrels, and about the same 
in the loUowing year. In New .Jersey, Ocean 
county alone had more tlian a thousand acres 
in cultivation, producing sixteen thousand bar- 
rels; and fully a million of dollars are invested 
ill their culture in that single county; while in 
Monmuuth and Burlington counties their cul- 
ture is on a still more extensive scale. The 
annua! product of the other States named, 
a>ide from New Jersey, was in 1868 estima- 
ted at fifty thousand barrels; and the value of 
the whole crop of the country estimated at 
about S1,000,000. 

The average product per acre is doubtful, as 
it is founded on difTerent experiences in differ- 
ent localities, with varied conditions, and treat- 
ment — from sixty bushels to four hundred bush- 
els per acre; and one writer states that he has 
heard of a thousand bushels having been picked 
from an acre. From one to two hundred bush- 
els is about an average yield. 

The Bell, the Cherry, and the Egg-shape are 
the varieties generally cultivated; the Bell 
cranberry is of two kinds, the large and small. 
The large Bell cranberry is generally preferred 
for cultivation ; a good bearer and preserves 



well ; while the Cherry and Egg are nearly as 
good, if you get large varieties and prolific 
bearers. 

A very common plan of making a bed is to 
select a Img, or low piece of ground which can 
be easily overflowed with water, and drained 
to the depth of two feet, and after turning un- 
der the sod, and pulverizing the surface, to cover 
the whole with white sand to the depth of six 
inches. The plants are placed about eighteen 
inches apart. They must be kept clear of weeds, 
and in the course of three or four years the 
whole surface will be covered with the vine. 
By means of a dam the bed is kept under water 
about one-half the year. The objects of this 
flowing are three-fold : It destroys worms and 
insects; it Winters the plants in the best possi- 
ble manner, and it protects from frost.s, which 
are liable to destroy the crop in Autumn as well 
as in Spring. The crop may be gathered in 
the Fall, or, if covered by wafer (luring the 
Winter, in the Spring. After the bed begins 
to bear, the production of the berry is attended 
with less care and trouble than any other crop. 
Unlike other berries, the cranberry can be pre- 
served without difficulty for a long time ; the 
market, too, is seldom overstocked ; and. it is 
much sought after for ship supplies, and the 
foreign demand is steadily increasing. 

An old cranberry grower of Massachusetts, 
gives the following as the result of his expe- 
rience: "Cranberries will grow on high, moist 
land, and sometimes produce well, but their 
proper place is low and springy, or wet land. 
The best place, however, is a peat bog and 
swamp muck. Make the surface of your ground 
as even as possible, and nearly level, with a 
sliglit inclination toward a drain, if you have 
one, in order that it may be easily flowed, and 
no ponds remain after drawing off the water. 
This may be done with any material. There 
should then be put on this level surface, about 
four inches in thickness of swamp muck or 
peat, which should be again covered with about 
three inches in depth of loose sand, free from 
grass or its fibers, and also from clay or stones. It 
is not important what the color or quality of 
the sand, if it be not adhesive, and is free from 
roots and grass." 

P. M.Todd, of Bricksburg, New .lersey, thus 
states his views on the culture of the cranberry: 

1. A peaty soil is needed. It may be either 
a clear peat bottom, or it may be a mixture of 
peat and sand — what we call savannah ground. 
Old cedar swamp bottoms seem most natural tc 
the cranberry. 



304 



FRUIT AND FRUIT TREES: 



2. The plantation must be situated on a run- 
ning stream of water, with dam and gates. 
Here in New Jersey, we consider it necessary 
to keep llie vines coveiedwith water the entire 
Winter. This would probably be unnecessary 
in North Carolina; still it would be well to be 
able to do so, as it is the only way of extermi- 
nating insects and worms. If your bottom is 
peat, it must first be cleared of bushes and tus- 
socks, and then sanded to the depth of five or 
six inches. If savannah, it must be plowed 
and harrowed. The ground may be prepared 
at any time, but Spring is the best season for 
planting. In sanding peat bottoms, wheel- 
barrows may be used, or a car made exjjressly 
for the purpose, running on a wooden track, 
ironed with old wagon-tire, and pushed alon^ 
by three or four men. The ground must be 
marked out as for corn, with a sled, two feet or 
ei^'hteen inches each way. Have a sharp stick, 
wiili a knot or crook in it; place your foot on 
the knot and push it down ; then set out two or 
three vines in the hole, taking care they reacli 
through the sand' into the peat, and packing 
the sand close about them. It is not necessary 
for the vines to have roots; they are very tena- 
cious of life, and will grow if run through a 
cutting-box and sown broadcast. 

3. Cultivation. — The first and second Sum- 
mers, hoe and keep free from weeds; after that 
the vines will take care of themselves. 

4. Harvesting. — We employ women and chil- 
dren to pick them in good picking, for fifty 
cents a bushel. 

5. Putling up for Market. — Put them up in 
barrels, or in bushel crates made expressly for 
the purpose. They will bring a better price if 
sorted over. There are various contrivances 
for picking them over, but none of them are 
very satisfactory. A first rate article riowbrings 
about four dollars per bushel. Some years 
prices are much higher, and never less than 
three dollars for a prime article. 

The berries borne the first and second sea- 
sons have generally been sufficient with me to 
pay for hoeing and weeding. The third season 
a fair crop may be expected, and ever afterward 
the plantation grows more productive, and your 
only trouble or expense is the picking and put- 
ting up for market. 

Upland Culture. — Though the natural liabitat 
of the criinberry is the lowland, yet they can 
be raised on poor uplands, with a surface of 
five or six inches of sand carted on — or in such 
localities as the pine barrens of Long Island, 



or the pine lands of New Jersey. They need 
to be set in wider rows than those in swamps or 
bogs, so as to afford frequent plowing to pre- 
vent the ground from baking, and impart mois- 
ture to the plants. Of course, by this system of 
culture there is no opportunity for flooding. 
"One reason usually assigned for flooding," 
says Thomas E Bridgee, of Long Island, " is 
the supposed necessity of destroying the cran- 
berry worm. None trouble us as yet. Another 
reason is to keep them back, out of the way of 
late frosts — an unnecessary precaution here, as 
they do not blossom until June. Another rea- 
son is given, that much moisture is necessary 
during their growth, to raise the berry to per- 
fection. To this I answer, cultivation provides 
the remedy. The ground being naturally un- 
derdrained, if the surface is kept mellow, any 
drouth can be successfully resisted. At night 
we usually have heavy dews, which help ma- 
terially; and by trailing the vines in rows, a 
a natural mat or covering, operating as a 
nndch, is provided, thus helping to assist the 
natural habit of the plant, while it grad- 
ually accommodates itself to existing circum- 
stances." 

The product of the upland culture must nec- 
essarily be less than that on the lowlands; one 
cultivator in Massachusetts, from half an acre 
of upland, gathered the third year thirty bar- 
rels of berries, which he sold at fifteen dollars 
a barrel; the cost of picking and marketing 
was three dollars a barrel, leaving a clear profit 
of three hundred and sixty dollars. 

Professor Forest Shepherd, of the Western 
Reserve College, Ohio, found several years ago 
a native upland cranberry in various sections 
of British America, particularly on the Neepe- 
gon coast of Lake Superior. " The plant," 
says Professor Shepherd, "is much like our 
common cranberry, but more vigorous, cover- 
ing the ground entirely with a green mat, while 
the surface is flaming red with berries, more 
delicious than anything of the kind I have 
ever tasted. I have no doubt the plants may 
be propagated to great advantage on poor, cold, 
sterile lands of a northern exposure in all the 
United States. But they should not be put in 
mar.sh or bogs." The fruit of this variety re- 
sembles an ordinary pea in size and shape, of 
a beautiful pale red color, bright and glo.-«.sy ; 
softer than the swamp berry, and therefore will 
not keep so long; flavor remarkably pleasant 
and agreeable, peculiarly adapted for jellies 
and preserves. 



FOES OF THE FARM: 



Injurious Insects and Diseases; Eejiedies and Methods op Defense. 



The difFeient kinds of insects found within 
onr country number about thirty thousand, or 
about ten distinct varieties to oneof tlie animal 
kingdom; and of this large number not less 
than one-third are cannibals, devouring one 
another for food thus the bald hornets and 
spiders catch flies, the mud wasp catches the 
spider, the ichneumon fly catches the wasp, 
and birds and other insect-feeders catch the 
ichneumon fly. The American Entomoloijist, 
edited with great ability by Dr. B. D. Walsh, 
of Rock Island, Illinois, estimates the average 
yearly depredations of noxious insects in our 
country, at three hundred millions of dollars. 

It is the first duty of the farmer to clean out 
all the fence corners and rubbish heaps, and 
burn them, thus destroying the germ of many 
insects that would otlierwi.se prey upon the 
crops and the orchard. He should learn fi-om 
books, agricultural papers, and his own ohserva- 
tiun, when to expect their appearance, and be 
prepared, with the best means at command, to 
avert their increase and depredations. 

Toads, frogs, and sknriks are really friends 
of the human race, destroying a multitude of 
worms and insects, and their larvse — frogs 
.long low grounds and streams, and skunks 
and toads especially in the field and garden. 
Even snakes, lizards, and spiders subsist upon 
insects. Birds, too, render the farmer a va-st 
service in the destruction of insects, and though 
they do eat a few berries and other fruits, yet 
they should be protected and encouraged. 
Not one bird in fifty falls to serve as the ally 
of man against his enemies. The shrike, or 
butcher-bird, kills mice, and wages a most re- 
lentless war on locusts, grasshoppers, moths, 
and other insects, not only for food but for 
amusement — often impaling hundreds of them 
on the thorns of the hawthorn or wild plum, 
near his haunts. He is rightly named, a 
butcher-bird. 

An Alabama planter raised bountiful crops, 

20 



while the caterpillar destroyed the cotton of 
all his neighbors around him. The reason was 
simply this: He i.ssued the sternest orders that 
not a single bird, except the jay, should hi 
killed upon his plantation under any pretext 
whatever. He allowed little willow groves to 
grow in his fields, and to them he sent a sack 
of oats every morning, which were scatttreil 
upon the ground. The birds fed upon the 
o.ats, and swarmed in thousands around his 
fields. They exterminated the cotton-fly ; and 
hence there were no eggs, there were no cater- 
pillars, there were no larvse, but there was a 
blooming garden in the midst of a blighted 
wilderness. 

Some of our States have wisely passed laws 
making it a penal oflence to destroy brown 
thrushes, blue birds, martins, swallows, wrens, 
cat-birds,'' meadow-larks, or any other of the 
insect-eating birds. It has been estimated that 
the swallow alone destroys at least nine hun- 
dred insects per day. 

Enemies or Fruit and Trees.— We 

find it convenient to divide this chapter, post- 
poning a consideration of the enemies of gar- 
den and field crops, and first paying attention 
to such as injure fruit: 

Causlic Soda for Fruit Trees. — The late Pro- 
fessor Mapes gave an account, at a meeting of 
the New York Farmers' Club, of a series of 
experiments which showed that a saturated 
solution of caustic soda is not injurious to the 
most tender living vegetable, while it dissolves 
all dead vegetable matter. For several years 
he made extensive use of this strong solution 
for fruit trees, and always with th§ best eflects. 

It destroyed great numbers of insects, and 
kept the bark clean and bright. A pound to 
a gallon of water makes a proper saturated 
solution. 

Calomel for Fruit Trees. — An apple tree, wliich 
was in process of destruction by insects, and 
(305) 



300 



FOES OF THE FARM- 



rendered unproductive, was Ihornughly cured 
in this way: A hole was bored in the bodv of 
the tree, nearly through the sap, and two grains 
of calomel inserted. As soon as it was taken 
and distributed by the sap, the vermin died, 
and the tree began to bear fruit, and has done 
so for three years, to the entire satisfaction of 
tiie owner. Sulphur may be mixed wiih the 
calomel and produce good results. 

Beneficial Effects of Salt. — We believe, says 
AVm. C. Lodge, of Delaware, in the United 
Slates Agricultural Report for 1S6-5, that we 
have discovered a sovereign remedy for nearly 
all disea.ses of our fruit tree.s, as well as for tlie 
destructive insects, which so frequently destroy 
our fruit after it has given pronii.se of satis- 
factory crops. It is nothing more than com- 
mon salt. Vi'e have experimented with it on 
bushes and young trees, with admirable effect 
in many instance.*, though sometimes with in- 
' jury, owing rather to the manner of applica- 
tion than the agent employed. Its application 
was first suggested to us as an insect-destroyer, 
from the success of an experiment made upon 
the tree-moth. We found it altogether effect- 
ual in preventing injury from this troublesome 
pest, and so we extended our experiments, with 
almost equal success, to the fruit-destroying 
family of pests. The difficulty is in the proper 
application of the remedy or preventive, as 
salt is so injurious to tender vegetation that, 
frequently, we can not reach the insect without 
also touching a bud, blossom, or tender leaf. 
Where the atmosphere is impregnated with 
saline particles, nearly all our troublesome in- 
sects, and most of our di.seases of fruit trees 
are unknown. The most perfect fruit of the 
peach, plum, nectarine, and apricot, and the 
mo.st enduring trees are found in the neighbor- 
hood of salt water. On the higher Iinds along 
the Delaware and Chesapeake bays, all st(me 
fruit trees bear plentiful crops, and endure 
much longer than in the interior. On the is- 
lands of the bays where the shores are wiushed 
by salt water, we have found peacli and plum 
trees with their loads of fruii in such perfect 
Condition as we have never seen elsewhere. Of 
the many plum trees we have examined in those 
localities, we have yet seen no trace of Black 
Knot, nor any sign of the Curculio on the 
fiuit. Peach trees flourish and bear annual 
crcjps at the age of fifty, and in some cases 
seventy years, and on the islands of the Chesa- 
peake the figs produce two or three successive 
crops of perfect fruit in the same season. 
I have long held, says Horace Greeley, 



that every enemy of fruit that burrows in the 
ground may be successfully pursued, and easily 
exterminated, by the proper use of salt. Fall 
plowing is also a good remedy, if the ground 
be left in ridges. Freezing kills the eggs. 

Other Remedies and Suggestions. — Bind a bun- 
dle of the boughs or twigs of the red cedar 
around the liody of each tree infested with 
worms, with the butts uppermost, and the 
worms will speedily disappear. 

Make a strong decoction from coarse wa.ste 
tobacco, and to every five gallons add one 
pound of copperas, and apply it with a brush 
to the trees. 

The dregs, after soap making, proves an 
effectual remedy against fruit-tree insecis. 
Pour the fluid where the tree divides into 
limbs, that it ni.ny run down the bark to the 
roots, where eggs of insects are often deposited. 

The ammoniacal water of gas, or gtis liquor, 
mixed with three-fourths its quantity of com- 
mon water, and sprinkled over the leaves and 
branches of trees, will destroy all insects upon 
them. \ small trench should be dug around 
each tree to receive the water which falls, that 
it may soak down to the roots of the trees and 
destroy insecis which may harbor about the 
roots. 

As a wash for the bodies of yotuig fruit trees, 
take lye made of ashes or potash — one pound 
of potash will be enongh for a gallon of water; 
or common soft soap mixed with water until it 
is of the consistency of cream. It may be ap- 
plied with brush or swab, in July, when it will 
have a tendency to destroy the eggs of insects 
which are then deposited on the bark, and 
about the roots. This wash will also be found 
effectual in removing moss and other parasiticiU 
productions. .\ sufficient amount of potash '« 
contained in the soap to accomplish these ends 
and yet not enough to injure the bark of the 
tree, and as it is of vegetable origin, it is more 
congenial to the tree than lime, and is always 
to be preferred. It does not close the pores 
of the bark as lime wash, or coal tar, or grease 
does, but leaves them unobstructed and open to 
atmospheric influences, and in a state of vigor- 
ous and perfect health. It has long been used 
by orchardists and gardeners, and has never 
been known to injure any fruit tree, when made 
and applied as above directed. 

Apple Dlsea§es and Insects.— We 

can but briefly mention the more common dis- 
eases of the apple, arnl its insect enemies, sug- 
gesting remedies when known. 



APPLE DISEASES AND INSECTS. 



307 



Apple Beetle. — Tliis little insect is found bur- ' 
rowing in the pith of the young branches of 
the apple tree in the Spring. The branches 
nhove the .seat of attack soon die. Cnt off these 
branches, below the dead and dying portions, 
anil Imrn them. 

Apple Blight. — Destroys the terminal shoots 
all over the tree, as stated by Dr. J. H. Salis- 
bury and C. B. Salisbuby, in the Ohio 
A:;ricultural Report for 1S63, by a fungus dis- 
ease— generally making its appearance sud- j 
denly after warm, moist weather; and more re- 
liance should be placed on .preventives than 
curatives — among the former, are sulphur and 
sulphuric acid, which serve as fertilizers to tlie 
tree. Others represent the blight as caused by 
a small worm no larger than a needle. Cut off 
the disea-sed limbs and burn them. 

Apple Borer. — This insect, of the beetle 
family, lays its eggs and deposits them, in June 
or early in July, in the tender bark at the base 
of the tree — laying one egg in a place, and some- 
times eight or ten in a tree — producing a grub 
about an incli long. Make a wash of a pailful 
of soft soap, four quarts of sulphur, four quarts 
of air-slaked lime, four quarts of wood ashes, 
half a bushel of cow or hen manure, with water 
enough with these ingredients to fill a barrel, 
and use it freely on the trees and about their 
base. Some fill the holes with hard soap, or a 
piece of camphor, behind which a soft plug is 
driven; or probe the cavity with a flexible 
wire; while others .still, with a gouge or prun- 
ing knife and mallet, thoroughly dig nut the 
borer — where hut a few are taken out the tree 
soon recovers, heals over, and docs well. The 
waste water from salt works, called " mother 
water" or "bitter water," applied, about a pint 
at a time, at various intervals from June to 
August, about the base of each tree, or, in lieu 
thereof, a strong briny decoction, is regarded 
as a simple and effective remedy. Dr. As.i 
Fitch recommends cutting an orifice some 
tliree inches above the aperture where the 
borer enters, at the upper end of the burrow, 
and pouring in hot water from a tea-pot spout 
and scalding the depredator. But preventives 
should be resorted to, as the easier and safer 
way of saving the trees, and promoting their 
health and productiveness. 

The late Mr. Dowxixg recommended a mix- 
ture of soap, sulphur, and tobacco water, or 
soap and tobacco water, mixed ta the consist- 
ency of thick cream, with which to wash or 
paint the bark of the tree immediately above 
the ground and axils of the lower limbs. 



Others destroy all the borers they can find, 
then bank up the earth around the trunk to 
the height of several inches, and then tie on 
paper so as to cover the trunk to the height of 
about ten inches above the earth, to prevent 
the females from depositing their eggs. It this 
paper is smeared with gas tar, all the better. 
Others recommend placing a piece of bard soap 
in a little bag, securely in the crotch of a tree, so 
that it can drip down the trunk with the rain, 
thus constantly supplying the tree with alkali 
and grease — no borer will go there. Solid 
whale-oil soap, rubbed around the base of the 
trees, is also an effectual remedy. 

Apple Maggot Fly, — A very small two-winged 
fly proceeding from the larvse or grubs found 
in fruit previously perforated by the codling or 
apple moth. This fly injures or destroys the 
pulpy substance of apples. It prevails in the 
Eastern and Middle States. 

Apple Midge. — A slender, tapering, glossy, 
white worm, which finds its way into the in- 
terior of ripened or stored apples. Prevent- 
ives, as in the case of the apple worm or 
codling moth, are the only modes of circum- 
venting these pe-sts. 

Apple-Root Plant Louse. — This insect, says 
Dr. Walsh, lives habitually underground, 
sucking the sap from the roots, and causing 
thereon large excrescences or swellings. In II- 
lijiois it is erroneously called the Woolly .\phis 
or Plant Louse, and destroys many trees, by 
>ucking up the sap of tlie roots, producing 
much the appearance of dry rot. Remedy — 
drench the roots of infested trees with boiling 
water, which will not produce injury to the 
tree; a strong decoction of soap or lye, or 
brine, will generally prove effectual. Before 
young a|>ple trees are planted, the roots should 
be soaked a considerable time, either in a 
strong solution of soap, or in strong tobacco 
water — the latter probably the best — and thus 
destroying whatever lice may exist on the roots 
of the younsr trees. 

Apple Thrips. — Minute, slender insects, which 
wound the young apple, and are difficult to ex- 
terminate. Dusting the vegetation which they 
infest with flour of sulphur, and washing it off 
a few days afterward, has been found successful 
in some cases; and would, doubtless, prove 
more so if applied when the thrip is in its 
larvae, or immature .state. 

Apple Worm or Codling Moth. — This insect 
disfigures many of our apples and pears, caus- 
ing them to fall prematurely from the tree. 
The moth has four wings light-grav anJ 



308 



FOES OP THE FARM : 



brown, anil a dai-U brown oval spot on the 
hinder margin. It deposits its eggs in the eye 
or blossom end of the fruit, and these hatch in 
a few days, prodncing a reddish-white grub, 
which eats its way to the core, when' the apple 
shortly falls to the ground. The worm now 
seeks shelter in ibe crevices and beneath the 
r(i\igh bark of the tree, spins a web-like co- 
coon, and remains until the next season. One 
remedy is, to keep tlie bodies of the trees well 
scraped, and annually washed with lye water 
early in tlie Spring, and picking up all tlie 
fruit as fast as it falks, or Jetting hogs run in 
the orchard to eat it. 

It ha.s long been known that by placing an 
old cloth, or anything of that nature, in the 
crotch of an apple tree, the apple worms may 
be decoyed into l)nilding their cocoons under- 
neath it, and thus be destroyed wholesale. Dr. 
Trijible's method — ^^whicli amounts to the 
same thing, and has been found to be practi- 
cally very beneficial — is to fasten two or three 
turns of a hay band round the trunk of the 
apple tree, and every few days, from June to 
tbe middle of September, to slip the hay band 
up and destroy the cocoons that have from 
time to time been formed on the bark under- 
neatli it. Every female moth that hatches out 
in .July or August, from the first brood of apple 
worms, will probably deposit an egg in some 
two or three hundred nearly matured apples, 
thereby rendering them more or less unsalea- 
ble and unfit for use. 

Tansy or wormwood growing near apple 
trees will, it is said, destroy or drive away the 
moth. Fires built around the orchard in the 
evenings of the latter part of June and early 
in July, will attract and destroy the moths in 
large numbers, and will greatly tend to keep 
them in subjection. 

Army Worm — These pests have occasionally 
appeared in diflerent parts of our country dur- 
ing the past century. As a general thing, they 
commence on one side of an orchard, taking 
all the trees as they proceed, completely defoli- 
ating them. Prepare strips of birch or bass- 
wood bark, three or four inches wide — or any- 
thing else that will answer the same purpose — 
tie it about half-way up the trunk of the tree, 
and smear with a coating of tar. This will ef- 
fectually stop their progress. 

Bark Lice. — Lice seldom do any harm on a 
thrifty tree, but on poor trees, as on poor 
calves, they delight to make a lodgement. 
They are very minute insects, with a shell or 
scale, and tbe inexperienced would scarcely dis- 



cern them. Remedy — induce vigorous growth 
in the tree; a crop of buckwheat in the 
orchard, maturing and decaying there, forms .1 
mulch, and the trees thrive, an<l Ibe lice disap- 
pear. Ashes applied about the base of lousy 
trees render a good service in this direction; 
the lye passing through the roots into the tree, 
doubtless furnisb the lice a distasteful fyod, and 
they either travel to other quarters or perish. 
A wash applied to tbe tree, of strong lye and 
flour of sulphur, in May or June, and a repeti- 
tion, will do no harm. A coat of lard, put on 
with an old shoe brush, well rubbed in, will 
destroy the lice in two or three days; and a 
tlicrough application of kerosine oil with a 
paint brush, will not only thoroughly clean 
the tree of lice, but of dead bark and moss, and 
give new vigor to the tree. Hornets and yellow 
jackets have been known to exterminate bark 
lice, eating them up, old and young. Dr. 
Walsh, the State Entomologist of Illinois, de- 
clares that the usual wash remedies amount to 
little or nothing, except so far as the friction 
used with a stiff brush, and that .soon after the 
blossoming of the apple, serves to destroy the 
vermin. 

Canker Worm. — There are several allied spe- 
cies of this in.sect, not alone confined to the 
apple, but preferring the elm to all other trees. 
Tlie male is a moth, with pale, asli-C(dored 
wings, with a black dot, a little more than an 
inch across; the female is nearly wingless, 
oval, dark ash-colored above, and gray be- 
neath — a measuring worm, ten-footed, and 
nearly an inch long. Early in the Spring the 
worm rises out of the ground ; the females, 
having no wings, climb slowly up the trunks of 
tbe trees, looping or arching up their backs at 
every step, while the winged males hover about 
to pair with them. The female soon lays from 
sixty to a hundred eggs, glued over, .closely ar- 
ranged in rows, in the forks of the branches, 
and among the young twigs, which are hatched 
out the latter part of May, and the dusky- 
brown or ash-colored canker worm, with a yel- 
low stripe, soon commences preying upon the 
foliage. A belt of canvas, saturated with tar 
and train oil, encircling the tree, prevents 
their ascent. Another preventive is a leaden 
trough, encircling the body, secured in its place 
and filled with oil. 

Another remedy is, spading up tbe ground 
in the Autumn, beneath the trees, on which tliey 
appear, and dressing it liberally with lime; or 
using band.s of straw and cotton batting tied 
around the tree, and examined daily to kill all 



ll 



APPLE DISEASES AND INSECTS. 



309 



that have become entangled in it. Tarring is 
effective, if it is tlioronghly done. A belter 
composition, however, is rosin and oil, nii,\ed 
to such a consistency as to soften a little when 
the weather is sufficiently warm to cause the 
moths to move. It is thus always ready to 
catch them. When the temperature is cool 
enough to harden the composition it is too cool 
fur the insects to rnn, and when it is warm 
enough for lliem to run, it softens the composi- 
tion, and they can not get over it. 

Still another remedy : Adju.st a pan upon a 
long pole, in which brimstone and live coals 
are placed ; the worms coming within reach of 
this fumigation, are destroyed. Others with a 
long pole jar the limbs of the trees, shaking 
off the moths, whicli is best effected when no 
dew is on, and the tar belt around the tree 
prevents their re-ascension. 

Caterpillar. — The common orchard caterpillar 
is very destructive of the foliage of apple 
trees. It is hatched in the Si>ring as soon as 
the leaf buds begin to open. From the tenth 
of an inch long, and no larger than a cambric 
needle, they increase in size until they are two 
inches long, and a quarter of an inch in diam- 
eter. In the latter part of Summer, having 
spun a cocoon, and passing to the pupa .state, it 
comes out a yellowish brown nn'ller, lays its 
eggs, and dies- — these eggs, deposited in cylin- 
ders or rings, numbering from three to five 
hundred each, are protected from the weather 
by a versicular water-proof varni.sh, and hatch 
in tlie Spring. 

For their destruction, some cut off the small 
branches which hold the eggs during Autumn 
or Winter, and burn them; and those that are 
overlooked may be destroyed in May or June 
by attaching a sponge or round brush to a pide, 
and saturating the sponge with spirits of am- 
numia, and turn it around among their nest.s. 
Others remove with the hand the nest and its 
inmates at early morning, crushing the cater- 
pillars beneath the feet. Pick off every indi 
vidual, and clean off the nests; and, in early 
S[U'ing, scrape off the loose bark and moss, and 
burn it, and it will be found that the apple-tree 
caterpillar can easily be suppres.sed. Another 
mode: Take a pan with lighted charcoal, and 
place it under the branches of the tree or bush. 
Throw a little brimstone on the coal ; the vapor 
arising will be mortal to these insects, and de- 
stroy all on the tree. Still another remedy 
practiced with success is, to attach a swab, 
made of fine rags or tow, to a light pole, and 
kept saturated with thin tar. Early in the 



morning, when the caterpillars are in their 
nests, rub out the nests with the swab, giving 
the upper sides of the branches on which the 
nests are a light touch with the swab. Any 
caterpillars that are not at once destroyed will 
be stuck in the tar and die. Going through an 
orchard in this way two or tliree times is suf- 
ficient to rid it of these troublesome pests. 

JS'ew York Weevil, or Curculio. — This insect 
attacks the apple tree most in the night, and in 
still, cloudy weather in May and June, gnawing 
the buds and young shoots so that they break 
off and die. The same remedies are resorted 
to as in the case of the curculio, or plum weevil, 
which see. 

Pnlmer Worm. — X wanderer, as the name 
signifies, a small worm, about half an inch 
long, with sixteen legs, and extremely nimble. 
Palmer worms give the trees the .same denuded 
appearance as the canker worm does, and the 
same remedies should be applied to prevent 
their depredations. They subsist on the apple, 
oak, chery, plum, and oilier trees. 

HiibbiUs and Mice G nmv in g Fruit Trees. — Some 
recommend rubbing the trees with fresh pluck 
or other offensive offal of slaughtered animals, 
or with fat smoked bacon, while others stoutly 
contend against trusting to fresh blood or any 
sort of greasy applications. A few dozen grains 
of strychnine, nicely put into small bits of car- 
rot or turnip — only a half a pin-head grain of 
the poison to each piece — and dropped into the 
principal run-ways, will soon dispose of the 
long-eared tribe thereabouts; and, for rats or 
mice, insert the poison in small bits of tal- 
low. Or, wind the body of the tree with bay 
or straw rope; or, split cornstalks, about two 
feet long, and place them, jiith side next the 
tree, all around, and fasten them with a small 
cord an inch or two from each end. Another 
uggests leaving several shocks of corn conve- 
nient for rabbits and mice, in or around the 
margin of the orchard, affording preferable 
d for their purpose; while others dose them 
well on red-oak bark, or powder and shot. Or, 
remove all stubble and grass from around the 
tree, and bank up with fresh earth ; and, during 
the Winter, tramp down the snow solidly 
around the tree; or, wrap a piece of heavy coal- 
tar paper about the trunk, placed close down to 
the ground, extending up a foot or more. A 
whitewash, made thick with lime, and thinned 
with a strong decoction of tobacco water, put 
upon the lower portion of the tree, will prove 
effectual. 

The Bascal Leaf Grumpier. — This small moth 



310 FOES OF THE farm: 

lias been discovered and described by Dr. gist at a low price. Or, take two pounds of 
AValsh, and is believed to be, for tlie present, sulphate of iron (copperas) ; dissolve it in two 
exclusively a Northwestern species, sewing to- [gallons of hot water, and then dilute with ten 
getlier, with silken threads, the terminal leaves or twelve gallons of cold water, and sprinkle 
of young twigs, inside of which it feeds at the bushes with a watering pot, in the morn- 
U'isure. In some localities ill Iowa, the crump- ing, when the dew is on the bushes; or take 
ler has so defoliated apple trees as to destroy fine dry road dust, or common soot sprinkled 
the crop; but where it does not appear in ex- upon the bushes; or use tobacco-smoke fumi- 
n:iiprdi»;iry number.s, as it generally does not, gation ; or one part of common soft-soap well 
its de^^lructiou of a few leaves probably operates dissolved in ten parts of water, applied to the 
as a Summer pruning, thereby checking the bushes with a watering pot early in the morn- 
exuberant growth of wood, and oonfiuing the ing. The application of a sprinkling of dry 
Kniwth to the fruit. The nest of the crumplers soot around the roots of bushes, when early 
may easily be crushed between the fingers, and digging operations are being proceeded with 
the little crumplers, or caterpillars, destroyed, in Spring, will act most successfully in pre- 
It not only infests the apple, but the crab and venting their appearance ; and this, resorted to 
plum trees. ' in successive seasons, will entirely extirpate the 

Woolly Aphis. — .\ppeais in the crotches pests. Another remedy is, a thorough mulch- 
aiid crevices of branches in the form of mi- ing of coal ashes under the bushes, early in 
nute while down, and is easily destroyed the Spring, or late in the Fall, so when the 
by washing the tree with lye water, lime worm emerges from the ground to change into 
wash, or whale-oil soap; if around the roots, a fly, it can not pass through this coarse gritty 
piMir plentifully of hot water at the base of coating, and perishe.s there, 
the tree. i The Currunl Borer is not apt to infest bushes 

A good insect wash is made of five gallons where the three-year-old wood is regularly cut 
of weak lye, one pound of powdered sulphur, away, thereby imparting vigor to the remainder 
and four ounces of soot or lamp-black, thor- of the bush. The insect is produced from a 
oughly mixed, and applied with a brush. j blue-back moth, depositing its eggs in June 

I near the lower buds; these hatch, and theyoung 

The ChciTJ' has its encmie.s, which we borer enters the stem to the pith, upon which 
must briefly notice. The Cherry Plant- Louse it feeds. Cut off and burn ajll the branches 
constantly infests the cherry tree, completely afiected. 

colonizing many of the young leaves. Dr. j It is recommended to plant black currant 
Fitch estimates that at least twelve millions bushes among red and while currants, as the 
of these insects have found a lodgment on a odor of the black currant seems distasteful to 
single tree of about ten feet in height. Nu-'the borer, and drives him off. 
merous as they are, they soon fall a prey to I 

tlieir insect-eating enemies, and none are left! Gooseberrj' lYIidge. — This in.sect punc- 
hy the close of June, except a few which ap- tures the fruit, and deposits its eggs in it, pro- 
pear but effect little harm. The remedies ap- ducing one or more small bright yellow mag- 
plicable to the apple plant-louse are equally gots — the fruit turning red and putrid, falls 
applicable in this case. Besides the louse, the prematurely to the ground. All such fruit 
caterpillar anil.curculio are pests which infest should be gathered and thrown into the fire to 
the cherry, and require the same remedies as destroy the worms they contain. The currant 
in the case of the apple and plum tree. Burst- worm sometimes preys upon the leaves of the 
ing of the bark, and exudation of gum, is a gooseberry, and the same remedies, hellebore, 
somewhat frequent occurrence — probably caused etc., should be applied. 

by lack of proper drainage of the soil where Mildew, so common to the gooseberry, is re- 
jilanted, and by severing large limbs from the garded as a parasitical plant or fungus, attach- 
tree. ' ing itself to and enveloping the fruit; induced 

I by heat and want of moisture in the atmosphere 

Currant TVorm.— The remedy most and free circulation of air. Mulching the 
recommended is to scatter from an ordinary ground three or four inches deep serves to keep 
pepper or dredging-box, plentifully over the the roots cool and moist, and give vigor to the 
bushes, from time to time, pulverized white bushes. Freely sprinkling the bushes once or 
hellebore, which can be obtained of any drug- twice a week with strong soap-suds, and ihe use 



GRAPE INSECTS AND DISEASES. 



311 



of salt, are regarded as good preventives of 
mildew. 

Grape Insects and Diseases. — 

The red spider is a very small dark red insect, 
scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, locating 
itself on the under side of the leaves, feeding 
upon, poi.soning, and injuring the plant. It 
may be destroyed by syringing and damp air, 
or by e.xposing sulphur occasionally to a high 
temperature without actual ignition. 5ca/y and 
meal;/ bugs may be destroyed by using a wash 
made as follows, and put on with a painter's 
soft brush : Whale-oil soap and tobacco, each 
four ounces; nux vomica, one ounce; sulphur, 
four pounds; over which pour three gallons of 
boiling water, and slir all until thorouglily 
mixed — keeping it away from animals, as the 
nux vomica is a deadly poi.son. Apkidce, or 
green and black fly, a small, sluggish insect; 
thrips, or grape-vine hoppers, small, active, lin- 
ear-shaped insects; and fretlers, which move by 
jumps when disturbed, may be destroyed by 
tobacco fumigation, avoiding a too severe ap- 
plication while the leaves are young and ten- 
der, lest they should be injured. Plaster has 
been successfully used in repelling the thrips 
on the grape. The depredations of the blue 
beetle on the grape vine have been eflectually 
prevented by applying a mixture of molasses, 
hellebore, and sulphur, in about equal parts, 
added to a strong decoction of tobacco, so as to 
be about as thick as paint. Put it on with a pen- 
cil brush, to the tip of each bud, just before open- 
ing. A small quantity, say one gill, is suflicient 
for several vines, and the labor of applying 
not so great as that required for pruning. 

The rose buy, a lightish-brown little beetle, 
is in some sections quite destructive to hardy 
grape vines, before and about the time of blo.s- 
sorning. Hand-picking is the most effectual 
mode of checking its ravages. Dr. Walsh 
describes the grape eurculio, a small, round- 
snout beetle, which punctures the grape, and 
causes it to fall ; and says that it can be caught 
and destroyed by placing a sheet under the 
vine, or something like an inverted umbrella, 
lined with white cloth, and that the least toucl 
will bringthe eurculio off the vine. The grape- 
leaf gall-louse is peculiar to the frost grape va- 
rieties, and to a few of the cultivated kinds — 
the Clinton, Delaware, and Taylor; perhaps 
the wash described in this paragraph might 
prove a good remedy. 

The grape-root borer resembles the common 
peach borer, but lives exclusively under ground, 



deposits her eggs on the collar of the vine close 
to the earth, and the young immediately de- 
scend to the roots, and depredate on the bark 
nd sap wood of the roots, gouging and furrow- 
ing them so badly as often to destroy the vine. 
The Scuppernong grape is entirely exempt from 
the borer; and should this pest become too 
troublesome, the difficulty may be obviated by 
grafting our best varieties on Scuppernong slock. 

The blue caterpillar is quite a common depre- 
dator in some sections, eating the leaves ; hand- 
picking is, perhaps, the only effectual way of 
lestroying them, though dusting the vines, 
when bedewed, with lime or wood ashes, or 
■syringing them with a strong solution of pot- 
iish and tobacco, has been recommended. A 
single white worm will sometimes be found, on 
close inspection, on the extreme tops of grape 
vines, inclosed in a web which binds together 
one or two leaves; and another worm, from a 
quarter to half an inch long, is still more de- 
structive, lying right in the clu.ster, and eating 
the blossom buds, and being of the same color 
as the stem, clo-te examination is necessary to 
discover it ; both kinds should be sought for 
and destroyed. 

The diseases to which the grape is subject, 
are neither very numerous nor destructive. 
Overbearing doubtless destroys more vines 
than all other causes combined ; and where 
vines are overloaded, as the Concords often 
are, the result frequently is that but a small 
portion of the fruit ripens. Too poor or too 
rich soils are often injurious; and an over- 
dosing of soap-suds, or a stagnant moisture 
around the roots, tend to injury. " I have 
reason to think," says Dr. HoBBiNS, "that 
much disease is incited by overmanuring; for, 
reasoning from analogy, overfeeding should 
be as bad 'or vegetable as it is for animal life, 
and eq^uilly productive of disease, as is under- 
feeding. The only vines which I know that 
require a little good feeding are the Kebecca. 
Allen's Hybrid, and the Delaware. Again, 
disease has seemed to me to occur from over- 
crowding. The heavy-foliaged vine sliould be 
grown where the air can blow well through it; 
the laterals in such vines should be kept well 
pinched off. A mass of foliage which neither 
wind nor sun can penetrate is sure to become 
diseased. The fruit, too, I have seen beeonie 
diseased from neglect at (he right time to pinch 
off the laterals, letting them run until they 
were a foot or so long, and then strip|dng them 
off in a sudden and wholesale manner. Alter 
such treatment the grapes sometimes rot, at 



312 



FOES OF THE FARM: 



otlier times fall off singly or in bunches.. These 
are diseases of debility, and time and care, the 
proper strengthening of the vine is all that is 
necessary to remove and prevent them." 

The black rot is a great .scourge to the grape in 
the Western States, often engendered in wet 
seasons from an excess of moisture, or in re- 
gions where the dews are heavy. Dusting the 
hunches with suliihur on the first appearance 
of the disease, while wet with dew or rain, will 
generally stop its further progres.s — apparently 
producing volatilization, or sulphur gas; and 
hence, if strewn upon the ground, the soil 
shouKl not he hoed or stirred for several days 
thereafter. For proper sprinkling of the vines, 
;iliout eight pounds of pulverized sulphur are 
required per acre. "Probably," says Fuller, 
" the best method to pursue, is to choose those 
varietie.s that are least liable to be effected, and 
)ilant them upon well-drained soils;" and Dr. 
\\'.\RDER suggests that as the Concord, Hart- 
ford, Ives, Lyman, and some olhers, have pro- 
duced a healthy foliage, in tho.se terribly trying 
seasons when most of our more delicate sorts 
have been destroyed, these hardier varieties 
are the hope of the country. 

A remedy for the prevention of the " rot," 
where vines are already planted in deep- 
trenched, highly manured, tenacious, and re- 
tentive soils, has been proposed, and appears 
lo be philosophical and highly promising. It 
is thai of Dr. ScHROEDER, the enthusiastic vine- 
yardist, of Blooniington, Illinois. He remarks 
as is generally observed, that the first crop of 
Calawbas is not injured by the rot, and tliere- 
loie proposes that the vineyard shall be fre- 
quently renewed by layering, after each new 
vine thus formed shall have borne its first 
large crop, or the third or fourth year after 
planting. Lortg canes should be grown for 
layering and laid on the soil, extending to 
midway between the rows. By continuing 
this process successively from each new vine 
for four years, and extending the layers prop- 
erly, the last plant may be brought in position 
to take the place of the original parent, and a 
vineyard of young vines be constantly main- 
tained, which, it is claimed, are always vigor- 
ous, free from disease, and produce superior 
fruit. 

This method, which appears well worthy of 
trial, certainly does away with the evil of ex- 
traordinary root extension and unnatural dimi- 
nuti(m of leaves (or the evaporating organs) 
by excessive pruning. We know that in the 
vine, as in other plants, the growth of the root 



and its branches keep pace wiih the extension 
of the stem. As the latter shoots upward and 
expands its leaves, the former grow outward, 
absorbing moisture to supply the evaporation 
into the air. The older the vines the greater 
must the root expansion have become, and 
the more numerous the rootlets occupied in 
absorption; but the annual pruning at one fell 
stroke destroys the equilibrium which nature 
had endeavored to establish, and the leaves 
and fruit of the aged pruned vine are rendered 
liable to engorgement and suffocation with ex- 
cess of moisture or of sap. 

Mildew is a very minute fungus, or parasitic 
plant, attaching itself to the weakest of the 
plants or young vines, and feeding upon them; 
and the best preventive is, in good treatment, 
strong plants of healthy varieties, planted upon 
a warm soil, allowing no greater number of 
shoots and leaves than can be fully developed, 
with a free circulation of air. Marshall P. 
Wilder states that he has successfully used 
sulphur on his grapes for mildew, and in no 
instance failed to effect a .speedy cure! Both 
in this country and in Europe, sulphur for 
both the rot and mildew is more used than all 
other remedies combined. 

Every person who has trained vines on his 
out-houses has noticed, in seasons when they 
have suffered from mildew, that the branches 
whidi were sheltered by a projecting coping or 
eave were almcjst invariably free from injury ; 
and that the grapes were ripened under this 
shelter, while shrivelled or decayed on the rest 
of the vine. A hundred and fifty years ago, 
sheltering grapes to protect them from mildew 
was practiced in England, by a succession of 
short projecting tiles from a wall, or boards 
from a trellis, one above the other, a foot or 
more apart, with openings between them for 
the arms and stronger branches of the vines to 
pass upward ; while under each of these short 
boards the shorter branches and fruit would be 
protected from the "perpendicular frosts," or, 
as we would now express it, from direct radia- 
tion toward an unclouded sky, and through an 
atmosphere deprived of its heat-absorbing and 
sheltering vapor. Mr. Saunders, of the Gov- 
ernmental Garden at Washington, has recom 
mended a protecting grape trellis — a revival 
of the ancient English method— saying: "I 
have nearly one hundred varieties of grapes 
under the shelter trellis, and none so sheltered 
showed anil signs of mildew, although we lost 
very heavily on those not protected." 

T. K. Phosnix, of Illinois, stated in the 



PEACH INSECTS AND DISEASES. 



313 



Prairie Farmer of December 24, 1864: "It is a 
fact worthy of note, that those vines under our 
covered trellis never had a mildewed leaf, and 
had ripened their wood hard and fine, while 
exposed vines all went. So much in favor of 
protection, and such simple protection too!" 
A Concord near an apple tree that had been 
]ierniiLted to spread itself in tiie top without 
lit ur hindrance, with this natural protection 
escaped mildew, while others in the open air 
ar.jund it sufl'ered." 

We recognize, in effect, the same protective 
tlieory in the experience of E. G. Johnson, 
of Peoria, Illinois, who states that in the black 
prairie, or clayed subsoil, "rot and mildew" 
prevail, and that vines thoroughly pruned and 
tied to stakes rotted badly, while those which 
were unpruned on high trellises escaped. An 
amateur, residing near, always lost his Cataw- 
bas when he cut his vines; but having stoppe<l 
"stopping" them for some years past, has had 
no "rot" since. Finally, that he had found 
six cases of Catawba vines in his vicinity where 
the grapes did not rot, nor the vines mildew ; 
and that in each case the vines had not been 
cut or primed, and that he knew of no case 
where pruned vine? did not rot or mildew. 

Another method, which has effectually pre- 
vented the appearance of mildew, by enabling 
the vine to withstand the effects of excessive 
night radiation, is to permit the vine to trail 
upon tlie ground. Very fine crops of Concords 
have been grown in New Jersey, without a trel- 
lis or stake, but lying upon the ground, the fruit 
resting upon strips of cedar bark; these grapes 
hud no rot, while other Concords in the immedi- 
ate vicinity, tied to stakes, sutTered severely from 
that cause. Others train their vines upon the 
low trellis in such a manner that the bunches 
of grapes will be near to the soil, and receive 
the warmth radiated from tl;e surface ; thereby 
insuring early maturity, a richer flavor, more 
abundant saccharine, yid higher aroma, than 
if grown at a greater distance from t lie ground. 
Thus grapes on branches hanging within afoot 
of the soil have been found fully ripe and rich 
in bouquet, while those three teet higher were 
still unripe and extremely acid. This method 
of training, combined with Lawrence's shelters, 
but' lour feec from the soil, would .seem to leave 
little to de.sire as requisite to .safety of the leaf 
in Summer, and perfect maturation of the 
giape. 

Sunscald and mildew often go together — 
sunscald produced by sudden changes of the 
atmosphere. It is the soft-leal'ed, feeble text- 



ure varieties that suffer most from this disease; 
the leaves becoming blistered or burnt, thus af- 
fecting the fruit. The more glo.ssy and shin- 
ing the leaves, the less liable they are to sun- 
scald. Healthy plants, dry soil, and judicious 
training are probably the best preventives. 

The bloom on the grape, s.iys Dr. Turner, 
is an organized vegetable shield or protector. 
If this be broken down by abrasion, de^id and 
decaying matter is at once provided to sup|ily 
food for fungi, and this breaking down of the 
bloom on grapes and other fruits is ilsrlf the 
beginning of decay, that will eventually pro- 
ceed in the substance of the fruit itself, in time, 
according to condilicm. 

Peacli Insects and Diseases.— 

The peach-tree borer is somewhat different from 
that which attacks the apple tree— the latter 
becomes a beetle; the former a moth, deposit- 
ing its eggs during the Summer and early Au- 
tumn, at the base of the trunk, from which 
hatches a small white borer or grub, that 
eventually grows to three-fourths of an inch 
long, and bores long slender channels in the 
roots, both in the bark and solid wood, .sapping 
the very life of the tree. Peach trees should 
be examined repeatedly every season, and 
where there are signs of Rum exuding between 
the ground and the root the borer should be 
traced out and destroyed. A sharp knife and 
a piece uf flexible wire are suitable for this 
purpose, and June and September are appro- 
priate seasons for the work. Boiling water 
poured upon the roots of the tree will destroy 
the grub or borer. A bank of ashes or slaked 
lijne, or stiff clay, should be placed around the 
butt of each tree in the Spring, and removed 
in the Autumn, which will preverit the motli 
from depositing her eggs. Painting the body 
of the tree from about six inches above ground, 
down to, and out on the main roots, the same 
distance, with gas tar, mixed with a small 
quantity of flour of sulphur, will prove effect- 
ual against the grub; so also will hog m.inure, 
or tobacco stems thrown around the tree. Dr. 
Warder says, they may be preveutoil by a 
cliimney crock, a piece of stove-piiie, or a bcix 
around the base of the tree, which is to be filled 
with sand, gravel, or cinders, in the Spring, 
and removed or emptied in the Fall. A little 
bank of earth, or even a piece of coarse pajier 
secured to the tree, in cone shape, will keep off" 
the in.sects. Mr. Bolmer's plan of mound- 
ing has, in part, the same object. 

The Yellows. — A disease very fatal to the 



314 



FOES OF THE FARM: 



peach and nectarine is the yellows. Whatever 
may have been its origin, exhaustion by ileterio- 
raleJ soil, overbeaiing, neglected pruning, and 
bad cultivation, develop the malady. It is con- 
tagious, and is imparted to other trees by con- 
tact or propinquity, as well as by a knife af- 
fected by pruning diseased trees, from buds la- 
ken from infected trees, and from soil in whicli 
such trees have grown. As a remedy, use iron 
filings or scales from a blacksmith's anvil, 
placed about tiie roots at the rale of a good 
shovelful or more to a tree; but probably the 
best preventive and cure is an application of 
Peruvian guano, sowed around the ground and 
liarrowed in. Pouring boiling hot water on 
the trunks of the trees, and letting it run down 
into the ground at their base, has effectually 
cured them of the yellows. Or, mix in the 
ground with a hoe, early in August, eight or 
ten inches from the trunk, a tablespoon ful of 
salt, saltpeter, and potash. 

3Iildcw often retards the growth of peach 
trees of the glandless, cut-leaved varieties — a 
minute fungus, which may be destroyed by 
Byringijig with soap-suds, or a mixture of lime 
water with soap-suds, and a subsequent dusting 
with sulphur. 

Alexander Deake, of Albemarle county, 
Virginia, states that he has known a large 
peach orchard totally destroyed by the ravages 
of the worm, except three trees which, when 
about a year old, had a tenpenny nail driven 
througli the body, as near the ground as possi- 
ble. These three trees had always been vigor- 
ous and healthy, bearing the greate.st profusion 
of luscious fruit. A chemical writer on this 
subject, says: "The oxidation or rusting of the 
iron by the sap evolves ammonia, which, as the 
sap rises, will of course impregnate every part 
of the foliage, and prove too severe a dose for 
the delicate palate of intruding insects." 

Pear Insects and Diseases.— Uaj-i 

lice are common to the pear tree. 15oil leaf 
tobacco in strong lye until it is reduced to an 
impalpable pulp, and mix it with cold-made soft 
soap until it appears like thin paint. This 
should be applied with a brush to the tree and 
limbs in the S[)ring, before the buds have 
swollen- Tar and linseed oil, beaten together 
and applied in the same way, are beneficial; 
and strong soap-suds, potash water, and while- 
wash have also been recommended. To protect 
the trees against worms of every kind, practice 
the bandage system — wrajiping the trunks of 
the trees about six inches above ground, and 



two below, early in the Spring, with a bandage 
of any kind of nmslin or clolh, which prevents 
the laying of the eggs — generally deposited an 
inch or two above ground — and also prevents 
the descent of the grub. 

The blight, or fire blight, is a most fiirmidable 
difficulty in the cultivation of the pear — more 
dangerous than in the apple, and evidently 
produced from the same causes. Cut ofi' the 
diseased limbs some distance below the af- 
fected parts, and burn them ; others cut the 
tree entirely oflT, a foot or two above the ground, 
about midsummer, when the early Summer 
growth has ceased, and the stubs will send 
forth vigorous shoots the following Spring, and 
form a healthy [lyramid. This seems to be 
safer and better than to simply amputate dis- 
eased limbs. The blight attacks the most 
thrifty trees, originating in the bark, and never 
in the leaves; and those having imperfectly ma,- 
lured wood are the most subject to the disease. 

The late G. P. R. James, while occupying a 
place in Slockbridge, well supplied with pears, 
found the trees inclined lo be drooping, and 
the fruit to crack, and restored health to the 
trees and fruit by the free use of copperas — 
sulphate of iron — so that this has since been 
one of the most productive pear orchards 
in Massachusetts, The refuse of a black- 
smith shop, or of an iron foundry, is just the 
food the pear Iree loves. Gypsum — sulphate of 
lime — is one of the cheapest and most efficient 
manures for the pear. Wood ashes, howevdr, 
contain the greatest variety of mineral matter, 
and can not be too carefully treasured for the 
use of this an<l other fruits; and even when 
leached, their virtue is not much exhausted. 

At the meeting of the Ohio Pomological So- 
ciety, in 1866, Mr. Springer said, as the result 
of forty years' observation and experience, he 
was convinced that blight in pear trees was in 
some way attributable to over-luxuriance of 
growth, or a plethora ol^sajj during hot weather 
in Summer. He had seen much blight where 
trees stood in rich, moist, and well-cultivated 
soils, causing luxuriant growth, but none ou 

such as were compelled by | r div soils, or 

neglected culture, to grow slowly ; and nence, 
too, he had never known the Seckel variety lo 
suffer from blight, owing, as he believed, to its 
stunted habit of growth. Others concmred in 
these views, so far as to admit that, as a general 
rule, thrifty pear trees were more liable to be 
aflecled with blight than those in an opposite 
condition; but there were many exceptions, and 
the Seckel variety was not always exempt. 



PLUM INSECTS AND DISKASES. 



315 



Dr. E. S. Hull, of Alton, Illinois, liaving 
observed that the pear blight occurred almost 
exclusively in those^trees lliat were making the 
most luxuriant growth, and were standing in 
rich and highly-cultivated soil, argued that if 
the excessive wood growtli of his trees could 
be checked, they might escajie the devastation; 
and root pruning suggested itself as the readiest 
means, and also of the continuous cultivation 
of the soil for the proper development of the 
fruit. The experiment has thus far proved suc- 
cessful, but needs further trial. 

Dr. J. P. KiRTLAKi), of Cleveland, has u.sed, 
with apparent_good results, a mulching around 
his pear trees, dressing with a sprinkling of 
salt, and free waslujigof the bodies, and syring- 
ing tlie branches with a soUilion of the sulphate 
of iron. Yet a sudden ami severe Summer 
storm, when the air would become universally 
charged witli the cause of blight, whatever it 
may be — sporulcs of fnngi? — when pears, ap- 
]]les, and quinces would succumb to the attack. 

Dr. KiRTLAND says the blight is caused by 
the poisonous impressions of the seeds or spor- 
ulcs of a microscopic fungus, and to counter- 
act which, combinations of iron, especially a 
solution of copperas, should be used. 

Leaf blight is most severely felt upon seedling 
stocks in the nursery. It sometimes attacks 
trees in bearing; the leaves spol, turn black, 
and fall ofi", causing a suspension of growth, 
and the loss of the crop. A solution of sul- 
phate of iron — copperas water — sprinkled upon 
the leaves, and saturating the ground at the 
foot of the tree; or, using iron water, by throw- 
ing in old nails or rusty iron, will prevent the 
leaf blight. 

Plum Diseases and Insects. — 

Blac/c Knot is the peculiar mahidy of the plum. 
It is an eruption gf the branches, causing an 
excrescence like great, unsightly warts, proba- 
bly induced by a disease of the sap vitiated by 
the soil or atmosphere. The cherry is subject 
to a similar disease, and both referable to a fun- 
gus growth — each contagious, the cherry with 
the cherry, and the plum with the i)lum; but 
not with each other. If all the parts aflt;cted 
by the disease are cut away and burned, in May 
or June, the seeds for the next year's crop will 
be destroyed. Another remedy is to dip a 
paint brush in spirits of turpentine, and thor- 
oughly saturate the knot, being careful not to 
touch any other part of the tree; and if any 
branches are pruned, burn them. This stops 
the extension of the knot, and the tree puts 



out healthy branches below it ; and during the 
Summer, if fresh excrescences appear, pare 
them ofT, and apply the turpentine, .\nother 
practice is, to burn woolen rags on the wind- 
ward side of the tree, say early in April, which 
it is said prevents the appearance of the black 
knot and increases the productiveness of the 
tree. 

Curcullo. — The curculio, or plum weevil, is a 
little insect that makes a crescent-like puncture 
in the young fruit, soon after the petals fall, for 
the purpose of depositing its eggs. In .some 
regions, and in some season.s, the curculio com- 
mits its ravages on apples, cherries, and 
peaches, as well as plums and apricots. 

Many remedies have been suggested. The 
curculio is regardful of its progeny, which after 
the fruit falls, burrows in the earth — hence, 
trees planted with their tops over running water, 
or with a pavement of brick or stone under 
them, often yield full croiJS. But this is not 
always a protection, for swarms of curculios are 
sometimes walled by gusts of wind from one 
plum orchard to another, a mile or more dis- 
tant, linl they mostly confine themselves to 
certain trees. A higli board fence, or interven- 
ing buildings have been known to protect the 
trees from these migrating parties. 

One removes the turf, if any there be, from 
arounil the trees, over a space sojuewhat larger 
than that covered by the branches, and spread- 
ing the ground with marble dust, leached ashes, 
blue clay, or gravel, half an inch thick, well 
composted and l^eaten down, which forms a 
coating impenetrable to worms or insects. Then 
pick up ami burr, the fallen plums, and a good 
crop may be expecied the next year. Others 
place wool around at the base of the tree, or 
make bands or wrappei's of coarse tow or cot- 
ton, and, kept well saturated with tar, bound 
aroiuid the trees two or three feet from the 
ground ; and others fasten strips of sheep skin 
with the wool on, dipped in petroleum, a couple 
of feet from the ground, and in these traps 
many of the curculios are caught when attempt- 
ing to ascend the trees — lor though they have 
wings, they scarcely liy, except during quite 
warm weather, or in the heat of the day, and 
crawl but slowly. 

Salt sown upon the surface in small quanti- 
ties will, it is asserted, destroy the curculio — 
those, doubtles.s, burrowing in the ground. 
Hogs running in the orchard and eating the 
plums as they fall, will prove a partial remeily; 
and so poultry will devour large numbers of 
the insects and larvce, especially if the surface 



316 



FOES OF TIIF. farm: 



beneath the tree is free from grass, hard and 
smooth. Others have in the Spring excavated 
the gronnd to the roots, and phiced a hiyer of 
several inches of leached ashes, and once a 
week, for several weeks, sprinkled a bucket of 
weak lye over the ashes; and others still have, 
in addition to this remedy, made a mush of 
grease, lime, and snuff, and rubbed, over the 
body and limbs of the tree, and secured good 
crops of plums. 

When suddenly disturbed tlie curculio plays 
possum, and falls from the tree. It is timid, 
and is shy of infesting trees near to or trained 
against buildings, or located beside frequented 
paths. It is nice in its senses — ashes, lime, and 
all foul odors disturb it. Dusting a tree repeat- 
edly with ashes or slaked lime, while the fruit 
is small, at sunrise, when the dew is on the 
young fruit and foliage, often preserves the 
plums from the attacks of the curculio. A 
heap of fermenting manure near the base of a 
tree, or placed in a barrel and set under it, will 
frequently protect the fruit. Fumigating the 
trees with burning tobacco, or tobacco stems, 
every morning under the branches, has saved 
the fruit; and a mixture of lard, sulphur, and 
a little Scotch snuff rubbed freely upon the 
body and branches, has had the same result. 
Smoking the trees with sulphur thrown upon a 
kettle of coals beneath, with an occasional piece 
of leather or woolen rag, has had a similar ef- 
fect. Drenching the trees repeatedly with some 
ofl'ensive ammonia generating fluid — urine or 
the draining of a manure heap, with a hand- 
ful of salt and flour of sulphur, allowed to 
ferment, witii the addition of some wood ashes 
or lime when you are ready to apply it, and 
throw the mixture with a dipper over the whole 
tree, as soon as the petals fall and the fruit is 
forjned, and repeat as often as washed off by 
rain, until the plums are nearly grown. Take 
a barrel just emptied of gas tar, and fill it 
with water, letting it stand a couple of days 
until it becomes as dark colored as coffee, and 
pungent as creosote; with it drench the trees 
On the first appearance of the curculio, and re- 
jieat it every two or three days for two or three 
weeks. Three or four open fruit bottles have 
been placed under each tree, containing a mix- 
ture of benzine and coal oil, and an old benzine 
bMirel placed under another, and in each in- 
stance a fine crop of plums was secured, while 
other trees near by, unprotected, lost all their 
fruit. 

But the jarring remedy, after all, is perhaps 
the one most in practice. Some spread loose 



sheets beneath ihe tree, and with an ax or ham- 
mer strike sharply against the sawed stump, if 
there be one, of a limb, which will cause the cur- 
culios to tutnble down \ipon the sheets. Thia 
should be repeated every morning early, while 
it is cool, and the curculio is in a semi torpid 
slate, as the sudden jar, causes him to loosen his 
hold, when he is too stupid to fly. Merely 
shaking the tree will not answei- — it must be 
jarred sharply. The insects and defective fruit 
thus secured should be thrown into hot water 
or the fire for their effectual destruction. This 
would seem to be an easier and more certain 
mode of destroying the curculio than to jar 
them down and spade them eight or ten inches 
beneath the soil, and repeat the process as fre- 
quently as would be necessary. By this jarring 
remedy, nearly two hundred curculios were 
caught each morning during the first week from 
a single tree; they were reduced to less than one- 
half the second week, and afterward to small 
numbers. The next year, as the punctured 
plums had been carefully destroyed, the number 
was lessened more than one-half; catching the 
first morning, seventy-four ; the second morn- 
ing, ninety-three; the third morning, sixty-six; 
the fourtli morning, twenty; the filth morn- 
ing, nine. 

The curculio-catcher of Dr. Hui.l,, of Illi- 
nois, is an admirable contrivance. It consists 
of an apparatus like an inverted umbrella, only 
considerably larger, with an opening on the 
front side to take in the trunk of the tree. 
This is attached to a wheelbarrow, the shafts 
of which extend a little past the front of the 
wheel, with a strong cross-piece in front — so 
that when the barrow is wheeled suddenly 
against the tree, the cross-bar in front strikes it, 
an<l jars down into the trap the curculio and 
imperfect fruit. These naturally accumulate 
in the lowest part, where there is an opening 
in the canvas, which communicates with a box 
or bag below, from which they are taken and 
destroyed; or. it may be, a tin dish partly filled 
with some destructive fluid. If the cnrculio- 
calcher could be so constructed as to fold up in 
passing through a garden gate, or when not in 
use, it would add much to its convenience. 

The Plum Govger. — This insect is better 
known in the West than in the East. Dr. 
Walsh has studied and described its habits. 
It differs from the curculio. The latter, streaked 
and spotted with black and white, has two shin- 
ing black humps on its back; the gouger ischiy 
yellow in front, and of a dull-lead color behind, 
without any humps at all. The curculio cuts 



ENEMIES OF GARDEN AND FIELD CROPS 



317 



a crescent slit in every fruit in whicli it lays its 
egg, while the goiiger bores a small round hole 
for tills purpose. The curciilio larva leaves 
the liuit and goes under g'round, while the 
gouger larva remains in the infested fruit. 
Tlie curculio is a shy flier, while the gouger 
ilies quite readily ; both species, however, can 
be jarred ofl" the trees and destroyed. The 
curculio produces two broods every year; the 
gouger apparently but one. 

The plum molh Dr. Walsh describes as an 
" elegant little jewel of a moth," and expresses 
the hope that it is not an enemy of the plum, 
but only burrows in the egg-slit made in the 
fruit by the curculio. 

The plam leaf louse is much less common 
than those which pertain to other kinds of 
fruit trees, and the same remedies should be 
applied as for the apple louse. The peach borer 
sometimes attacks the roots of the plum, and 
should be watched and dug out. 

Enemies of the Quince. — The blight is similar 
to that of the apple and pear, and should be 
treated in the same way. Tlie borer attacks 
the wood of the trunk near the surface of 
the ground, and works inward, and usually 
upward, but sometimes downward, to a distance 
of several inches, during the Summer. The 
cutting-out process, as in the case of the apple 
borer, must be resorted lo. 

Mose Bug, or Chafer. — This is a bufT-yellow 
beetle, with sliining yellow legs, and very long 
black feet, appearing the latter part of .June, 
and feeding mostly on the blossoms and leaves 
of the rose. Hand-picking when the dew is 
on, and they are torpid, or, early in the morn- 
ing beating and shaking them from bushes 
upon sheets, and crushing or burning them, is 
a safe but somewhat tedious remedy. Pulver- 
ized slaked lime sifted over the bushes, and 
shook off ten minutes afterward, is claimed to 
be an effectual remedy. They sometimes at- 
tack the grape, apple, cherry, and plum. 

The saiv jltj of the rose appears as a fly ; the 
females when about to lay their eggs, unsheatli 
their saws, and thrust them obliquely into the 
skin of the leaf, depositing in each incision thus 
made a single egg. From this in ten days 
emerges a caterpillar, which feeds upon the 
leaves, and finally enter the earth, change into 
ilie^i, and re-appear in August to renew the pro- 
cess. Syringing the bushes with a decoction of 
tobacco, not too strong, has been recommended; 
but the best remedy for this pest, and the rose 
slug, is a mixture of whale-oil soap and water, 



in the proportion of two pounds of soap to fif- 
teen gallons of water, and drenching the bushes 
with it with a garden syringe, or small bush 
broom, at intervals of six or eight hours apart, 
and repeat it for several days. The frequent 
use, in moderate quaTitities, of chamber lye, 
poured upon the roots of the rose, which the 
bush and leaves seem to absorb, prove so dis- 
tasteful to worms and slugs, they soon disap- 
pear. The thrip, a small insect, and bark lice, 
often infest rose bushes, and require frequent 
drenching with the above decoctions; sulphur 
dusted on several times a day, in the early part 
of the season, while the thrip are small, is a 
good remedy — it not only kills the young thrip, 
but prevents mildew. 

Strawberry Enemies. — Strawberry plants, vig- 
orous and liealthy, are seldom attacked by in- 
sects. The red spider, green fly, or aphis, 
are sometimes troublesome to plants in pots; 
but flour of sulphur scattered freely among 
the plants will destroy the spider, while to- 
bacco smoke, or syringing with tobacco liquor, 
will eradicate the aphis. Dusting with fresh 
slaked lime the entire surface of the soil, will 
generally destroy slugs, snails, and wire worms; 
ants should be treated with a dose of hot water 
or guano; and the grub or cut worm, eating 
off the roots close to the crown, should be dug 
up beneath the ruined plant and killed. 

The strawberry beetle may be largely de- 
stroyed in this way : Make numerous piles of 
dry brush and other ignitable material, and 
then watching the season when they begin to 
rise, and in the early part of the evening, fire 
several of the brush heaps, and the beetles and 
all other insects that chance to be on the wing, 
being dazzled and bewildered by the light, fly 
into the fire and are consumed. The next eve- 
ning, fire other heaps, and so on. The top of a 
small tree should be stuck in the ground in 
the middle of the pile, against the branches of 
which the beetles will strike and fall directly 
into the fire. If farmers and cultivators could 
be persuaded to practice some such course an- 
nually, it would be found to be very effectual 
in diminishing the numbers of those depre- 
dating insects, and largely increasing all kinds 
of crops. 



ENEMIES OF GARDEN AND 

FIELD CROPS. 
Nothing is more destructive to insects than a 
proper rotation of crops. The eggs of many 



318 



FOES OF THE FARM : 



insects are deposited in the straw or in the 
ground, which has furnished the parent with 
fond and lodging during the Summer, so that 
whin hatched by the warmth of the season, the 
yiiiinc; find tlicir appropriate food close at hand. 

Tlius, the longer a piece of ground is culti- 
vali'il with anv particular crop, so much the 
niiiru destructive will be the insects which prey 
U|"Mi it; for, all the conditions being favorable, 
llic y multiply in compound proportion the 
longer the system continues. Especially is 
this the case upon those fields where a regular 
rotMticm is not considered necessary to success. 
This fact would seem to suggest, that a change 
of the crop would prove very advantageous in 
all cases. Thus, when a piece of land that has 
been allotted to onions for several successive 
years, becomes uncertain by reason of the dep- 
redation of the maggot, the readiest way to 
clean it would seem to be to cultivate some 
other crop — one not at all adapted to the taste 
of the insects which occupy the ground. 

In a recent communication by Mr. Oliver, 
a member of the Institute of France, to the 
Royal and Central Agricultural Society of 
Paris, a description was given of all the insects 
which live upon the crown or collar of the roots 
of the grain-bearing grasses, such as wheat, rye, 
barley, and oats, in which it was shown that 
" they multiply themselves without end when 
the same soil presents the same crop for several 
years in succession, or even a crop of an analo- 
gous species. But when a ciop intervenes upon 
which these insects can not live, as beans, beets, 
turnips, after wheat and oats, then the whole 
race of insects jierish from the field for want 
of proper nourishment," and the next year llie 
farmer can return his land to the accustomed 
tillage without apprehension that the insects 
will rob him of the proceeds of his toil. 

The use of coal oil as a protection from gar- 
den insects, is recommended by the Gardener's 
Monthly. Put a table-spoonful of coal oil into a 
Common garden water pot of water, sprinkle it 
over the beds where the beetle is noticed, and it 
will quickly destroy the whole brood. Coal oil 
serves a double purpose, dealing out death to 
insects and acting as a manure to vegetation. 

Antis. — Various methods are resorted to for 
the destruction of these little pests in gardens 
and arouTid fruit trees and shrubbery. Those 
\\ lioni they annoy have recourse to copious and 
repealed inundation of their burrows with 
boiling soap-suds; or to digging up their hills 
in the midst of Winter, and destroying the 
colony by the exposure; or to shaking a large 



sponge full of white .sugar, and placing it 
where they will creep into it, and when they 
are caught in the trap dousing them into scald- 
ing water. Each of the.^e plans has been used 
with success. A daubing of tar at the base of 
fruit trees will generally keep the ants at a 
distance. 

M. Garnir has announced "an infallible 
method " for getting rid of ants. In a corner 
of his garden, infested with legions of these 
insects, he placed four .saucers containing sugar 
and water, with the tenth of its weight of ar- 
senic in the mixture. A number of ants imme- 
diately invaded the saucers, but were soon after 
perceived staggering away, as it fcere, and 
some being even engaged in dragging their 
dead connades away. From that moment they 
disappeared from the garden, and on the fol- 
lowing day not a single one was to be seen. 

Army Worm. — This pest of the farmer has 
frequently made its appearance in our country. 
Dr. Fitch states that in 1770 it overran por- 
tions of New Hampshire atid Massachusetts, 
first appearing in July, at first not longer than 
a pin, reaching at maturity the size of a man's 
finger. They marched up the sides of houses, 
and over them, completely covering entire 
buildings ; utterly destioying all fields of wheat 
and corn, as if by magic, while flax, peas, po- 
tatoes, and pumpkins escaped their ravages. 
Trenches dug a foot deep around fields of grain 
for their protection, were soon filled, and the 
millions in the rear passed over and took pos- 
session of the interdicted field. About the 
first of September they suddenly disappeared. 
When the army worm invaded portions of Il- 
linois, in 1861, by prompt ditching they were 
kept out of the corn, but they swept the mead- 
ows and pastures clean, except clover. 

A.fparajus Beetle. — This insect has but re- 
cently iidgrated from Europe to Long Island — 
is of a deep green, blue color, ornamented with 
yellow spots. Picking them off the plants with 
their young, by hand, and destroying them, is 
the only known remedy. 

Barley Fly. — Theblack-legged or Massachu- 
setts barley fly, and the yellow-legged or New 
York barley fly, have, at different periods, in- 
fested the barley crops of those States, dimin- 
ishing the crop in the latter State from forty to 
about twenty bushels per acre. 

Cabbage. — This plant like the broccoli and 
cauliflower, has many enemies. The cabbage 
fly begins, its work of destruction while the 
plants are yet quite small ; powdered tobacco 
sifted upon the plants, and several times re- 



ENEMIKS OF GARDEN AND FIELD CROPS. 



319 



peated, will prove an efTecliial remedy. The 
thoii-mnd-lcg^ed u'orrn is an ciieniv to cabbage, 
and Dtber garden vegetables; and when not on 
its travels, may be found under chips or in 
crevioe.s, and sbould be hunted and destroyed. 
A crop of young cliicken.s prove a fine extermi- 
nator of these worms, as well as of many pesti- 
lent insects. Toads are the best protection 
against lice. Pennyroyal or green hemp tops 
8Cattered on cabbages, prove very distasteful 
to bugs. 

Cut TT'oi-m. — In the garden the cut worm 
destroys cabbage and other young plants, and 
should be seajcbed for, during tlie latter part 
of Jlay and ^ntil the middle of June, when- 
ever it has committed a depredation, for it will 
be found secreted in the ground near the spot. 
Pour hot water over a pound of aloes, in a pan, 
and stir it until the water can dissolve no more; 
then [iciur it into an empty whisky barrel, and 
fill it with cold water. Pour this solution on 
and around each cabbage plant, and a single 
ap)>licalion generally suffices to ward off the 
cut worm; if the solution should be made 
somewhat weaker, and applied once a week, 
until the cabbage attained too great a hardness 
for them to cut, it would prove still more ef- 
fectual. 

It is said that a liandful of oil meal in each 
liill of corn will furnish food for the worm, 
until the plants are grown too tough for its at- 
tacks. Flour of sulphur .scattered on each hill, 
with an occasional application of whale-oil 
soap-suds, lime, and wood ashes, will protect 
the corn from the cut worm. A more certain 
remedy is, after the corn is up, to sprinkle a 
handful of salt around each bill; or mi.\ a 
bushel of finely-ground salt with four bushels 
of piaster, and apply it with the hand around 
and over each hill, just as the corn is shooting 
above the ground — tlie plaster serves to diflTuse 
the salt more completely, and attracts and re- 
tains the moisture so as to pre.serve the salt 
longer than any other substance. This mixture 
would be excellent in tlie garden. Thrust 
down a round sharp stick two or three inches 
deep, say three-fourths of an inch in diameter, 
on each hill; and repeat it five or six times to 
a hill ; these holes will serve as traps into 
wliich the cut wcu'ms will fall during their 
peregrinations, and can be easily killed. When 
a lew old shingles, or something of the sort 
are scattered around, the cut worms will 
hide beneath them, and can thus be easily cap- 
tured. 

Dr. Fitch says of the large black beetle, with 



'. most brilliant golden dots placed in rows on 
his back : "The eggs produce the corn-grub 
killer. It is a most inveterate foe of the cut 
worm, grasping the worm in its strong jaws, 
and, in spite of its violent writhing and strug- 
gling, securely holding it. When it finds these 
worms in plenty, it gorges and surfeits itself 
upon (hem till it is ,so glutted and distended as 
to be scarcely able to stir, for it never knows 
how to let a cut worm alone when it meets him. 
It is continually hiuiting these worms, feeding 
on nothing else if it can obtain them. Both it 
and the golden dotted beetle, which produces 
it, therefore, should never be harmed." 

Cotton Caterpillar, or Cotton Armtj Worm. — ■ 
This is the great pest in cotton cultivation. It 
is not necessary to describe its habits and trans- 
formations. Fires built at twilight in and near 
the cotton fields, would burn up a gicat many 
moths; large shallow plates or dishes, filled 
with molasses and vinegar, or some strong aro- 
matic substance, h;ive been used in dry weather 
on a small .scale, with success, especially when 
the moth makes its first appearance; attracted 
by the sweet scent, they crowd into the plate, 
and are drowned. A preparation of arsenic 
mixed with .syrup and rum, in dishes, or be- 
smeared on boards, would, doubtless, serve a 
good purpose in their destruction. Heavy 
frosts sweep the caterpillars out of existence. 

Fungi. — Botanically considered, fungi belong 
tothecryptogamous or flowerlcss series — which, 
according to Gkay, are divided into the follow- 
ing cla.sses : 1. Acrogenous plants, including 
the rush, ferns, etc. 2. Anophytcs, including 
mosses, etc. 3. Thallophytes, including the 
lichens, fungi, sea-weeds, mushrooms, molds, 
etc. To the fungi belong the whole family of 
rusts, smut, and bunt, which creep through the 
the tissues of living plants, and finally burst 
forth on the exterior, and fructify in dense, 
du.sty miusses, which cover their whole surface. 

The conditions, .says W. C. Flagg, favorable 
to fungoid growths are those also favorable to 
electrical developments, and to a certain extent 
those conditions may be regarded as one — the 
electrical. Electricity, according to Dr. Car- 
pester, in his Vegetab'e Physiology, "has ev- 
idently a striking influence on the rapidity of 
their growth — some plants having been known 
to increase in the most extraordinary manner 
during thundery weather." The electrical con- 
dition may, perhaps, therefore be reduced to 
that of overgrowth and consequent feebleness 
in the plant, rendering it, as when otherwise 
weakened, liable to fungoid attacks. 



320 



FOES OF THE FARM: 



Tliere remain, tlien, two facts to be held in 
view : 

1. Feeble vegetable growth, whether caused 
by excessive or insufficient development. 

2. Fungi, also vegetable, ready to seize upon 
Buoh enfeebled growth, especially in moist, 
warm and electric weather. 

The first point in practice, then, is to secure 
a healthy vegetable growth. We must, 

1. Cultivate enough, especially old plants. 

2. Not cultivate too much, especially young 
plants. 

3. Avoid wet roots — drain. 

4. .\void e.'ccess of dryness — mulch. 

5. Avoid a dead atmosphere — plant on breezy 
sites, at good distances, with a good circulation 
of air under the plants. 

6. .\v()id e,xcessive extremes of heat and 
cold — protect orchards. 

7. Avoid shocking the vitality of the plant 
by cutting, etc. — be careful how you prune. 

Failing in these points, or any of them, we 
may succeed by the application of sulphur and 
its compounds in such manner as to destroy the 
seeds or vegetation of fungi. 

Grain Aphis. — A species of plant louse, for 
which no remedy has yet been discovered. 
Fortunately it is but a transitory evil, and na- 
ture has provided a number of other insect.« 
which are its inveterate foes, which slay and 
feed upon tliem. 

Grctsshoppet: — The Northwestern locust, or 
hateful grasshopper of Dr. Walsh, who says 
of it, that it is about seven times as destructive 
to garden crops as it is to those of the field. It 
started from the Rocky mountains, and passed 
into the lowlands of T'exas, Kansas, Nebraska, 
western Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. Dr. 
Walsh thinks it can be demonstrated that it 
can not pass the Mississippi for centuries, if 
ever. In Texas, successful experiments have 
been tried, of the planters plowing their fields, as 
soon as the grasshopper has laid its eggs, bury- 
ing and crushing them under layers of earth. 

Hop Aphis, or Louse. — Whole crops are 
sometimes destroyed by this mortal enemy of 
the hop plant. Syringing or showering the 
vines with strong soap-suds or with a solution 
of oil soap in the proportion of two pounds of 
the soap to about fifteen gallons of water, is a 
very common remedy. But a simple decoction 
of tobacco, strong enough to kill ticks on sheep, 
or the blue louse on colts or calves, is probably 
more effective. Others use a mixture of strong 
soap-suds, made with soft soap and tobacco 



water, with one pound of copperas to every 
five gallons of the liquor, applied with a 
syringe or force pump, to the under side of the 
leaves where the louse always first appears. 
Others have sown in their hop yards patches 
of buckwheat, which being odoriferous attracts 
the insect, and probably affords more nutri- 
ment than the hop vine, thus relieving the hop 
of its presence. The mold or blight is some- 
times fatal to the hop, spreading fastest in 
warm, damp weather. It commences near the 
ground, and therefore great attention should be 
paid to the frequent pulling off of the suckers 
as they appear tlirough the hill during the 
Summer months. Every spotted leaf should 
be destroyed. The site of the hop plantation 
should be such as will secure a free access of 
air and sunlight, for dryness is a check to this 
disease. 

Oats. — This crop sometimes rusts^ occasioned 
perhaps by excess of heat and moisture, as on 
wheat. .\ minute worm has been delected on 
rusty oats by microscopic examinations — wheth- 
er the cause or the result of the disease is un- 
certain. Some oat crops, badly rusttd in Illi- 
nois, have been reported as producing death 
when the straw was fed to horses. It would be 
prudent not to use the seed of a rusty crop for 
the next year's growing, nor to use the same 
ground the next season for a small grain crop. 

Onion Fly. — The eggs of the female fly, de- 
posited on the base of the stem near the ground, 
hatch out in a few days, when the larviE or 
maggots immediately penetrate between the 
leaves to the bulb, upon which they prey un- 
seen, and in four or five weeks emerge a perfect 
fly. It is about half the size of the common 
fly, of an ash-gray color, with a few thinly 
.scattered hairs covering the surface of its body. 
They appear to show more predilection for the 
white onion than for any other. Soaking the 
seed in a solution of copperas, and two or three 
times during the season sprinkle the growing 
onions with it, is a remedy for the onion fly. 
Sprinkling an equal quantity of tar and hot 
water, after being well mixed and standing a 
few hours, upon the onions, rids them of the 
fly or worm ; while another practices with suc- 
cess the pouring a full stream of boiling-hot 
water from a large tea-kettle spout directly 
on each row, repeating the application sev- 
eral times. Burning over the ground upon 
which the bed is to be made, a covering of ten 
or twelve inches of straw, has proved success- 
ful. Beds made on ground where charcoal pits 



ENEMIES OF GARDEN AND FIELD CROPS. 



321 



have been burned, are entirely exempt from I early raulcli'mg will prevent the full grown 
tlie fly; hence strewing powdered charcoal larvie from getting into the ground, where 
over the beds has been warmly recommended, they go to complete their metamorphosis, and 

Parsnip and Parslei/ Worm. — A large, thick-, get ready to pair and lay, and thus tend to 
bodied, green worm, witli black bands, each of drive them from the field. Burning the potato 
which bands has si.\ yellow spots, infests the' vines immediately after digging serves to lessen 
parsnip, parsley, and caraway, eating tiie leaves, ^ their numbers. Siirinkling white hellebore, at 
and finally transforming into a butterfly, should the rale of a pound to a hundred hills, has not 
be picked ofl' the leaves and killed. been found so useful as in the case of woruis 

Pea Beetle or Bug. — Peas sown as late as the and lice; soot, slaked lime, and a mi.xture of 



niiditle of June are seldom infested with the 
weevil or bug, because its period for depositing 
eggs is then past. It is a good practice to sow 
peas for the next year's seed very late in the 
season. A second crop of peas from the seed 
of the first crop will be entirely exempt from 
the weevil. Putting peas in a light vessel, and 
mixing two ounces of pulverized camphor, or 
a tiible-spoonful of sulphuric etlier, to each 
bushel of peas, will efi'ectually kill all the bugs 
in them in a few days. 

Potato Beetle or Bag. — The three-lined polAito 
beetle, with three stripes lengtliwise of its yellow 
body, having considerable resembhtnce to the 
cucumber beetle, has always been common upon 
the polato vines, feeding upon the leaves, both 
in its larva and matured state. While the cu- 
cumber beetle has a black head, this polato 
beetle has a yellow one. 

The ten-lined potato beetle, or Colorado bug, 
was known upward of forty years ago upon the 
upper Missouri and Arkansas rivers, several 
hmidred miles west of the Mississippi ; but it 
was no: till 1861, th.at it suddenly commenced its 
attack upon the potato in Kansas and western 
Iowa, and has since been steadily advancing 
eastward. This beetle is of a regular oval 
form, very convex above .and flat beneath, of a 
hard, crustaceous texture, smooth and shining, 
of a bright straw-yellow color, with ten black 
stripes upon the back of its closed wing covers. 
It is a slow-flying insect, and prop.agates freely 
and rapidly, and is proving the worst enemy 
the potato ever encountered. Dr. Walsu es- 
timated the damage done by this insect, in a 
single year in the Northwest alone, at one and 
three-quarter millions of dollars. 

There is no certain relief from its ravages. 
Rotation in cropping the potato avoids encoun- 
tering that portion that burrow in the ground 
where tiie previous crop was produced, and 
new land is especially desirable. In some 



six quarts of ashes and one pound of sulphur, 
have been severally used with considerable suc- 
ce.ss; and so has a mixture compo.=ied of one 
pound of Paris green, half a pound of sulphur, 
and three-fourths of a pound of ashes — or omit 
the sulphur and increase the quantity of ashes, 
wliich cliiefly serve to dilute the Paris green, a 
de.ully poisju, quite as likely, if too strong, to 
kill the leaves of the plants as the beetles. 
Several solutions have been recommended to 
apply with a sprinkler to each hill, morning 
and evening: One, a pint of ."alt dissolved in a 
pail of water; another, a gallon of kerosene or 
coal oil to a barrel of water— -some advise one- 
third oil to two-thirds waler — well mixed, and 
kept stirred while using to prevent the oil from 
rising on the surface; a strong decoction of 
niayweed, and probably a dilution of creo.sote. 
Many gather Ihem in spittoon-shaped or funnel- 
like dishes, the bugs passing into .^ basin or 
bag below, from which they can not emerge 
until taken out to be destroyed. 

In treating of the field crop of potatoes, ref- 
jrenee is made to deep planting and sprinkling 
air-slaked lime in the hill, and among the po- 
tatoes in the bin, as preventives of potato rot. 

Blistering Beetles, or Cantharides, with their 
ashen-gray bodies, thickly covered with a very 
short down of that color, make their appear- 
ance on the potato vine about the 20th of June, 
and in August go into the ground and lay their 
eggs. They require similar treatment to the 
potato bug. 

-BurfisA Fly.— The larva of the radish fly is a 
maggot, which gnaws irregular spots on the 
outer surface of tlie radish leaf, and bores long 
and winding worm tracks in the interior of the 
root. Copperas water, or similar applications 
for ridding vegetables of worms and lice, should 
be used. 

The rye fly diflers from the joint-worm fly 
in having the hind shanks, as well as the for- 



localities millions of the beetles have been de- ward ones, a dull pale yellow, the middle pair 

coyed into fires, built at twilight and early only being black. It ha.s, in former years, 

evening in and around the potato fields, and done much injury to rye and wheat in the Sus- 

thus destroyed. It has been suggested that an quehanna Vallev, Pennsvlvania. Sowiii'' ryt 
21 



322 



FOES OP THE farm: 



where tlie ground has been cultivated by a lioed 
crop the preceding year is a preventive ol' 
the fly. 

Tobacco Enemies. — Cut worms are to be looked 
after and destroyed innnediatcl}' after setting, 
and as long as they worI<. When the plants 
get a foot liigli, often before, the green worm 
commences; at first, small, round holes are 
seen in the leaves; on the under side will be 
found a small, light, green worm, about half 
an inch long, and no larger than a small needle. 
A moth lays the eggs, fastening tlieni to the 
under .side of the leaf near where the worm 
does his first mischief. The eggs area little 
lighter green than the leaf, and about the size 
of a small pin's head — destroy all found, and 
keep the plants free of worms by going through 
frequeiUly and collecting them; feed them to 
the poultry, or kill them. Grasshoppers and 
crickets also eat the leaves, making the tobacco 
look ragged when near grown. Any usual 
remedies would injure the quality of the to- 
bacco; hence hand-picking of the worm is the 
chief mode of their destruction. Birds, how- 
ever, destroy large numbers of them, and a 
yellow wasp, or hornet, destroys not a few 
while young or partly grown. Numbers of the 
large, clumsy, griiy-looking fly, producing the 
tobacco, or tomato worm, may be easily de- 
stroyed by a person walking over the ground in 
the evening or night with a torch, and a light 
paddle wilh which to kill them, as they are at- 
tracted to the light. 

Turnip Fly. — The Engli.sh faimers steep the 
seeds in oil, and afterward dust them with sul- 
phur, preparatory to sowing them, and this 
mode is conducive of considerable good ; but fine 
air-slaked lime is better, or a mixture of air- 
slaked lime and soot, or ashes, carefully sifted 
through a fine sieve on the plants as soon as the 
fly makes its appearance, and while the dew is 
yet on them. 

Vine Insects. — The striped bug, so destructive 
of cucumber, melon and squash vines, is driven 
from his field of operations by a strong decoc- 
tion of elderberry sprinkled over the plants; 
lime freely scattered upon the ground gives off 
a gas extremely noxious to most insects; coal 
tar on corncobs placed near the vines; plaster 
or gypsum, pulverized charcoal, common road 
Just, soot, tobacco dust or snuff; kerosene oil 
on a feather passed lightly over and under the 
plants; a mixture of tobacco and red pepper 
sprinkled over the vines; are all more or less 
successful. Cornmeal sprinkled over vines at- 
tracts ants; and, thinking the bags are after 



the same food, they give them battle, kill and 
drive them off. Coops of chickens, and espe- 
cially young ducks, prove very efiicient insect 
destroyers. Benzine is very efficacious, as it 
suffocates nearly all the garden pests. A 
spoiled clam, or fresh fish, or a lock of wool 
soaked in fresh oil or guano, placed near 
the root of a vine, will drive off bugs. A 
decoction of camomile leaves, or the pulverized 
leaves and blossoms of a species of the fever- 
dew, closely allied to the camomile, have also 
proved successful ; and it would be advisable 
to have some plants of these herbs jilantcd in 
various parts of the garden. Others plant a 
few beans in the center of the hill, and when 
the vines are out of reach of the bugs, remove 
the beans. 

For plant lice, use a strong decocliim of to- 
bacco; or four ounces of quassia chips boiled 
in a gallon of soft water ten minutes, with four 
ounces of soft soap dissolved in it while cool- 
ing, and sprinkled upon the vines, on the up- 
per and under sides of the leaves. 

Some persons take two small twigs of ozier, 
or other slender wood, some two feet long, 
thrust into the ground and bent over the hills, 
crossing each other at right angles; and then 
place a newspaper over these curved sticks, 
completely enveloping the plants, and kept in 
place by small stones, or a covering of earth 
on the edge of the paper. The plants are 
thus protected from the bugs, and grow very 
rapidly; and, as they outgrow their prison- 
house, an aperture can be torn in the upper 
part of the paper, leaving tlic sides still to af- 
ford them some protection. Or, a box without 
a bottom, placed over the hill, with or without 
a glass top, or covered with milenetor musketo 
bar, is often used with good success. 

The borers in cucumber, squash, and melon 
vines often destroy entire patches. The squash 
borer, a sixteen-legged caterpillar, nearly an 
inch long when grown, eats into the vines, usu- 
ally pretty close to the crown of the plant, in 
August. This is produced from a moth, which 
lays its eggs on the stem of the vine, pretty 
near the crown ; hence it is advised, to prevent 
the laying of the eggs, to cover the vines 
lightly with earth up to the first flower, which 
debars the moth from laying her eggs on her 
favorite spot ; but, when the vine is seen droop- 
ing, dig out the caterpillar in the stem near 
the root. 

Wheat Enemies^ — The angumols moth was 
long since introduced from Europe into the 
Southern States, where it has spread, and is one 



ENEMIES OP THE GARDEN AND FIELD CROPS. 



323 



of the most Jestniclive insects in wlieat, bai-ley, 
oats, and corn. It is only upon tlie ripe grain 
tluit it preys, attackin;; it in the field before 
liurvest, and subsequently in granaries, mills, 
and storehouses. Subjecting the grain to the 
heat of an oven or very hot room, will dest 
the niotli — it will bear heat for a short time to 
about 190° Fahrenheit, without losing its genn- 
iiKiting powers, and brisk friction and agitation 
of the grain will also kill these insecls. 

The chinch buy is a small insect, about a third 
of an inch long, with a dark brown or black 
body and white wings, of the bed-bug order and 
odor, often proving very destructive to wheat 
crops of the South and West — more especially 
to S|)ring wheat. It likewise attacks corn. 
Unlike the midge, it is most abundant in dry 
seasons, and is repelled or destroyed by wet 
weather. At its ditTerent stages, it is known as 
the young fly, hard shell, black coat, and red 
coat. The chinch bugs seek burrows among 
the clods and loose earth, beneath which they 
make nests and propagate. Faithful harrow- 
ing will destroy them by countless thousands, 
while the weight of a heavy roller, following 
the grain drill when sowing, will crush, pul- 
verize, and pack the earth so firmly upon the 
grain sown .as to prevent the chinch bug from 
burrowing and depositing her eggs near the 
grain. A second rolling, if by wetting and 
drying, cracks or fissures slioulil occur to har- 
bor a new crop of bugs, even if the grain should 
be four or five inches high, will smash or en- 
tomb them. If the roller is too light, make a 
crib on top, and lead it with stone. Sowing 
salt at the rate of half a bushel to the acre has 
been found an effectual remedy, while adjoin- 
ing fields of grain, where no salt was sown, 
were literally overrun and destroyed. The 
free use of unslaked lime to destroy the eggs in 
the ground, and plowed in after a rain, and 
then left for Spring plowing, with some other 
than a grain crop, will serve greatly toward 
the extirpation of the chinch bug. Others 
have set up boards edgewise, inserted slightly 
in the ground to keep them in position, keep- 
ing the upper edge of the board con.stantly 
moist with coal tar, renewed every day ; out- 
side this fence a row of deep holes were dug 
about ten feet apart. The bugs were repelled 
by the boards with their tar coating, and wan- 
dering around, fall into the pits, from which 
immense quantities are frequently taken and 
destroyed. Intensely severe Winters, and other 
natural causes, have apparently rid our country 
of this pestilent scourge. 



The grain weevil is a small, oblong black 
beetle, though of a chestnut-red tint when first 
hatched, which deposits its eggs in the grain, 
where it hatches, and the larva eats out the in- 
terior, leaving only the bran or shell. Kiln 
drying the grain is recommended as the best 
mode for arresting the evil. Half a pound of 
salt mixed with a bushel of grain, will, it is 
said, not only prevent the weevil, but ni.ake 
better flour. 

The Ile-'istan fly is a small insect closely re- 
sembling the musketo in appearance, but a 
third smaller, and has no hill for blood sucking. 
Instead of attacking the kernels of grain, like 
so many of the wheat enemies, it attacks the 
root and lower part of the stalk, thus destroy- 
ing not the seed merely, but the whole plant. 
It was introduced into our country by the Hes- 
sian soldiers who landed on Staten and Long 
Island, in August, 1776. • It is probable that 
nine-tenths of every generation of this fly is 
destroyed by parasites. To elude its attack, a 
fertile soil and late Fall sowing are the most 
successful expedients. It does not make its 
appearance in regions where Spring wheat is 
exclusively cultivated. 

The joint worm has proved more destructive 
to wheat in some of the Southern States than 
any other insect. It much resembles the Hes- 
sian fly in its mode of attack, but differs by 
occupying the substance of the sheath, straw, or 
joint, producing hardened vegetable tumors — 
instead of merely resting, like the He.ssian (ly, 
between the sheaih and straw. As it remains 
in the straw through .\utumn and Winter, it 
may be dest toyed, and its ravages lessened, by 
burning the straw. 

Smut and Must. — These fungus diseases htive 
been fully treated in connection with the cul- 
ture of wheat. A solution of blue vitriol has 
been found very efficient in destroying smut; 
but in ordinary cases, wash seed-wheat first iu 
clean water, and then in brine, then spread 
it on the barn floor, and dust it with dry pow- 
dered water-slaked lime, stirring the whole 
well together. 

The wheal midge is a very small fly, about a 
third of the size of the musketo, which it resem- 
bles in appearance, and is of a bright lemon 
color, with clear glassy wings. Its eggs produce 
small bright orange-yellow worms or larva', 
which when fully grown, in three or four weeks, 
are scarcely the tenth of an inch long. Tlie.se 
minute insects have, by their ravages, caused a 
loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to oui 
country. They come out of the ground about 



324 



FOES OF THE FAKM : 



the middle of June, and can not endure a dry 
atmosphere, and hence are most active during 
the night and moist periods, laying their eggs 
between the cliaffs of the wheat ears, and the 
young abstract tlie milky juice from the kernels, 
whereby the latter become shrunken and dwarf- 
ish. Late sowing of wheat will delay its head- 
ing until the season for the midge to deposit 
its eggs has nearly or quite passed by. Care- 
fully burning the screenings of the fanning 
mill when they abound with the yellow larvae 
of the midge, and turning under the wheat 
stubble immediately after harvest, burying 
audi of the larvre as may remain in the field, 
will greatly tend to diminish their numbers. 
Notwithstanding it has a parasite, which causes 
many of the midge to perish, yet it continues 
to be numerous and destructive. TI\e Medi- 
terranean, Diehl, and some few other varieties, 
have largely escaped the midge. 

Wheat thrips are an exceedingly minute, ac- 
tive, long and narrow six-legged insect of a 
bright yellow or a shining black color, that ap- 
pear upon wheat heads in June and July, ex- 
hausting the juices of the kernels, and render- 
ing them dwarfish and shrivelled. The wheat- 
midge worms, small as they are, appear like 
giants when placed beside those of thrips. It 
is late sown wheat that suffers most from this 



insect ; and early sowing is the only remedy 
thus far recommended by the wheat growers 
of the country. 

Vermin Antidote. — Bats and other vermin are 
kept away from grain by a sprinkling of gar- 
lic when packing the sheaves. 

Wire Worms. — This is a slender, worm-like, 
yellow or buff grub, similar in smoothness and 
hardness to a piece of wire. Horace Gree- 
ley has destroyed the wire worm on corn liy a 
moderate application of salt. Five or six bush- 
els of salt per acre is death to the smaller ver- 
min, when followed by rain — for merely dry 
salt is ineffectual. Some sow oil cake with 
corn, and others apply plaster and lime, for the 
destruction of the wire worm. The starving 
remedy has proved successful — letting the land 
go fallow one year, plowing it tliree or four 
timesduring the season, so that no green thing is 
permitted to grow ; the worm does not like 
this kind of diet, and is literally starved out. 
Another experimenter says, that three crops of 
buckwheat, potatoes, beans, or peas will entirely 
starve out the wire worm. Still another recom- 
mends one pound each of aloes and sulphate 
of iron, dissolved in water heated to 90° or 95°, 
and poured over one bushel of grain, and in a 
similar proportion for a greater or lesser quan- 
tity before planting or sowing. 



WOOD FOR THE FARM 



Its Culture for Timber, Fuel, and Protective Tree-Belts. 



Destruction of Forests. — "The 
most notable and serious modifications effected 
by man's agency, " says Hon. George P. 
Marsh, in his able woik on Man and Nature, 
"are those caused by the destruction of forests. 
The cutting away of wood not only changes the 
appearance of the landscape, and the character 
of the spot laid under the ax; but when 
practiced to a large extent, its effects extend to 
great distances — perhaps over the whole conti- 
nent, and almost revolutionize climates, soils, 
and surfaces. The forest retards evaporation, 
and offers an effectual barrier to the wind. Its 
porous soils, and still more porous accunnila- 
lion of vegetable debris, absorb and retain the 
moisture, and its tangled masses of sticks and 
roots restrain the fury of torrents, and prevent 
the devastation they might otherwi.se occasion. 
From these circumstances, it is free from the 
extremes of Summer and Winter temperature, 
it acts as a constant condenser of moisture in 
the atmosphere, and promotes frequent and co- 
pious showers. When the forests are taken 
away, these conservative elements go with 
them. The order and character of the seasons 
are disturbed ; they become more uncertain, 
liie lines that divide them less distinct. Noah 
Webster observed this fact in America, even 
liel'ore the commencement of the present cen- 
tury. Said he in 1799: 'When the forest is 
gone the reservoir of moisture stored up in its 
vegetable mold is evaporated, and returns only 
in deluges of rain to wash away the parched 
dust into which that mold has been converted. 
The well-wooded and humid hills are turned to 
ridges of dry rock, which encumbers the low 
grounds and chokes the watercourses with its 
(lehris — and except in countries favored with 
an equable distribution of rain through the 
seasons, and a moderate and regular inclina- 
tion of surface — the whole earth, unless res- 
cued by human art from the physical degrada- 
tion to wliich it tends, becomes an assemblage 



of bald mountains, of barren, tuftless hills, and 
of swampy and malarious plains. There are 
parts of Asia Minor, of Northern Africa, of 
Greece, and even of Alpine Europe, where the 
<iperation of causes set in action by man has 
brought the face of the earth to a desolation 
almost as complete as that of the moon ; and 
though within the brief space of time which 
we call 'the historical period,' they are known 
to have been covered with luxuriant woods, 
verdant pastures, and fertile meadows, they are 
now too far deteriorated to be reclaimable by 
man ; nor can they become again fitted for hu- 
man use, except through great geological 
changes, or other mysterious influence.s or 
agencies, of which we have no present knowl- 
edge, and over which we have no present pro- 
spective control '" 

As Affecting Civilization. — It may be added 
that the entire removal of forests affects the 
character of society as much as it modifies veg- 
etation. It is obvious that a land destitute of 
forests, like a land entirely covered with 
forests, is natnially best suited to the condi- 
tion of barbarous peoples; and the history of 
nations show that such countries actually are 
inhabited by savages. The maintenance of a 
due proportion between the cultivated soil and 
the woodland is essential, to enable man to 
enjoy a high degree of cultivation. As exten- 
sive forests are removed, and the area is 
brought under culture, civilization advances 
until a certain bieadlli of plowing and pa.s- 
turage is readied; but if the removal of trees 
be carried beyond the proper proportion, 
society feels the effect of the fraud, and ex- 
hibits an unmistak;>.ble tendency to revert to 
barbarism. 

European Experien':e. — Nearly three hniulred 
years ago, the far-.seeiug Bernard Pallissv, 
who died in the bastile for his religion, pro- 
tested eMrneslly against the wholesale destruc- 
tion of the woods of I'l-auee, saving: "I can 
(325) 



326 



AVOOD FOll THE FARM : 



not enough detest this thing, and I call it not 
an error, but a curse and a calamity to all France." 
But the destructive changes occasioned by the 
agency of man upon the flanks of the Alps, the 
Appenines, the Pyrenees, and other mountain 
ranges in central and southern Europe, and 
the progress of physical deterioration, have be- 
conte so rapid, that, in some localities, a single 
generation has witnessed the beginning and 
the end of the melancholy revolution. M. 
Beequerel has proved by experiments that 
rains have been considerably more abundant in 
the woodeil than in the unwoodod regions of 
France. 

During the wars of the First Naboleon, such 
^•as the extraordinary de.niand for Italian iron, 
that the furnaces of the villages of Bergamo 
were stimulated to such great activity that the 
ordinary supply of charcoal was insuflicient to 
feed the furnaces and forges, hence the woods 
were felled, the copses cut before their time, and 
the whole economy of the forests was deranged. 
At Piazzatore, there was such a devastation of 
the woods, and consequently such an increased 
severity of the climate, that maize no longer 
ripened; and when an association formed for 
the purpose, efTected the re.storation of the 
forests, the maize flourished again as before. 

According to a recent report, it appears that 
in Switzerland the forests have been destroyed 
at snch a rate that they do not now yield jjn 
adequate supply for the present inhabitants, 
while their absence has greatly increased in vi- 
olence the occasional inundations. Tlie higher 
mountain regions have heretofore been consid- 
ered the store houses of wood for the most pop- 
ulous parts of level Switzerland, and for for- 
eign countries ; but the depredations have been 
so exten.sive that many of tlie inhabitants are 
now sufiering for the want of wood, and some 
of them are compelled to convey their fuel 
from six to twelve miles up the mountains. If 
the future forests, says this report, .should not 
be better managed, and their too extensive re- 
moval stopped, they would soon be entirely 
ruined in some parts of these mountain re- 
gions, and then there would prevail such a 
state of things as already exists in Asia Minor, 
Greece, a large portion of Italy, Spain, south- 
ern France, etc , where forests aboimded in for- 
mer times. The decrease of fertility on the 
Alps, and especially on the upper boundary, 
the disappearance of the forests in the higher 
regions, the unfavorable changes of the weather 
during the time of vegetation, the frequent and 
extensive devastations bv floods, avalanches, 



and precipitation of rocks, and large land- 
slides on the sides of the mountains, filling up 
the valleys, are chiefly occasioned by the ex- 
tensive clearing of the fore.sts, and the careless 
management, or rather, the mismanagement of 
those entrusted with its performance; and those 
persons nmst row ascribe the largest share of 
the misery which has and will befall them, to 
their selfishness, and their disregard of (lie 
laws of nature. 

Its Influence in other Lands. — The able report 
of Judge Knapp and associates on the Forest 
Trees of Wisconsin, says : " Palestine, a land 
once 'flowing with milk and honey,' so full of 
native products as to attract the children of 
Israel from the highly favored plains of Egypt; 
a country which for many ages sustained a nu- 
merous, happy, and prosperous people, is now 
comparatively a barren waste; its productions 
scarcely sufficient for a miserable population, 
dwindled to only one-tenth of its former num- 
bers. The most careful examination of the 
soil shows no want of the elements of vegeta- 
ble growth — it remains as fertile to-day as in 
the most ancient times, thus showing that we 
must look to the changes in the local condition 
of the climate, rather than the exhaustion of 
the soil for the causes of the wonderful changes 
that have taken place ; and these local climatic 
changes could only be produced by the indis- 
criminate destruction of the forests that origi- 
nally covered the whole country." 

Egypt from time immemorial has been 
spoken of as a rainless region, depending upon 
the inundations of the iS'ile to fructify its 
plains; even in the Delta did rain fall only five 
or six days in the year. Several years ago Mo- 
hamet Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, planted twenty 
millions of palm, mulberry, olive, orange, and 
other trees on the Delta, and they have now 
attained a large size; and the result is, that 
the number of rainy days h.as gradually in- 
creased from five or six every year to tbrly, 
with a prospect of a still greater augmentation. 

The British Medical Journal says the gi'mnd 
on which stands Ismailia, a healthful and 
flourishing Egyptian town of six thousand in- 
habitants, was but a few years since a dry, sandy 
desert, almost uninhabitable. Until four years 
ago rain was unknown, but in twelve montha 
ending in April, there were actually fourteen 
days on which rain fell, and lately there lell a 
tremendous shower of rain — a phenomenon 
which the oldest Arab had never previously 
witnessed. Rain ceases to fall on a country de- 
prived of its forests, or only falls in violent 



DESTRUCTION OF FORESTS. 



327 



Btorms. Here we see rain returning to tlie Jes- 
ert on restoring its trees. 

The Cape de Verde Islands, so named from 
their greenness, have been stripped of their 
forests by tlieir improvident inhabitants, since 
which time they suffer terribly from periodical 
droughts, sometimes no rain falling for three 
years at a time, and thirty thousand Inhabitants, 
or one-third of the population, have perished. 
Thus famine cuts down the inhabitants as piti- 
lessly as they cut down the protecting trees. It 
lias been proposed to replant the forests, yet 
such is the ignorance'and indolence of the in- 
habitahts that little has been done towards re- 
storation, and it is probable that the entire race 
may be cut off, to be replaced by those who 
have learned that the " tree of the field is 
man's life." 

The Canary Isles, when tirst discovered, were 
clothed with thick forests, a great part of which 
were destroyed by the first settlers, and the 
result has been the lessening of the rains, and 
tlie dwindling away of the .springs and brooks. 
The aridity of the interior of Spain is owing 
to the hatred of the Spaniards to trees. The 
maritime regions of Algeria are remarkably 
dry, owing to the native husbandmen cutting 
down all the arborescent productions. 

The clearing away of forests from any coun- 
try will incre.ase the dryness of the ground, 
and diminish the flow of water from springs 
and streams. Humboldt, alluding to this re- 
sult, says: "In felling the trees which covered 
the crowns and slopes of the mountains, men 
in all climates seem to be bringing upon future 
generations, two calamities at once — a want of 
fuel, and a scarcity of water." Herschel enu- 
merates among the influences unfavorable to 
rain, "absence of vegetation in warm climates, 
and especially of trees. This is, no doubt, 
one of the reasons of the extreme aridity of 
Spain." "In my judgment," says Boussi:s- 
GAULT, "it is settled that very large clearings 
must diminish theannual fall of rain in a coun- 
try." "It is the experience of ages," says the 
Journal of Science, "in various countries, that 
the pre.sence of forests really makes the climate 
comparatively wet, and their removal makes it 
dry." Clouds are attracted by many millions' 
of leaf points, and will follow this attraction 
unless overpowered by strong air currents ; 
hence, a distribution of forests must generally 
produce a distribution of rain. 

The re.searches of modern science and all 
accurate and careful observation, as wdl as the 
history of the past, show that a country abound- 



ing in forests is more moist, has a more copious 
and equable rain-fall, abounds more in springs 
and streams; and, as a consequence of all these, 
is more exempt from great and sudden fluctua- 
tions in temperature, from late frosts in Spring 
and early frosts in the Fall. The controlling 
influence of forests over rain-falls is also 
shown by the fact that countries once supplied 
with forests, and having abundant rains and 
immunity from frost, their forests having been 
destroyed, have been scourged by drouglit and 
frost till the forests were restored, when they 
once more became fruitful; or, if the inhabi- 
tants would not restore their protecting forests, 
the stern hand of famine threatened to wipe 
out a race that would not reverence the order 
of nature. 

lis Effect in America. — "It is certain," ob- 
serves Hon. E. P. Marsh, "that a desolation 
like that which has overwhelmed many of the 
once beautiful and fertile regions of Europe, 
awaits an important part of the territory of 
the United States, unless prompt measures shall 
be taken to check the action of the destructive 
cau.ses already I'n operation." He adds that it 
is in vain to expect that legislation in our coun- 
try can do anything efTectual to arrest the 
progress of the evil, as there is little respect 
here for public property. Government has 
proved itself unable to protect the live-oak 
woods of Florida, intended to be preserved for 
the use of the Navy, and has more than once 
paid contractors a high price for timber stolen 
from its own forests. "The only legal jirovis- 
ions," continues Mr. Marsh, "from which any- 
thing can be hoped are such as shall make it a 
matter of private advantage to the landholder 
to spare the trees upon his ground, and pro- 
mote the growth of his young wood. Some- 
thing may be done by exempting standing for- 
ests from ta.'cation, and by imposing taxes on 
wood felled for fuel or timber; .something by 
premiums or honorary distinctions for judicious 
management of the woods. It would be diffi- 
cult to induce governments, general or local, to 
make the necessary appropriations for such 
purposes. But there can be no doubt that it 
would be sourd economy in the end " 

A few years since, the late Hon.STKPnc:N A. 
Douglas, in an address before the New York 
State Fair, said: "With all the incalculabi 
advantages derivable from our extensive and 
superb primeval forests, and with our un- 
bounded coal fields, the want of fire-wood is 
already felt in some districts, which, like tlie 
prairies of the West, are naturally destitute of 



328 



WOOD FOR THE FARM : 



timber, or in which locomotives and steamboats 
<iie consuming the article faster than it can be 
reproduced in the ordinary course of nature 
There is also reason to believe that the extreme 
desire of pressing civilization forward, and of 
fertilizing the wilderness in ilie shortest time, 
induces many a hardy pioneer of the West to 
enter somewhat enthusiastically on the 'exter 
miiiation' of our woods, when considerations 
not merely poetical, hut economical and prac- 
tical, would, in more than one instance, cry 
out to hini, 'Woodman, spare that tree!' 

"Trees are not merely useful and orna- 
mental, but also, by their mere existence — by 
the breathing of oxygen — eminently conducive 
to health. They are the companions of man as 
much so as sonje of the domestic animals, and 
have, as such, acquired a certain rigiit to liis 
protection. Many localities which I could 
name, especially near the sea-coast, have been 
completely shorn of timber; and experience 
has shown that a forest once entirely cut down 
will not grow up again and produce the same 
kinds of timber. Much inconvenience is now 
felt in consequence, and the evil is progressive, 
threatening the comfort and interests of farmers, 
mechanics, and all classes engaged in industrial 
pursuits. 

"In most countries of Europe, the preserva- 
tion of forests by only partiall)' cutting down 
the timber, and selecting for that purpose only 
those trees, the removal of which facilitates the 
growth of the young trees, by which means the 
same species of timber can be reproduced al- 
most ud infinitam, without any perceptible dete- 
rioration in quality, is reduced to a science, 
taught in academies and colleges. And though 
we may not in this country feel the necessity 
of hushanding our almost countless resources 
of the forest, yet more attention than has hith- 
erto been paid to the subject, is certainly due 
to it." 

The Hon. Horace Greeley, in a lecture 
before the Union Agricuhural Society, of 
Brockport, New York, said: "This matter of 
raising timber needs to be better cared for. 
Taking the forest ofi' has left our lands exposed 
to the bleak and di-iving winds, and has aggra- 
vated the disadvantages of our hot, dry Sum- 
mers, and bleak, cold Winters. Lack of for- 
ests has narrowed the fruit region, and is con- 
stantly narrowing it. More forests must be 
raised, and those of the best kinds." 

Kemarked the late Rev. Frederick Starr, 
Jr., in an able paper in the United States Ag- 
ricultural Report, for 1865, on American For- 



est.s, "We ought to learn from the experience 
of other nations great and terrible lessons, 
without madly insisting upon suffering the 
same disasters ourselves. The history of the 
world presents to us a ftarful record respecting 
the destruction of the forests. Palestine and 
Syria, Egypt and Italy, France and Spain, have 
seen some of their most populous regions turned 
into forsaken wilderness, and their most fertile 
lands into arid, sandy deserts. The danger to 
our land is near at hand, nearer, by full 
THIRTY years than the most intelligent sup- 
pose; we need immediate action both for pre- 
vention and restoration." 

Value of IVoocl.— More than 50,000,- 
000 acres throughout the whole country, were 
brought under cultivation during the decade 
between 1850 and 1860 ; counting two-tilths of 
which as timbered land, would give about 
7,000 acres cleared of their timber each week 
day. Of this general consumption, it is esti- 
mated that the wood used for fuel alone, at the 
lowest figures, would be valued at $75,000,000 
annu.illy ; and the wooden fences of the conn- 
try and their repairs, not less than 5150,000,000 
more. 

The wood consumed in one year by the New 
York Central Railroad amounts to over 160,000 
cords — which at forty cords per acre, would re- 
quire at least 4,000 acres of heavily timbered 
laud to furnish this supply. At the same rate, 
all the railroads in the country would consume 
between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 cords, which, 
at forty cords per acre, woulil require 160.000 
acres, or 500 acres each day. The single 
item of repairing the timbers of existing rail- 
roads requires the expenditure of $30,000,000 
annually — to say nothing of the lumber used 
for fencing more than 60,000 miles of railroad 
lines. More than $100,000,000 worth of sawed 
lumber is consumed yearly, while the addition 
of timber for building, for ships, cooperage, 
and various other purpo.ses, will probably swell 
the aggregate to $250,000,000; and the fact 
that the lumber taken to our Eastern cities, is 
conveyed, in some instances, a distance of 2,000 
miles, shows the denuded condition of the 
country. 

The wooden ships of the United States cost 
over $200,000,000. Of the 3,262,000 dwelling 
houses in the United States, a large majority 
are built of wood ; and of those made of brick 
or stone, about one-half the expense consists of 
the wooden floors, doors, frames, timbers, roofs, 
etc. The value of farms in the United States 



PLANTING OF TIMBER — THE PROFITS OF TREE GROWING. 



329 



in 1860, was between six and seven thousand 
million, and the value of himber improve- 
ments at one-half this amount would be more 
than three thousand million. 



PLANTING OF TIMBER. 

J. J. Thomas, in a valuable paper on the 
Woodland and Timber Crop, in Tuckeb's 
Rami Affairs, (or 186G, says: "The want of 
economy in tlie waste of wood is much to be 
regretted. We do not ask land owners to keep 
their old woods unloiiched. It does not pay. 
The owner of a forty-acre wood lot refused, 
many years ago, an offer of forty dollars per 
acre; he .sold it afterward for one hundred dol- 
lars per acre — but thi.s increase in price did not 
pay the interest and ta.xe.s in the interim. It is 
not advisable, therefore, to keep a large amount 
of dead capital in the shape of the original 
forests. A brief estimate will show that this is 
far less profitable than to raise new timber, and 
cut it away at a suitable age. By counting the 
annual rings in our forest tree.s, we find them 
to average mostly from one to two hundred 
years old, and to yield about fifty cords per 
acre. Calling the average period one hunilred 
and fifty years, three years are required to grow 
a cord of wood. On similar land, occupied 
wiih well-managed young timber, and cut once 
in about twenty years, an average amount of 
not less than two cords annually may be ob- 
tained — a product six times as great as to allow 
the trees a century and a half in growing. To 
cut imiy the old decaying trees out of the forest 
would yield a still less return. Tlie best way, 
therefore, unquestionably, is not the assiduous 
preservation of our old woodlands, but a gen- 
eral and extensive planting of new timber." 

It is an error to suppose that a farmer can 
not afford to set apart any considerable portion 
of his farm for the cultivation of timber. Most 
of our farmers are more or less exposed to 
heavy winds and storms, and the arid blasts of 
the Southwestern Summer currents, and need 
the benefits and protection of timber. " I say 
thoughtfully," writes Horace Greeley, "that 
an average farm of one hundred acres in the 
old States will produce more grass with twenty- 
five of its roughest acres covered with wood, 
than if the whole were denuded of trees, and 
seeded down to mowing and pasturage." 

A few of the many ends to be gained by ex- 
tensive planting of forest trees upon our de- 
nuded farms and prairies are: 



1. The Promotion of Health. — Itisa well-known 
fact in vegetable physiology, that poisonous 
gases are absorbed by the leaves, and thus con- 
verted from health-destroying into health-pro- 
moting elements. 

2. Skelter from violent winds, and an absolute 
checking of their force to so great a degree as 
to preserve growing crops of cereals from de- 
struction, and secure a large increase of fruit; 
also securing a more equal distribution of rain 
and snow over the surface of the ground. 

3. Furnishing a supply of timber for fencing, 
building, fuel, and all mechanical purposes. 

4. Adorning our denuded lands and prairies, 
and rendering our homes more attractive; in 
short, changing nude and monotonous lands 
into charming aiul varied landscapes. 

The ProiiSs of Tree GroiTins.— 

In spontaneous growth, we have not a choice 
of the best timber — we have to take it as it 
comes, good and bad. " We must," says Mr. 
(iREEl.EY, "plant choice timber, and not al- 
low come-by-chance upstarts to monopolize our 
rugged lands. It seems to us most strange that 
our grandfathers planted orchards without 
grafting, and let them bear just such fruit as 
tbey might; but it is just as mad to grow for- 
ests of comparatively worthless tree.s, when we 
might have the best inslead. An acre of well- 
grown locust or hickory must be worth at lea.st 
$200, where just as heavy a growth mainly of 
hemlock, beech, birch, and dogwood would 
hardly be worth §75. Might we not as sensibly 
grow small, sour, miserable cider apples where 
we might have bad greenings or pippins, if we 
bad chosen, as to grow poor trees where a little 
labor in planting would have insured us good 
ones?" 

Repeated experiments, says J. J. Thojias, 
have shown, that on poor lands a product may 
be obtained from well-managed natural planta- 
tions, equivalent to one cord per acre annually, 
and, on good land, two cords yearly may be re- 
lied on. Judge Warner stated at the meeting 
of the Western New York Horticultural So- 
ciety, in January, 18G9, that he has a soft maple 
ten years planted, wliicli would make half a 
cord of wood. At this rate of growth — which 
s, perhaps, more than could be generally 
counted on — an acre of one hundred and sixty 
soft maples would yield an average of ii;;lit 
cords a year. Judge Knapp asserts that lor 
the purpose of growing wood, six hundred and 
forty trees, eight and a quarter feet apart, 
might be planted on an acre; or, at five and 



330 



WOOD FOR THE FARM : 



a half feet apart, fourteen hundred and furty 
trees. 

The period for clearing off the timber in 
these instances, varies from eighteen to twenty- 
five years. Artificial plantations set in rows 
with perfect regularity, and cultivated for a few 
years, at first would undoubtedly do quite as 
well, or better, while the advantage of selecting 
the kind of trees most valuable in market, 
would be an important one. Take, for exam- 
ple, tlie common locust, single posts of which 
sell in many places for one dollar each. Al- 
lowing tlie moderate estimate of one cord an- 
nually, and allowing fifty posts per conl, we 
should have a yearly result of fifty dollars for 
each acre, besides the tops. If they were wortli 
only one-half this amount, it would afford a 
handsome interest on the cost of most of our 
country lands. 

" Ten yeais ago," said Governor HoLBROOK, 
of Vermont, " I cut the wood off a long stretch 
of hill-sides, and, in my inexperience, burnt 
over a portion of it for pasturage. The re- 
mainder was left to grow up again to wood. 
Many of the young trees are six to eight inches 
through; they are all very straight and thrifty, 
and I value one acre of this land more than 
five acres of that which is in pasture. I sliall 
not again permanently clear up my steep hill- 
sides." 

A wood lot in central New York, cut over 
twenty years since, was suffered again to grow 
up to wood, contrary to the usual custom. It 
was recently sold at auction for S3,400, while it 
would not have brought over S800, had it been 
given exclusively to pasture from the time it 
was cleared. 

Jlr. Thomas mentions another tract of land 
in central New York, which was cleared of an 
original growth of wood twenty-five years, and 
left to itself to produce another growth from 
the sprout. The land, with its present stand- 
ing wood, was appraised, a year or two since, 
at fifty dollars an acre. Ten dollars an acre is 
all that similar land, in pasture, in tliat vicinity, 
has ever been worth. By the application of a 
little arithmetic then, we find that the increase 
of this second growth of wood has been equal 
to sixteen per cent, interest, per annum, on the 
worth of the land, without a dollar's expense 
for the cultivation — that is, ten dollars at six 
teen per cent, simple interest, for twenty-five 
years, amounts to forty dollars; to which add 
the principal, the worth of the land, and we 
have tilty dollars, the appraised present value 
per acre. 



An agriculturist of high position, authority, 
and ability, recently estimated the value of a 
hundred acres of good locust timber, if planted 
this year and well taken care of, and cut off 
twenty years hence, at ?100,000, or *1,000 per 
acre; the estimate was based upon the measure- 
ment of medium locust trees twenty years old, 
growing on good cultivated land. The young 
trees were to he planted in rows, and the inter- 
mediate crops and early thinnings were com- 
puted to be equal to the expense of cultivating 
for the first few years. The present price of 
locust timber in Eastern cities, was taken, and 
the whole result reduced to one-half for con- 
tingencies. 

Says E. G. Gkegory, in tlie loma Homestead, 
"Twelve years ago myself and neighbor bought 
five thousand soft maple trees a year old, and 
divided them equally, and set them on about 
three and a half acres. I set mine in niws 
about eight feet 'one way and six feet tlie other, 
being careful to get rows straight. I planted 
potatoes the first year, then corn two years, and 
at the end of the third year, my trees, then four 
years old, were ten or twelve feet high. I then 
sowed the piece to clover, and made a hog pas- 
ture of it, and it has remained so ever since, 
save some years I plowed and sowed it to early 
oats for hogs." 

" Now for the result. When I offered my 
farm for sale, I leserved the grove, or asked an 
addition of SIOOO for it. If the farm .sold 
without the timber, I was to clear the timber 
from it during the coming Winter. Several 
purchasers came, and most of them said I might 
remove my grove at tho.se figures. At last came 
a careful old Quaker, from Butler county, Ohio, 
who, in place of telling me to take my grove, 
sat down, pencil in hand, to figure out the 
SIOOO. 

"I planted 2,642 trees twelve years ago, and 
we found 2,402 trees that would average eight 
inches through, and thirty feet in height. Now 
who says those trees are not worth sixty cents 
apiece, to cut down for rails and fire-wood, and 
worth a great deal more to leave standing for 
a few years? At sixty cents, the grove was 
worth Sl,441, and to the farm was worth $500 
more. The man took the grove at $1000. Now 
what did the grove cost me? Merely nothing. 
The pasture, and crops, and the looks of it, 
more than paid for all the trouble." 

Thirty years ago, a man in Massacliusetis 
planted thirty acres with acorns, and the ie.--ult 
is a fine oak forest, with trees from twelve to 
eighteen inches in diameter. A man in lUi- 



THE PROFITS OF TREE OROWISO. 



331 



nois planted locu?t-seed on forty-five acres, and 
twenty years after, the timber, for fence posts, 
was worth $150 per acre. A man near Keno- 
slia, Wisconsin, permitted a second growth of 
timber to succeed one cleared off, and twenty 
years after, it was worth at least from $50 to 
§75 per acre for the wood. 

So rapid has been the growth of timber on 
the prairies of Illinois, that where some of the 
e;iily settlers located, twenty-five years ago, 
without a tree around them, they can now cut 
and hew good building timber a foot square. 
George IIusmann, of Missouri, has trees of 
the Enropeajj larcli, ten years old, measuring 
from six to nine inches in diameter, abundantly 
large for fence posts. Mr. Brooking, of Ma- 
comb county, Michigan, planted a plat with 
locust seed, which, eight years after, presented 
a delightful grove, the largest tree of which, 
round, straight and handsome, measured two 
feet and ehven and three fourth inches in circum- 
ference. Ten years after planting a grove of 
cotton wood in Adair county, Iowa, the trees 
attained a height of thirty to forty feet, and one 
of them measured more than two feet in diam- 
eter, one foot above the ground. 

We take the following extract from that ex- 
cellent work, Fuller's Forest Tree Culturist : 
"Now the young one or two years old plants, 
or even the nuts, may be put in rows four feet 
apart, and the plants one foot apart in the rows ; 
this will give 10,890 to the acre. At this dis- 
tance they should reacli a size in five to eight 
years, according to the soil and the care they 
receive, when they should be tliinned, by tak- 
ing out^every alternate tree; this should be 
done by cutting them off near the ground. We 
therefore take out 5,445 trees suitable for hoop- 
poles. Their value will of course depend upon 
the market, but we will say four cents each, or 
§40 per 1000, which would be a low price in 
Kew York ; this woidd give $272 80, as the 
return for the acre's first crop. In three or 
four years they will need thinning again, and 
we take out as before, one, or 2,722; these will, 
of course, be much larger; and if they will 
reach ten feet, and are of good thickness, 
they will readily bring ten cents each, or 
$272 20, for the second crop. In a few years 
more they will require thinning again, and 
each time, the trees being larger, will bring an 
inrreased price. But we are not by this means 
exhausting our stock ; far from it, for those we 
cut off' at first have been producing sprouts 
wliioh have grown nuich more rapidly than the 
originals ; and if a little care has been given 



them so that they shall not grow so thickly aa 
to be injured thereby, we can' begin to cut small 
hoop-poles from the sprouts of first cuttings 
before we have cut our third or fourth thin- 
nings of the first crop; consequently we have 
a perpetual crop which requires no cultiva- 
tion after the first few years. As soon as the 
leaves become numerous enough to shade the 
ground, no weeds will grow among them, and 
the annual crop of leaves that fall will keep 
the soil rich and moist." 

David Pettit, of New Jersey, gives the 
followi[ig estimate of profits in raising an acre 
of chestnut timber: " I will suppose the trees 
planted one rod apart each way, making one 
hundred and sixty trees to the acre, to cost at 
two years old in the nur.sery £5 per hundred, 
or S8 per acre; add to this $2 for transplant- 
ing, and we have $10 per acre. If planted out 
younger they will not succeed so well, and if 
kept longer in the nursery the risk of dying 
will increa.se with the time. The chestnuts 
shoulil be kept damp as soon as ripe to insure 
success, as a very few days exposure to the dry 
air will prevent germination. If the land is 
fit for tillage, it can be planted with corn or 
some other cultivated crop, four feet one and 
one-half inches each way, and at every fourth 
hill each way, plant the young trees ami culti- 
vate with the crops, which will facilitate their 
growth, while the crops will pay; then leave 
them to natural causes for protection. When 
the land Is too hilly or not fit for tillage, the 
trees can be set without the expense of culti- 
vating. In about eiglit years after transplant- 
ing, the trees will become bushy and not fit for 
rails, and should be cut down to eight or ten 
inches from the ground. If they succeed well, 
they will send uii at least five good suckers 
from each stump. These will grow rapidly, 
straight atul tall, and will, in twenty-five years, 
or less, from planting make six good rails from 
each sucker, or 4,800 rails per acre, which at 
S9 per hundred amounts to $432, or $16 a year 
clear of cost of planting. After this cutting, 
they will become more remunerative, as they 
will bear cutting. every fifteen years, and pro- 
duce more at each cutting, or at least S2t) a 
year, and this, too, without the expense of fenc- 
ing, or farming, or cutting the timber, as the 
tops and branches of the trees will amply pay 
all expenses. If the above estimate is cori-ect, 
where is there any farm land that will equal it 
in profit of farm crops for a series of years? 
If the estimate is considered too high, reduce it 
one-fourth or one-half, then add seed, labor, 



332 



WOOD FOR THE FARM : 



niMniire, and the cost of fencing, to sa}' notliing 
of tlie extra taxes on the improved land, and 
tljen tte shall see which will pay best. Six- 
teen dollars a year is the interest of more than 
5200 per acre, and $20 for the second cutting, 
the interest on more than §350, more than our 
best land will sell for near markets. I know 
of young chestnut trees where the timber was 
cut not twenty-three years ago that will make 
more than double the above estimate of rails 
anil .some will now make good building timber 
and fence posts. 

Stale Aid. — So important is this matter of 
tree culture beginning to be regarded, that 
many able writers on agriculture in our country 
are urging its necessity and advantages, and 
Agricultural and Horticultural Societies, and 
Slate Legislatures are waking up to the im- 
portance of the subject by ollering premiums 
and encouragements for the growth of forest 
trees. In 1864, the New York Agricultural So- 
ciety oB'ered a premium of $200 for the best 
forest orchard of a given number of acres. 

In 1867, General H. C. Hobart, of the Wis- 
consin Legislature, secured the passage of an 
acLin relation to the growth of forest trees, and 
the appointment of three commissioners to re- 
port to that body on the disastrous results of the 
desiruction of forests, the effect of trees on cli- 
niale, and the best methods for their successful 
growth and culture. An able report was made, 
and the Legislature, as an incipient measure, 
provided that a farmer who plants a row of 
trees along the public highway shall be exempt 
from working on the road, and that whoever 
injures one such tree shall be subject to a fine 
of ?5. The State Horticultural Society, of 
Wisconsin, has ofTered a premium of §100 for 
the best ten acres of forest trees of three year's 
growth, and $50 for the second best. 

The Legislature of Nebraska has passed 
a law exempting from taxation, for five years, 
$100 worth of the real properly of each tax- 
payer for each acre of forest trees he shall 
plant and cultivate, provided that the trees 
shall not be planted more than twelve feet 
apart and shall be kept in a healthy and grow- 
in;; condition ; and an exemption of S50 worth 
of real property for each acre so cultivated, 
whoi^e distance shall not exceed thirty-three 
iVel apart. 

The Illinois Agricultural Society has for 
several years granted a premium for the 
largest number of trees planted or transplanted 
into an artificial grove, and seveial competing 
tracts have ranged from four to fifteen acres. 



composed of maple, elm, buttcrnul, elder, larch, 
beech, birch, dogwood, tulip or cotton wood, 
locu.st, and other varieties. On the prairies of 
Illinois the successful culture of timber is no 
longer a matter of uncertainty. The locust is 
less cultivated than formerly on account of its 
being so much infested by the borer of late 
yea rs. 

The Northern Illinois Horticultural Society 
recently adopted resolutions urging the Legis- 
lature of that State to pass a law for the en- 
couragement of the planting of forest trees, 
either by remitting State taxes or by givmg 
premiums for plantations of useful forest trees. 
The society also adopted the following list of 
timber trees for cultivalion in northern Illinois: 

For Graces. — European larch, black walnut, 
butternut, white pine, tulip tree, and white, 
red, and blue ash. 

Xut-Bearing Trees. — Butternut, black wal- 
nut, shellbark hickory, and chestnut. 

Shade and Ornamental 2Wes. — White elm, 
silver maple, white ash, mountain ash, tulip 
tree, honey maple, honey locust, rock elm, and 
cucumber tree. 

Eceryreens. — Norway spruce, white spruce, 
Austrian pine, white pine, red pine, balsam of 
fir, arbor vitae, and red cedar. 

The Legislature of Kansas has offered large 
premiums lor forest planting, and Iowa has 
taiken steps in her councils to secure the same 
ends. 

Clieap Trees. — Our first great need is 
the establishment and diffusion of extensive 
nurseries of cheap forest trees. Foraet trees 
are raised in nurseries in England as fruit trees 
are here. The following prices are from a late 
English catalogue: Ash, birch, beech, alder, $5 
per 1,000; chestnut and elm, $6; spruce, SI 95; 
pine, $2 45, etc. " I hear of gentlemen,' says 
Mr. Greeley, "importing ten thousand young 
trees from Europe at a net cost of less than one 
hundred dollars." Let the best varieties of 
forest trees be abundant and cheap, and it will 
prove a strong stimulant to the planting of 
many an acre of steep, bleak, stony hills, creek 
and road borders, and out-of-the-way places, 
with the finest trees for timber, profit, health, 
and beauty. Where no forest tree nurseries 
exist, the farmer must raise his own trees, from 
which he has the advantage of making the 
choicest selection, and of having them conven- 
iently at hand to be transplanted at the right 
time, and in the freshest condition. 

Such trees as poplar, cotton wood, white and 



KIND OF TREES TO PLANT TREE CULTURE. 



333 



yellow willow, balm of gilead, and white mul- 
berry, can be propagaled by slipR, covering the 
cut ends with hot resin mixed with a little tal- 
low or linseed oil. All nut.s, and indeed the 
seeds of elm, maple, locust, and other trees, do 
best when planted immediately after they ripen, 
as exposure and dryness very soon render them 
unfit for germination. If sown in a nursery, 
the ground should be well prepared, planted 
in rows, so as to allow the soil to be thoroughly 
worked. Nuts ripen in the Fall, and should 
be planted three or four inehes deep; the seeds 
of the elm, red, or soft maple, and white, or 
silver-leafed maple, ripen from the twentieth of 
May to the fifieen'.h of June, those of the sugar 
maple, .ash, linden, and locust not till Autumn, 
and should be covered with an inch of fine 
soil. The little slioots of elm and maple will 
grow one or two feet in height the first season, 
and the elm will even exceed that, under favora- 
ble circumstances. The young trees should be 
transplanted when one or two years old; if 
planted upon a steep side-liill, a trowel will be 
found most convenient in setting them. 

Kinds of Trees to Plant.— A se- 
lection must be made with reference to the pur- 
poses for which they are designed — whether for 
fuel, posts, fencing, etc. The common locust is 
largely cultivated for posts; the chestnut, ash, 
and cedar for fencing ; the hard maple for 
sugar; nut trees and mulberry for their fruits; 
and all these and others for shade and orna- 
mental purposes, for screens and protective 
bells. Those varieties which grow the most 
rapidly, and split the most freely, are the 
cheapest to grow for posts, for if they do not 
naturally last well in the ground, they may be 
prepared by use of g.ts tar or by kyanizing, at 
an expense of some three cents each, so as to 
last from twenty to thirty years. Seasoned 
posts of the white willow will last from twelve 
to twenty years. 

The most rapidly growing varieties are the 
linden or basswood, yellow and white willow, 
chestnut, white and ash-leafed maple, locust, 
tulip or cotton wood, and Lombardy poplar. 
These will grow from four to six feet in a sea- 
son ; and the white willow will, in ten years, be 
of suflScient .size for fence posts, rails, and fuel ; 
and, sprouting from the stump, a succession 
of crops naturally ensues without replaiuiug. 
Wliite and blue ash ; red and white elm ; white, 
yellow, and black birch; European and Ameri- 
can larch ; black walnuts and butternuts ; ash- 
leafed, hard, or sugar maples, are all very de- 



sirable trees for planting, both in .screens and 
groves. The white or silver-leafed maple, a 
different tree from the red, soft, or swamp ma- 
ple, is a rapid grower, does not throw up suck- 
ers, is useful for fuel, and very valuable for 
belts. 

The European larch has the reputation of 
being second only to the renowned cedar of 
Lebanon for the durability of its timber — be- 
ing regarded by all European writers as almost 
imperishable, either in or out of water. It is 
highly commended by Geokqe Husmann, of 
Mi.ssouri, D. C. Scofield, in the American 
Journal of Horticulture, and Robert Douglas, 
of Wankegan, Illinois, for its durable qualities, 
and as being a tolerably fast growing tree. The 
Osage orange in Texas .sometimes attains a 
height of sixty feet, and makes superior po.sts 
and rails, as it is indestructible or very nearly 
.so; and when raised for timber, it should be 
planted at such distances as not to dwarf it. 
Evergreens, more suitable for belting than tim- 
ber purposes, will be more appropriately no- 
ticed in connection with screens and tree belts. 

Tree Culture. — riuntinr/.—l( steep 
hill-sides are to be planted, tlie spade and trowel 
are the nicst fitting tools with which to do the 
work. On ground more level, plow very deep — 
Fall plowing is the best — then plow furrows, 
lour, .six, or eight feet apart; when planted near 
together, the surface is soon shaded and mulched, 
and the progress of the young trees is then more 
rapid. In these furrows plant the trees when 
not more tlian three or four feet high ; then 
lliey will be less affected by removal than at any 
subsequent period ; and plant in the quincunx 
form, each tree at an equal distance from six 
others around it — in the second row, the trees 
to he planted so as to be midway between those 
of the opposite row, and so alternating. " In 
my opinion," says Mr. Gkeeley, " more trees 
can be grown per acre, and they can grow 
laster where different varieties are intermin- 
gled, than where the ground is wholly given up 
to oak, or pine, or locust, or hickory. By in- 
terspersing some of the rapidly-growing varie- 
ties, the latter will early attain a size for use, 
and can be thinned out in time to give the 
others a free chance for growth. If jibinted 
pretty closely together, then an occasional row 
should be planted sufficiently wide to admit the 
free passage of a wagon. By planting in rows, 
and cultivating the trees while young, they 
will grow many times as fast as they otherwise 
would ; and potatoes and beans may be culti- 



334 



WOOD FOR THE FARM : 



vated between the rows for the first two or three 
years, and then corn if the trees should not 
happen tosliade all the ground. In transplant- 
ing, care should be taken to preserve the roots, 
and to reset the trees so that the roots and 
rootlets may have their natural position, de- 
scending slightly from the base of the trunk of 
the tree; and mulching would be desirable, if 
not planted with beans and potatoes. 

Tli'mning. — This has already been casually no- 
ticed. The first thinning should be done when 
the trees are about large enough for hoop-poles ; 
the nicire crooked and feeble trees should be 
cut nut, leaving the best and siraightest as 
nearly at uniform distances as may be practica- 
ble. Ordinarily, these thinnings, for hoop- 
pules and fuel, will fully pay the interest on 
the land. The trees left for growth should 
have their lower limbs trimmed oft' tor some 
six feet from the ground, except the exterior 
of the woodlands, which should be left un- 
touched to prevent winds sweeping through. 
These thinnings and trimmings should not be 
so severe as to let in much sunlight; for tlie 
shade and mulching of leaves protect the roots, 
preserve moisture, and serve greatly to push 
forward tlie young timber. As the size of the 
trees increase, other and successive thinnings 
will be necessary. Experiments have proved 
that forest orchards, side by .side, of tiie same 
age, have when properly thinned and trimmed, 
proved thirty-three per cent, more in value 
tlian those left to grow up without such care, 
while the surplus wood tlius removed more 
than pays for the labor. 

When the locust, the willow, and other of 
the fast growing varieties attain a suHicient size 
for posts, they may be cut in the Spring for 
that purpose, when a second growth will spring 
from the stump in less than half the time taken 
by the first — so that this second growth will 
make respectable posts in five or six years, at 
which period it may be cut at a season when 
the roots will die, leaving the ground to the 
other trees. As a rule, deciduous trees cut late 
in Winter or in the Spring, will start again 
from the root and grow luxuriantly; while the 
same trees, if cut in August or September, will 
seldom start again. These facts afford a hint 
to wliom.soever would kill part of his timber, 
and keep the residue constantly reproducing its 
kind. 

In removing trees, let a view be had to the 
protection of the remaining forest, taking those 
decaying and liable to fall, and those that have 



become insecure and are liable to be uprooted 
by violent storms. And care should be exer- 
cised in felling trees, not only to facilitate the 
removal of the logs and wood, but also to save 
tlie breakage of the rem:iining trees. ' And by 
all means exclude domestic animals from the 
woods, if yon would obtain the best results. Let 
the trees of the least value be cut out for wood, 
and thin out the poorest of the trees where they 
stand too thickly. Take away large, branch- 
ing, and indifferent trees where the woods are 
sparse, and set young trees and plant nuts of 
valuable varieties in the area thus opened.^ 

Relative Growth of Trees. — Did we accurately 
know the relative growth of trees, and their 
respective values fur fuel and timber ]purpii.ses, 
it would be of incalculable benefit, and would 
better enable farmers to determine the be,st and 
most profitable kinds for culture. We have 
some data by which we may form approximate 
estimates, particularly of growth. 

In a report of a committee of the Illinois 
Horticullural Society, in 1S64, the following 
results were given as about tlie average growth 
in that State in twelve years, of the leading 
desirable varieties, when planted in belts or 
groves, and properly cultivated; 

White willow, eighteen inches in diameter, 
and forty feet high. 

Yellow willow, eighteen inches in diameter, 
and thirtj'-five feet high. 

White maple, twelve inches in diameter, and 
thirty feet high. 

Ashleafed maple, twelve inches in diameter, 
and tweniy feet high. 

Lombardy poplar, ten inches in diameter, 
and forty leet high. 

Birch, varieties, ten inches in diameter, and 
twenty-five feet high. 

Blue and white ash, ten inches in diameter, 
and tweniy feet high. 

Black walnut and butternut, ten inches in 
diameter, and twenty feet high. 

Chestnut, ten inches in diameter, and twenty 
feet high. 

Elm, ten inches in diameter, and twenty feet 
high. 

Hickory and larch, eight inches in diameter, 
and twenty-five feet high. 

P^vergreens make an average growth of eight- 
een to twenty inches in height annually- 

R. S. Fay, of Massachusetts, gave a state- 
ment in the Country Gentleman, in 1862, of 
measurements he had made of trees he had 
grown, which were set out when mostly about 



SHADE TREES FOR CITIES. 



335 



three feet liigli, fourteen or fifteen years before, 
measured four feet from the ground, and never 
had any cuhivation: 

White maples, tliirteen to fifteen inches. 

Spanisli chestnut, eleven inches. 

Elm, from seed, ten inclies. 

Pine oak, ten inches. 

Sycamore or Norway maples, eiglit to eleven 
inches. 

White pine, nine to ten inches. 

Canoe birch, nine inches. 

Scotch larch and Norway spruce, eight to 
ten inches. 

Austrian pine and Scotch fir, eight to nine 
inches. 

Rock maple.s, seven to nine inches. 

Over cup white oak, seven inches. 

White oak, si-^c inches. 

T. J. Thomas adds, that lie has measured 
sugar maples in Cayuga county. New York, 
planted by the roadside, eighteen years after 
j)lanting, and which had received no care, and 
they averaged a foot in diameter, and thirty 
feet high; and the Scotch larch, eight years 
after planting, seven inches in diameter, and 
over twenty feet high. 

The estimates, made with great care, and 
submitted to the Illinois Horticultural Society, 
show that fence posts, from the soft-wooded and 
rapid-growing trees, may be grown at a cost of 
about two or three cents each ; lumber $6 to S7 
per thousand; fire-wood, SI 50 per cord. Black 
walnut and butternut posts, about four cents 
each; ash lumber, one of the most useful vari- 
eties for mechanical purposes, about SIO per 
thousand; and black walnut, the mahogany of 
the West, about the same. 

Shade Trees for Cities. — Sugar ma- 
ple and silver maple do not flourish in the dust 
of a city ; and the cotton wood is too badly in- 
fested with worms to render it desirable. The 
LoTiibanly poplar has an effective, stately show, 
among other trees, liiit is attacked by the leaf 
folder and other insects. The silver-leafed 
poplar bears dust well, and is a fine tree for 
school grounds. The while elm is a noble tree, 
and the ash-leafed maple, a rapid grower, is 
very desirable to alternate with it, growing 
tliirty feet high, and adding much to the effect, 
lint in time would have to give place to the more 
gigantic proportions of the elm. The white 
and green ash, horse chestnut, and larch make 
fine shades. 

The late Dr. DANiEi Drake recommended 
that shade trees should be cultivated in our 



towns and cities more extensively than they 
now are; but those which grow to a great 
height should not be chosen, because tliev ren- 
der the walls and the roofs of the houses damp. 
The object is, to shade the sidewalks. Very 
broad streets or avenues should have rows of 
larger trees in their centers; for, at such a dis- 
tance, they do not produce the injury just men- 
tioned, while they keep down the heat of the 
surface, diminish radiation, and protect pas- 
sengers. 

The towns of the South are generally well 
.shaded, either with sheds and awnings, or with 
trees. The Pride of China is the favorite up 
to latitude 33°, above which it does not bear 
the colder Winters. Then the resort is to the 
white-flowering locust, with which, in higher 
latitudes, is blended the water nuiple, while 
elm, catalpa, and sycamore, all of which grow 
too large for narrow streets. But, within a few 
years, the aihmthus, a foreign tree, has been in- 
troduced, and become a general favorite. 

New Haven, Connecticut, " the City of Elms," 
owes its reputation, as the mo.st attractive city 
in the United States, to the majestic elms which 
border every street, and crown some of the cen- 
tral thoroughfares with a perfect unbroken 
Gothic arch. James Hillhouse planted ihera 
for posterity, and his memory lives in their 
bower of summer green — the poet's chosen 
monument. 

Plant More Trees, — In all the mountain 
ranges, on hill-sides, along the borders of lakes 
and streams, in swamps, .snrroimding every 
farm, in every village, aronnd every rural cot- 
tage, school hou.se, and church, on the sides of 
every highway, and railroad, in every ceme- 
tery, and on public parks, the growth of forest 
trees should be promoted by their protection, 
and multiplied by planting, where they do not 
spontaneously spring up. 

"Jock, "said the dying Laird of Dumbie- 
dikes to his son and heir, "when ye hae naeth- 
ing else to do, ye may be aye sticking in a tree; 
it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping." 
This advice is worthy the attention of the farm- 
ers of the country. In many parts of our land, 
the supply of timber, never large, is rapidly 
diminishing. The London Times is sounding 
Great Britain's alarm: "In three genera- 
tions — that is, in the days of our childieii's 
children — all the coal of these islands, that lies 
within four thousand feet of the surl'ace, will, 
we are told, be exhausted, if we go on increas- 
ing our consumption al the present rate." The 
same danger threatens our country. Wood for 



336 



WOOD FOR THE FARM : 



fuel lomniands a price oppressive to the poor, 
and burdensome to all ; while it is becoming 
scarce for fencing, for railroad construction and 
supply, for building and ni;inufacturing pur- 
poses. The absence of limber afiects the cli 
mate, health and jiroducls of our country, tend 
ing to render the Winters bleak, and the Sum- 
mers fierce and arid. Then plant trees; they 
■will bring wealth, and what is better, they will 
bring health and comfort also. 



TEEB BELTS FOR FAHM PRO- 
TECTION. 

Tree belts, or wood bells, are belts of trees, 
generally forest trees, so arranged on the farm 
as to furnish protection from the prevailing 
■winds — coming from one source in Winter to 
freeze, and from another in the Summer to 
burn and blight. These bells, properly grown 
and located, are beneficial in various ways — in 
the vicinity of the farm-house, they .sometimes 
cut off Ihe misama arising from low lands; 
they furnish shelter for cattle when skirting 
pastures; they increase the average rain-fall, as 
has been seen; they produce fuel and timber, 
and they modify the severity of the weather, 
protecting field crops and fruit trees. 

Effect on Health. — Aside from their beauty, 
merely hygienic considerations suggest that 
trees, planted at a little distance from the house, 
prove, nut only a great comfort, but a real 
benefit. Miasma is not supposed to pass a swift- 
running stream in great quanlities. But if 
there be a sluggish stream, or a pond or flat 
land on the farm, and the house must be built 
in the vicinity, it is better to build so that the 
prevailing winds from June to October shall 
blow from the house to the fiat. It is better, also, 
if there can be a grove or belt of trees inter- 
vening, becau.se miasmatic gas, like clouds, will 
sometimes roll up the side of a hill or moun- 
tain. Such a tree belt, or even bushes, hedges, 
or sunflowers, between a niiasm-producing lo- 
cality and a dwelling, antagonize the miasmatic 
influences, the living leaves seeming to absorb 
and feed upon the poison ; but there should be 
a space of fifty yards at l^ast between the trees 
and the house, and the thicker and broader and 
higher the belt, and the nearer the ground the 
leaves the better; for the miasm gropes on and 
near the surface in its greatest malignity. Dr. 
Benjamin Rush assigned as one of the causes 
of the unusally sickly character of Philadel- 
phia, for many years after 1778, to the cutting 



down by the Iritish army of the trees which 
formerly sheltered the city from the malarious 
exhalations from the overflowed meadows on 
the south. Dr. Rush refers to the fact of resi- 
dences in the South becoming untenable from 
like causes — the cutting down of groves near 
dwellings. 

Trees purify the air by absorbing the car- 
bonic acid gas, which, when existing in suHi- 
(fient quantity, is destructive to animal life, 
and by emitting, at least during sunshine, oxy- 
gen gas. 

Effect on the Soil, Atmosphere and Climate. — 
"Forest.s," B.ays Profes.sor A. Winchell, of 
Michigan, "a;e the garments of the soil. They 
protect it equally from excessive cold and from 
excessive heat. They shelter the snows from 
the drifting power of the wind, and are thus 
enabled to await the lapse of the rigorous 
Winter, with their feet wrapped in a fleecy 
blanket. Every Autumn they pay back to the 
soil, with interest, all that the soil has ex- 
pended upon them. They fend ofi'the burning 
rays of the Summer sun, and restrain the fer- 
vor of the atmosphere. They shield the soil 
from the evaporative influences, and mtiintain 
an equable degree of humidity. On sloping 
surfaces they bind together the soil, and resist 
the denudations of torrents. 

"All these conditions and results are changed 
when the forest is removed. The sweeping 
blast of Winter strikes the earth with the fury 
of an invisible demon — drives off the natural 
covering of the soil, and exposes the roots and 
.stems of vegetables to an unwonted and often 
insufferable trial. The circumstances of Spring 
time are changed. The soil feels every slight 
fluctuation of temperature — fieezing by night 
and thawing by day — instead of reposing in 
peaceful shelter under its coat of snow till the 
unchanging season is able to guaranty a vege- 
table degree of warmth. And then, when Sum- 
mer comes, the burning sun rapidly drinks up 
the moisture of the soil, and the whole air 
becomes torrid and dry. Instead of a regular 
humidity and gentle rains, the agency of man 
has substituted alternating thirst and floods. 
And, on hill-slopes where the natural ligatures 
of the .soil have been removed, .sudden torrents 
wash it away, and score the earth with ugly 
gorges and ravines." 

Our prairies are subject to the extremes of 
scorching heat in Summer and intense cold in 
Winter. But if one-tenth of the surface was 
covered with trees, the air currents would be 
changed, the temperature would become more 



TREE BELTS FOR FARM PROTECTION. 



337 



uniform, and we should no longer be subjected 
to thoae distressing extremes of heat and cold, 
drouths and storms, so painful to our senses, 
and so often fatal to life 

"Trees have a power," says Judge Knapp, 
"to conduct heat, by which they facilitate its 
pass:ige from the air to the ground in Summer, 
and from the ground to the air in Winter. 
Trees also, like animals, have a specific heat 
of their own, which aids in equalizing the tem- 
perature of the surrounding air. For some 
unexplained reason, connected with vegetable 
life, trees when in full foliage become cold at 
night, often colder than the air, which there- 
fore is also cooled by tliis cause. 

" Forests, by their shade, prevent the radia- 
tion of heat from the ground. The evaporation 
of a large amount of water froui the surface of 
the leaves of trees produces coldness in the air 
in contact with them. It is quite evident, 
therefore, that a forest is a great'equalizer of 
temperature, modifying both the extreme heat 
of Summer and the extreme cold in Winter; 
its removal makes the climate more excessive; 
the range of the thermometer being increased ; 
and many crops, fruits, etc., that could be raised 
under the protection of the forests, are killed, 
either by this excessive heat or extreme 
cold." 

The Wind Blasts of Summer and Winter. — "We 
all know," s.ays Hon. M. L. Duni.ap, in the 
Illinois Horticultural Keport of 1862, "that 
the prevailing wind is from the southwest, 
changing to the eastward before and during the 
great storms, and at their close, shifting to the 
northwest or to the southwest. A due north 
or south wind is but seldom experienced. Or- 
chard and other trees are bent toward the 
northeast during the .Summer growth, by the 
steady pressure of the southwest wind, which 
is almost constant in that direction during the 
season, for six months, commencing with April. 
A steady flow of wind from that direction has 
its origin thousands of miles away, and from 
tlie coast of .Africa to the continent of South 
America, is known as the trade winds, from 
the fact that the current is constant in one di- 
rection, being along the equator to the west." 
This great air current veers to the north, pass- 
ing along the base of the Kockj- mountains, 
whose barriers it can not pas.s, with its im- 
mense volume heated by the glowing sun of 
the tropics, until it reaches Yucatan in its 
northward progress ; thence it crosses into the 
Gulf of Mexico, forming the Gulf Stream; and 
while the eastern fork passes along up the At- 



lantic and gives to western Europe its mild 
climate, the other portion is forced up the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, extending its warm breath 
even as f^ir as Hud.-'on's bay. 

A writer in norihern Illinois, says : "I am 
situated on a high open prairie, about nine 
hundred feet above tide water, and about six 
miles from the woods or timber on the north, 
south, and east, while on the southwest and 
west is a prairie open to the Mississippi, one 
hundred miles distant. Our winds have free 
course, disturbed by no local influence, but 
truly go it with a rush. These winds from the 
southwest are often dry, and are sometimes so 
arid that in their sweep over the soil, vegeta- 
tion is withered before them as if at the touch 
of fire." 

In his report on the destruction of the forest 
trees of Wisconsin, Judge Knapp remarks: 
"Nor is it alone a cold southwe.st wind which 
chills, freezes, congeals, and dries the sap of 
life out of vegetation, that is to be dreaded, 
but equally to be shunned isTlie same south- 
west winil, when, in another portion of the 
year, it becomes as fearfully dry and hot as the 
sirocco from the burning sands of Africa." 

" Early in the Spring, .say to the 1st of June," 
observes Mr. Dunlap, "this southwest wind 
is cold and dam|>, and, when it sweeps over 
the surface, lessens the solar heat, and thus 
seriously retards the growth of vegetation. 
This dampness is imparted to it in part by the 
ocean, but the greater portion is due from the 
melting snow of the Rocky mountain range, 
which is gathered up and aijcuumlated for 
thousands of miles ahmg the plains at their 
base, and following down the valleys of the 
streams, meets and mingles with the trade 
winds, and passing the current to the east, 
gives us a southwest wind, divested of its 
warmth, but augmented in its force. But while 
the trade winds are con.-^tant in their flow, tie 
winds from the north and west are variable ; 
hence the changes that occur from the genial 
days when we have the trade winds coming 
direct from the south, at once cut short by an 
avalajiche of the accumulations of damp and 
cold from the snowy range. Late in the Au- 
tumn the trade winds lose their force, and the 
northwest winds come to us with chilling frost, 
but fortunately in a dry condition, for at that 
season we have no melting snow to charge 
the air with dampness ; and the result is, the 
air is clear, though cold. Under these condi- 
tions, we seldom have drizzlijig rain, or even 
snow, during the close of .\utuuni, while in the 



338 



WOOD FOR THE FARM : 



Spring we have profuse floods of rain from the and sixty tliotisand dollars. This entire loss 
northwest." i might have been prevented hy proper hells of 

Judge Knapp, in a paper read before the trees, and the loss sustained hy that single 
Wisconsin Horticultural Society, in February, ' storm would have paid the expense of a belt 
1S69, thus speakB of the effects of the winds 'of timber upon the west line of every cultiva- 
coming from the Northern Ocean, as a sur- ted eighty-acre lot. 



face current, through the Mississippi wind 
gap: "All northern winds are sunken to the 
lowest points at this great antithermal axis, 
null are then gathered by the Alaska and anti- 



A committee of the Michigan Legislature of 
1866, reported to that body on the subject of 
forest trees, stating that, the previous year the 
loss on all that part of the State lying south of 



clinal range of the Eocky mountains as they , the Michigan Central Railroad-a region de- 
start for the Pacific Ocean, and by the high ' p^^^d of the ameliorating influences of Lake 
lands north of Lake Superior as they start for Michigan upon the southwest side — and com-. 
Wisconsin and Michigan, and altogether are prising the richest agricultural portion of the 
deflected to the same point about the mouth of I State, was estimated at no less than three- 
the Crow Wing, in Minnesota. Consequently fourths of the entire wheat crop! From what 
there is crowded through this gap during Win- j inquiries they had been able to make, the loss 
ter, less than one thousand miles wide, one-, on the wheat crops alone, of that Stale, for the 
half of the whole northern polar current, when last four years, was not less than twenty mil- 
it moves on the surface, and that, too, the lions of dollars. They say that they would be 
coldest wind in the Northern Hemisphere. ' most happy to believe that this enormous loss 
From thence it is floated off in its normal springs from causes evanescent in their nature, 
course over the Slate of Wisconsin, and sends ' and destined speedily to pass away, to return 
our thermometer down to 30° and 40° below ' nevermore. But they feared that these vast 
zero, when by latitude it should never be less losses are but "the beginning of sorrow," and 
than eight degrees above. Thus Wisconsin, that the improvidence which laid open their 
with the same latitudinal position as the four fields to that scourge of God, the southwest 
Northern New England States, has much hotter wind, by the wholesale destruction of their for- 
Sumraers and colder Winters than the corres- j ests, is now only beginning to reap the fruit of 
ponding latitudes of those vStates." that want of forethought ; and that these losses 

Tree Sells to Protect Crops. — These tempestu- can be avoided only by restoring in part, at 
ous winds, reaching sometimes the terrific pro- 1 least, the natural barriers against the wind, 
portions of tornadoes, produce immense dam- j Says General J. T. Worthington, of Chil- 
age to the growing crops and fruits of the coun- ' licothe, Ohio, in the report of the Pomological 
try. Hence the need of shelter belts to ward Society of that State, for 1S64 : " I become 
off the eflfects of these blasts, as well as of these every year more convinced of tlie necessity of 
sudden changes to cold and damp. O. B. Ga- ] belts of trees in our climate of extremes to pro- 
LUSHA, in his recent lecture at the Industrial tect the annual crops from the late frosts, and 
University of Illinois, stated that in the year the fervid suns of July, August, and Septem- 
1862, just previous to the wheat and oat harvest, ber ; and I verily believe that if one-third of 
thirty counties in the northern portion of Illi- ^ the land was devoted to belts of fruit and other 
nois were visited by a severe storm from the 'valuable trees, the remaining two-thirds would 
northwest, which in its destructive sweep pros- j produce as much as the whole without such 
trated nearly all the grain not sheltered by 'shelter, even in average years, ami far more in 
timber. In one instance, a field of grain, lying 'extreme ones; but I fear it is too early to 
east of a line of white willow.s, stood proudly ^ preach planting trees to a generation which 
erect, and was harvested with the reaper, while considers it ' the chief end of man ' to destroy 
all beyond this protecting influence was com- .them." 

pletely prostrated. Nearly all these crops Tree Belts for Orchard Protection. — The scath- 
thronghout that region were hooked up by the ing efiiects of the severe and sirocco-like south- 
slow and laborious process of mowing, and did ^ west winds of Summer, in the great valleys of 
not yield more than half a crop, while much i the Mississippi and Ohio, and the terrible north- 
was left ungathered, and consumed by the fire, west blasts of Winter, are seen and felt ihrougli- 
The total loss of grain in that region, as the out that widely extended region. Orchards 
result of that single storm, was estimated, at in and about groves, produce annually very 
the lowest figures, at five million four hundred good crops, while those without such protection 



TREE BELTS FOR FARM PROTECTION. 



339 



selilom perfect more than lialf a crop, and often 
none at all. Tliis results, according to the re- 
piirt of the Illinois Horticultural Society of 
1S64, (larlly from the blos.soras and fruit being 
wrenched from the trees by the fierce winds, 
and partly from the fact that a given degree 
of cold proves much more disastrous to fruit 
buds or blossoms when accompanied by wind 
than wlien the air is still. The trees, them- 
selves, are the greatest sufferers. They first 
become partially bent over Vty the strong south- 
west winds, so that the rays of tlie sun from 
one to three o'clock fall almost vertically upon 
their naked trunks, which vitiates the sap upon 
that side, producing a strip of dead wood. This 
invites the borer and the aphides or lice, the 
trees become permanently diseased and hasten 
to premature decay. The increase of our fruit 
crops alone would amply repay the cost of their 
protection by screens or belts. 

When the settlements were new, and belt.s of 
woodland laced the entire country, peaches 
flourished in Massachusetts. Says Dr. R C. 
Kedzie, of the Agricultural College, Lansing: 
" The meteorological changes wrought by the 
destruction of the forests in Michigan are well 
ni.-irked. From 1828 to 1841 the peach crop in 
Lenawee county was as reliable as any fruit 
crop. The trees needed no protection and re- 
ceived but little care, and usually bore an enor- 
mous crop, followed by two years of smaller 
product, thus being abundant every tliird year. 
Now, in 1865, this fruit is only raised in situa- 
tions protected in some matiner from southwest 
winds, and the experience for fourteen years 
has been the same as at present. In 18.52, and 
prior thereto, peaches were grown in Ealon 
county, near the center of Michigan, in abund- 
ance, however exjjosed ; at present tliey are a 
rarity, except in guarded places. Thirty years 
ago a frost that would injure the corn in the 
Spring, or during the usual growing months, 
from May to October, was almost unknown ; at | 
present it is an element entering into the calcu- 
lations of every prudent farmer, so frequently 
do such frosts occur. The aspects of the dis- 
trict above referred to have been changed by 
the woodman's ax, and with the last forest 
clearing the peach has failed, until at present 
no reliance can be placed upon it except near 
Lake Michigan." 

A writer in an Ohio paper states, that twenty 
years ago in the southern portion of that State, 
as many as forty bushels of apples were fre- 
quently gathered from a single tree; that there 
were then swamps and ponds near, and the 



country hnd been but slightly cleared, and 
there were dense fogs and heavy dews; but as 
the country became cleared up, swamps and 
ponds drained, fogs and dews rare and droughts 
frequent, apple trees sickened, fruit dropped 
Ofl' prematurely, and the trees lingered awhile 
and finally died, apparently from the influence 
of climatic changes. 

Fruit trees planted in timbered land will 
come into bearing much sooner than those 
planted on prairie land, and there are good 
reasons for it. J. J. Thomas, in his report on 
Timber Screens, made in 1868, to the Western 
New York Horticultural Society, says: "The 
rapid disappearance of the original forests has 
opened most of the country to the sweeping 
blasts and violence of the winds, and both fruit 
trees and farm crops are suffering from their 
effec;s. YoiHig and newly planted orchards are 
severelj' frozen, wlii[>ped about, dried up and 
destroyed, in some instances, by the force of 
the blasts which for several Winter months 
sweep over them." "Screens," says T. G. Ybo- 
MANS, a practical farmer of western New York, 
" are .of great value in growing all kinds of fruit 
trees and plants." 

A. G. TuTTLE read before the Wisconsin 
Horticultural Society, in 1868, an able prize 
essay on the causes of injury and means of 
protection of orchards in the Northwest, in 
which he spoke of the injury to bearing or- 
cliards from severe and long protracted cold ; 
called attention to the fact that extreme heat 
and extreme cold act in a similar manner upon 
plants and trees, and that exhaustive evapora- 
tion is equally injurious, whether produced by 
one or the other of these extremes. An exam- 
ination of the branch of a tree while the mer- 
cury ranges from twenty to thirty degrees be- 
low zero, shows the wood to be reduced to the 
smallest compass possible — a shrinkage — not 
less than would take place if the branch wag 
severed from the tree and exposed to a week of 
Summer heat. This condition, long continued, 
especially if the cold be accompanied by r.ip- 
idly-moving currents of air, effectually drives 
off all moisture from the tree, and so compacts 
the wood that the tree is wholly or partially 
destroyed. That injury does not result to all 
trees alike, is very evident; for while one may 
be constitutionally fitted to endure severe freez- 
ing, another is destroyed by comparatively 
slight cold. The greatest injuries to our or- 
chards have always been produced by a Winter 
of severest cold. 

"What would I advise," continues Mr. Titt- 



340 



WOOD FOR THE FARM: 



TLB, "to mitigate tlie etJects of excessive cold? 
I answer, protection. I am well aware tliat in 
advocating shelter and protection for orchards, 
I am opposing the often-expressed opinions of 
some, that we should plant where they are ex- 
posed to the winds from the cold quarter. 

"The necessity for protection has been recog- 
nized and repeatedly urged as an important 
auxiliary, in the growth of fruit, not only in 
this country, but throughout Europe, where 
the climate is milder, and less subject to ex- 
tremes of heat and cold. Never before have 
the advantages and the necessity of protection 
been called into question. In the Middle and 
Eastern States, it is said to be much more diffi- 
cult to grow fruit now than formerly, and the 
chief reason assigned for this change is, the de- 
struction of forests, which once gave protection 
to their orchards. 

" It is very singular that liere, where the ne- 
cessity for protection is far greater ihan at 
the East, from the fact that we are subject to 
greater extremes of heat and cold, and an al- 
most unlimited sweep of the winds, a practice 
so entirely at variance with all former expe- 
rience, .should have found advocates. Unless 
we deny that the dry winds of Summer, or the 
cutting blasts of Winter result in injurj', it is 
difEcult to see how such a theory could find 
supporters. If a certain degree of cold will 
produce injury, its liability to injury will be 
increased if the cold is accompanied by a strong 
wind. The object of shelter is to arrest the 
drying currents, and modify the debilitating 
effects of injurious evaporation, whether pro- 
duced by heat or cold. If it is trne that pro- 
tection is unnecessary, then our large open 
prairies are just the place fur fruit growing, 
and the heavily-timbered portions of our State 
are unfit for that purpose. Does not all expe- 
rience teach us to the contrary? We need 
shelter from the hot, drying winds of Summer, 
frequently, while the trees are in bloom, or at 
the time the fruit is setting. A strong wind, 
dry and hot, from the southwest, sweeps over 
them, causing excessive evaporation at a time 
when the tree is lieavily taxed to support its 
blooming and the forth-coming foliage. The 
result is, a partial or total destruction of the 
crops. The injury to the crop from this cause 
is much more frequent than from late Spring 
frosts. 

" Protection on the northwest and west against 
the severe cold, and on the southwest to shield from 
the drying winds of Spring and Summer, is abso- 
lutely necessary." 



Mr. TuTTLE said, at a subsequent meeting of 
the Wisconsin Horticultural Society, that he 
I'ound that there were great diflerences between 
the fruits growing on tiji.ber lands and those 
on open prairie, and he had noticed several de- 
grees in the difference of temperature, depend- 
ing on the location, whether rolling or level, 
protected by trees or unprotected. 

Says Mr. TnoMAS; "IsAAC PuLLEN, a well- 
known nurseryman at Hightstown, New York, 
showed me last Summer llS64) several belts of 
evergreens which had sprung up from his 
nursery rows to a height of twenty-five or 
thirty feet in ten years, and he slated that 
within the shelter of these screens his nursery 
trees, as well as farm crops, averaged fifty per 
cent more than on bleak and exposed places." 

Judge J. G. Knapp, in his exhaustive Re- 
port on Forest Trees to the Legislature of Wis- 
consin,, in 1867, says: "Timber protection is 
absolutely necessary for the successful cultiva- 
tion of certain crops and fruit trees." lie cites 
a terrible hot, dry wind, almost sirocco-like, 
thatswept over a considerable portion of south- 
ern Wiscon.sin and northern Illinois, on the 
14th and 15th of June, 1861, when fruit trees, 
especially the more tender and valuable kinds, 
were injured, the leaves, and even young twigs 
being blasted and killed, and the fruit torn 
from the stems, and the injury to fruit and or- 
namental trees was much augmented by the 
mechanical eflect of the violent wind, switch- 
ing about the branches and leaves. Judge 
Knapp states that orchards and crops protected 
by a sufficient belt of trees on the south and 
southwest side were found to be uninjured; and 
the damage resulting from this one storm 
was, doubtless, equal to the cost of such pro- 
tection around a very great number of farms. 

Best Trees for Belts. — With the 

single view of an effective protection, ever- 
greens are confessedly the best. Ketaining 
their foliage throughout the year, they form 
the most perfect screens. Deciduous trees may 
be planted so thi<!kly as, in a measure, to give 
this protection, yet one row of thickly-planted 
evergreens, with their branches starting from 
the very base of their trunk.s, will do it more 
effectively than three rows of deciduous trees, 
occupying three times the quantity of land. 
Norway spruce, red cedar, American arbor 
vitae, white, Scotch, and American pines, make 
an average growth of about twenty inches — in 
some instances, the white pine has made a 
growth of four feet in a single season. 



BEST TREES FOR BELTS. 



341 



Other evergreen varieties are hardv, and 
may be planted with profit, svich as balsam fir, 
our native spruces, yellow and gray pines. 
The balsam especially grows rapidly, and has 
the darkest, richest foliage of any of the vari- 
eties named, retaining its color through Win- 
ter; but as it is liable to lose its lower branches 
afler the tree has attained a height of about 
flirty feet, it should not be planted alone; inter- 
spersing with spruces would impart a pleasing 
effect. One writer asserts that the hemlock, 
despised as it has been, is preferable to other 
evergreens for belting purposes, from the fact 
that its branches are shorter, more compact, 
and will bear shortening in better, It seldom 
attains so large a growth in open fields as other 
evergreens, but is amply large for an effective 
tree belt. An advantage in resinous trees is, 
that they exude a fragrant resinous odor, 
healthful to man, but disagreeable to most 
insects. 

It may be added, as an objection to ever- 
greens, that cattle are apt to browse them con- 
siderably in Winter, unless kept in the stable, 
where they ought to be; and, as a recommen- 
dation of them, that tbey injure the ground 
less than deciduous trees. 

Experience with Evergreen Screens. — Samuel 
Ki>WARDS, President of the Northern Illinois 
Horticultural Society, wrote in January, 1869: 
"My first evergreens for orchard screens were 
set some twelve or fifteen years since, and were 
white pine which answer well. The first Nor- 
way spruce screen for this purpose was set in 
the Spring of 1860; a double row, ten feet 
ajiart, and the same distance in the row, alter- 
nating, trees in one row opposite the space in 
the other. They are planted on all sides oC 
the orchard, and fifteen rods apart; the rows 
running north and south. A single row is set 
in the place of a row of fruit trees. 

A pear orchard of near five hundred trees has 
smaller squares, divided off by evergreens. 
Tbey appear to endure our Winters much bet- 
ter when thus protected. Scarce any apples 
are now planted here, except such as endured 
the bard Winter of 1855, -'56; but I am be- 
ginning to set some of the best varieties wbicli 
were injured then, and am confident, with 
the shelter, and working in limbs on hardy 
stocks, tbey will succeed. Apple and pear trees 
among evergreens, have here borne full crops, 
when others standing near, without protection, 
had mostof tlieir blossoms destroyed by Spring 
frost. Many of our farmers are buying ever- 
greens of small size by the thousand, and 



growing them for screens. Whenever they are 
generally pl.inted, we will see their full benefit, 
in a marked amelioration of severity of our 
Winters. 

Elijah Weeks, near Fryeburg, New Hamp- 
shire, one of the coldest places in the country, 
says he preserved some dwarf pears during a 
severe winter by simply placing some spruce 
trees, with their thick, low limbs, in holes dug 
on three sides of the pear trees and binding 
the lops together, Commenling on ibis fict, 
an agricultural editor remarks: For tender 
trees, especially the pear and plum in a cold 
climate like the above, it is well to set a thick 
double row or belt of evergreens upon the 
windward sides. Often a forest can be so 
cleared np as to leave a belt of trees, open, at 
most, on the south side. Trees planted in such 
an enclosure will be much less liable to freeze 
out than if fully exposed to the fierce blasts of 
Winter. Such winds are much modified and 
softened by being si/ted through a forest or belt 
of evergreens. Spruce or hemlock boughs, 
bound around the branches of young trees, as 
above described, are the best means of protect- 
ing them for the time being, but as they in- 
creiise in size, it is more difficult to cover them. 

Heietofore, says the Horticulturist, planting 
evergreens among orchards of fruit trees has 
been deemed incongruous, and undeserving the 
attention of planters, or as presenting a care- 
less waste of land without system, or order, in 
arrangement. From some observations we 
have made this season, however, and from 
records of several of our correspondents, we 
predict that it will be but a few years before we 
shall find many orchards interspersed irregu- 
larly with evergreen trees. Closer planting 
than he retofore reconwnended, we have no 
doubt, will prevail, as our fruit growers study 
the devastating effects of too great exposure of 
the young trees to wind and sun. In most 
sections this year, while fruit bloomed and .set 
abundantly, gradually, little by little, it has 
dropped, until many a grower, who in early 
Summer counted on busbeLs, can now count 
fruit only by the dozens. We have watched 
this falling of the fruit pretty carefully, and 
while we have no doubt that too great an 
amount of bloom impaired the vitality and was 
the first cause of failure, yet observation has 
taught us that trees partially shaded and 
screened by evergreens, or by close planliuL; 
with other trees, have retained their fruit, as a 
rule, better than those more exposed to the full 
rays of the sun, at all points, and the wiiliering 



342 



WOOD FOR THE FARM: 



blasts of wind, no matter from what quarter 
Horticulturists at the West have for some 
time advocated hedge screens as a protection 
to their orchards, and we have no desire to un- 
dervalue them, while at the same time we 
would, in planting an orchard of five hundred 
trees, make one-fifth the number evergreens. 

At the time the orchard is set, says a north- 
ern Iowa farmer, a screen should be planted 
on the north and west sides. A row of Scotch 
i>iue set six feet apart, or a row of Norway 
spruce set four feet apart, will make a beautiful 
and effective screen by the lime the trees come 
into bearing, if given good cultivation ; and 
young trees can be bought by the thousand 
very cheap. A. good and cheaper screen can 
be made by planting two or three rows of the 
acorns of the common black or scrub-oak, 
which retains its leaves all Winter, and with 
good cultivation will grow quite rapidly. 

We may cite a very successful orchard in 
central Wisconsin, located in Devil Lake Val- 
ley — a noted lake of very deep water, without 
apparent outlet, surrounded and protected by 
the Baraboo blufTs, some two or three hundred 
feet, and the lake and its valley are situated at 
a very considerable elevation above the Bara- 
boo and Wisconsin valleys. The success in 
this instance arose from the complete and close 
protection of the orchard. 

Elevated localities are really colder than 
their latitude would indicate. Every three 
hundred feet elevation, observes Judge Knapp, 
is equal to an additional degree, which, for 
instance, would place Madison, Wisconsin, at 
one thousand feet above the level of the sea, 
more than three degrees, in efTect, farther 
north than it really is, both as to heated at- 
mosphere in Summer and cold in Winter. To 
this rule, however, there are exceptions and 
modifications. These elevated regions need 
tree belts to protect their fruit trees, grapes, 
and all exposed perennials from the severe 
colds to which they are exposed in Winter. 
To surround an orchard with hedges of ever- 
green, says another, is to make a climate equal 
to one or two hundred miles farther south. 

Propagation of Evergreens- — Evergreens are 
regarded as difficult to rai.se from the seed, and 
some of them seem to require shade to insure 
their success. The smallest evergreen-seeds 
should not be planted more than the fourth of 
an inch deep, and this is performed by sifting 
fine mold over them to this depth. The larger 
pine-.seeds may be placed say half an inch to 
an inch deep. Cultivation and mulching are 



necessary. Nurserymen who study their ap- 
propriate soils anil habitats, best succeed in 
supplying the market. 

The ground should be prepared by trench 
plowing or snbsoiling in the Autumn, or deep 
and thorough plowing in the Spring. Early 
Spring is the best time for planting all vari- 
eties of evergreens, though they may be re- 
moved with little loss at any time during the 
the Spring and Summer months. If in the 
laller, a damp cloudy day .should be selected 
for the work. From one to three feet high is a 
very good size. In removing evergreens pains 
should be taken to preserve as many of the 
roots as possible, without mutilating them or 
splitting them at the collar. The roots should 
be dipped in mud, previously prepared, as .soon 
as taken from the ground, and packed with 
damp straw or mo.ss about them, being care- 
ful to prevent their exposure to the sun or dry 
air, for if the small roots are once allowed to 
get dry, the trees can not be relied upon to sur- 
vive — even fifteen minutes' expo.sure in a dry 
atmosphere would prove fatal to very many 
trees. In planting, pains should be taken to 
have a mellow bed for the roots, which should 
he spread out with the extremities lower than 
the collar, filling all the interstices with tine 
earth. Pre.ss the dirt moderately upon the 
roots, and cultivate thoroughly with the plow 
for the first four years ; after which a thorough 
mulching of straw, once in two years, will be 
sufficient. Treated in this manner, not one 
tree in forty will die. 

Norway spruce is a perfectly hardy tree, 
costs about twenty dollars per hundred, and 
should be set twelve or fifteen feet apart each 
way. Pines should not be .set closer than six- 
teen feet; or in rows ten feet apart, with the 
trees ten feet apart in the rows, so when suffi- 
ciently large to interfere, to cut out each alter- 
nate tree. Red cedar and arbor vitse which cost 
about ten dollars per hundred, and other ever- 
greens, may be planted more closely. A single 
row of Norway spruce, or White pine, planted 
five to ten feet apart, and well cared for, will 
soon furnish a barrier that will protect crops 
and fruits very much ; but two rows, ten or 
twelve feet asunder, will do it more perfectly. 

Deeiduons Bells. — In treating of timber cul- 
ture, the proper mode of raising deciduous 
trees, and the most suitable kinds for timber 
belts, were sufficiently considered. It is the 
opinion of some, that a heavier growth may be 
obtained from a given extent of land by inter- 
mingling different kinds, each of which may 



WHERE TO PLACE BELTS. 



343 



draw different ingredients from the soil, or 
extend llieir roots into the eartli at different 
deptlis. "The ash," says C. W. Johnson, 
"and more particularly the locust, are very ob- 
roxious to most trees. Then, again, the group- 
ing together of certain trees are particularly 
grateful to them all. Thus, the larch is a very 
g(jod neighbor; the Scotch fir, the birch, and the 
Spanish chestnut grow very luxuriantly with 
it ; tlie oak, the elm, the hazel, and the horn- 
beam are very good neigbors." Some recom- 
mend the planting, alternately, a row of ever- 
greens and a row of deciduous trees. As a 
general rule, three rows form a good belt — and 
the deciduous trees generally eight to ten feet 
apart in tlie rows, the middle row being set so 
as to be opposite the center of the space be- 
tween the others. Where land is plenty, and 
fuel and timber are had in view, four or five 
rows of deciduous trees, and two rows of ever- 
greens to the west or north of them, would be 
desirable. 

The timber belts, if sufficiently numerous, may 
be made to furnish the fuel and timber needful 
for home consun)ption, thus answering a double 
purpose. Nay, more, these very belts may be 
also made to contribute largely to the luxuries 
and comforts of the farmer's home. "If my 
eighty acres of woodland," says Horace Gree- 
ley, "were bare to-day, I would have a corner 
of it planted with sugar maple." Plant the 
sugar maple in the tree belt; on an acre of 
ground, or its equivalent in the belt, you may 
liave, twenty or twenty-five years after plant- 
ing, one hundred and sixty trees one foot in di- 
ameter, which will yield ten pounds of sugar 
each, or sixteen hundred pounds, worth at least 
fifteen cents per pound — $250; or, deducting 
three-fourths for labor and expenses, leaving 
$62 50. This would be its minimum annual 
yield for fifty years or more. 

Or, plant the ash-leafed maple, a handsome 
tree, and valuable for protection, which has the 
merit of being a much more rapid grower tlun 
the .sugar or hard maple — making an average 
growth of about four feet per year, forming a 
beautiful compact head, and is rich in .saccha- 
rine matter, making an abundance of light- 
ciilored, well-grained sugar, almost identical in 
flavor with that made from the hard maple 
From about ten gallons of the sap of the a^h- 
leafed maple, two pounds of excellent sugar, 
and about half a pint of syrup, were produced. 
"The tree," says one, "is Very hardy, and a 
rapid grower, and will do to tap at ten or 
twelve years old;" while another a.sserts, that 



it will be large enough to be tapped in from 
six to eight years after transplanting." 

Plant nut-growing trees, black walnuts, but- 
ternuts, chestnuts, hickories, and pecans in 
their latitude, and rai.se valuable timber from 
them, and plenty of rich nuts at the same time. 
The black walnut throws down a tap root, 
rendering it unadapted to transplanting; and 
hence, with most other nuts, had best be planted, 
immediately after dropping in the Autumn, 
where they are wanted in the tree belt. Plant 
the.se nuts in rows eight feet apart, and four 
feet apart in the rows, subsequently thinning 
out every other tree. Nuts should be planted 
near the surface, covering them with coarse 
chips or straw, and the roots will spread upon 
the top of the ground. Butternuts, or white 
walnut trees, twelve years old, will often meas- 
ure twelve inches in diameter. 

Beside the crops of potatoes, beans, peas, and 
corn, that can be produced the first few years 
among the trees forming the belt, blackberries 
and raspberries can be raised to good advantage, 
as shade is iheir natural habitat, and blackber- 
ries particularly often fail because of too much 
sun exposure. E. Moody .stated, at the meet- 
ing of the VVesfern New York Horticultural So- 
ciety, in January, 1869, that he had a row of 
raspberries, part of which was protected by 
evergreens ; the protected part had four times 
as nnich fruit in the same space as the unpro- 
tected portion. 

Where to Place Belts.— If we make 

shelter belts to protect our fields from the cold 
of Spring and early Summer, we must plant 
them on the southwest approaches; if for Au- 
tumn and Winter, on the northwest. In divid- 
ing the Western States into section.?, it would 
have been much better had the surveyors run the 
range lines ntirtheast instead of, as now, to the 




north. A farm thus laid out would have pre- 
sented a square front to the two prevailing 



344 



WOOD FOR THE FARM: 



winds — that of the southwest, which occurs dur- 
ing at least three-fourths of the year, and the 
chilling, biting blasts of Winter, from the north- 
west. In this case belts would be required only 
on two sides of the farm ; but, as the sections are 
laid out, many of the farmers of the Mississippi 
and Ohio valleys must plant on the south, the 
west, and the north, leaving the farm open to the 
east. In some localities, where one of these ap- 
proaches is naturally shielded by a range of hills 
or natural forest, a belt in that direction would 
be comparatively superfluous. In the Kastern 
and Middle States, and in some portions of the 
West, belts need be placed only on the north 
and wei^t. 

How Far will a Tree Belt Pro- 
tectl — A mature tree belt, properly located 
and grown, will somewliat protect the wliole 
area of a quarter-section farm; for it will lift 
the wind ofif its feet, so to spciik, so thoroughly 
that it will with difficulty regain its hold. But 
the rule, confirmed by practical experience is, 
that a belt will turn the wind from land ade- 
quately, only a distance of eleven times its 
height; that is, a belt forty feet high will pro- 
tect crops on the leeward side, for a lateral dis- 
tance of four hundred and forty feet. But a 
belt will also screen crops on the windward 
side for at least five times its height — that is, 
the back-set or reflex protection is equal to one- 
half the direct protection. This is on the 
principle that water within a mill-dam is com- 
pressed into quietness, and air on the windward 
side of a hill, when the wind blows at right 
angles, is generally calm and equable. 

From this rule, it follows. that a square farm 
of forty acres would be adequately protected by 
two tree belts forty feet high, set at the same 
angle against the prevailing wind, one within 
the other, and six hundred feet apart. If a 
belt can be set on a ridge, it will, of course, fur- 
nish considerable additional defense. 

Nu Wa^leLand Involved. — To equip an exposed 
farm with ample tree belts, involves no waste 
of land — for they need not occupy the area that 
ought to be covered with wood on every farm. 
To fulfill the various requirements of fuel, 
moisture, health, and shelter, one-fifth of the 
whole country should be devoted to wood. 
This is sufficient to put a compact belt .seven 
rods wide, along two sides of every forty acres 
of land. Such a width gives ample room in 
each belt for ten rows of trees, planted quincunx, 
and it is desirable that these should present 



some variety. The outer row should be of ce- 
dar, or some densely-growing evergreen; then 
two rows of hickories may find room; the mid- 
dle rows may be the taller sorts of pines, Scotch 
larch, or Norway spruce; the belt finishing, on 
its inner side, witli deciduous trees, for fruit or 
fuel and timber, according to need or fancy. 

Thus, it appears that not only does the belt 
waste no land, but it actually should be a 
source of additional revenue. With proper 
belts the number of our agricultural products 

I might be more varied ; the annual profit of 
the crops now cultivated would be increased; 
the quality of those crops would be improved; 
the health, comfort, and enjoyment of both 
" man and beast" would be promoted; and with 

! judicious management, these tree belts would 
very soon yield an annual income, that would 
amply repay their cost, in addition to all their 
incidental advantages. Without them, there 
are States in the West wherein neither fruit 

! nor wheat can ever be relied on for a certain 
harvest. 



FUEL— WOOD, COAL, AND PEAT. 
Heating' Values of Different 

Kinds of Wood. — A great mistake exists 
in the minds of n)in as to the relative values 
of diflerent woods as to their ability to produce 
heal. Certain kinds of wood are preferred by 
the purchaser because, when he has to pay for 
preparing and handling wood to burn, he 
wishes it as solid and as lasting aa he can ob- 
tain it. But the lower rates at which he may 
obtain other wood than hickory and hard ma- 
ple, may, on examination, prove to him that it 
is economy even to buy, prepare, and use a 
greater quantity of other kinds. 

Marcus Bull, of Philadelphia, has con- 
firmed the following table, arriving at results 
nearly similar. His experiments went to prove 
that four cords of hickory wood, four and three- 
fourths of white oak, six and two-thirds of 
hard maple, seven and one-fifth of soft maple, 
nine and one-fifth of white pine, or nine and 
one-seventh of pitch pine, give out as much 
heat as four tons of anthracite coal. A knowl- 
edge of these facts should aid those who pur 
chase their fuel, in determining which is the 
cheapest for them at any given time, and in 
any market. 

The table records the result of a series of 
careful experiments instituted by Count RtJM- 



FUEL WOOD, COAL, AND PEAT. 



345 



FORD, to ascertain the comparative value of 
different kinds of wood for fuel: 



Kinds of Wood. 


Value 
as Fuel. 


Proportion of 
Chiircoal per 
im parts of 

WoOil. 




ino 

»5 

Kl 
81 

77 

71 

i 

Ii3 
60 

ir. 

5.1 
54 
54 

52 
51 

48 

43 
42 
40 


2r..;2 


I'i^^iMii Hi. li.>iy 


25.22 






Kt..li,..:.n U.ck-.iv 


22.SIU 
25.74 














Pill (lai. 




R!:r;„k" :■■■:::::::::■;::;: 




111:., k \\;,l,,i,t 

Uf.cli. ■.. Iiil. 

BiMl,, lihi.k ^lUil y.ll.ji. 


22 M 
1SI.B2 
19.411 
21.711 










I!..lc--I,n 

W iM 1 li.ir. 


24.35 
21.70 


T.il.l,.. li.Mnni, A V ll"« 


■.Vpiar 


23.75 
21.61 
















21..^) 











The Loss Suffered In Oreen 
Wood. — Many people imagine that green 
wiiod yields more heat than dry. This is im- 
possible, since a portion of the heat is required 
to vaporize the water, and escapes as latent 
heat in the steam thus produced. Dry wood 
is nut <inly luucli more pleasant to use, but is 
really more economical. The quantity of sap 
or water in green wood newly cut, varies from 
twenty to fifty per cent. With a year's air 
exposure it parts with about half its water; 
fifteen per cent, more may be expelled by arti- 
ficial heat, but it only loses the last of its mois- 
ture as it begins to decompose or char. The 
pre.sence of water in wood diminishes its fuel 
value by hindering and delaying the combust- 
ive process, and wasting heat by evaporation. 
Suppose that one hundred pounds of wood 
conlain thirty of water, they have then but 
seventy of true combustive material; and when 
burned, one pound of the wood will be ex- 
pended in raising the temperature of the water 
to the boiling point, and six more in con- 
verting it into vapor, making a loss of seven 
pounds of real wooil, or one-tenth of the com- 
bustive force. Besides this dead loss of ten 
per cent, of fuel, the water present is an an- 
ni>yance by hindering free and rapid combus- 
tion. 

S. D. NE\VBRO,of Ingham county, Michigan, 
writes to the American Agriculturist to the fol- 
lowing effect ; That by careful experiment he 
finds green beech and maple wood, cut in the 



Winter, and kiln-dried, or thorouglily sea- 
soned, to lose three-eighths of its original 
weight; that a cubic foot of either kind in the 
green state weighs about sixty pounds on an 
average, there being a difference between 
the butt-end and top-ends of a log, and some 
trees are closer and firmer grained than others; 
that a full cord of such green wood wciglis 
about 7,680 pounds, but if 1,680 pounds, /. e. 
a little over one-fifth, be deducted for the o(ien 
spaces in wood, as usually corded, it leaves 
6,000 pounds as the weight of a cord of four- 
loot green wood, or 4,500 pounds for three-foot 
wood, or 2,250 pounds for eighteen-inch wcjod. 
Practically, the experiments show that ^'re cort/s 
of green wood are as heavy as eight dried; that it 
requires as much physical force, man and horse 
power, to move fifty cords of green wood as eighty 
of dried wood; and that the nmn who carries into 
his house ten cords of four-fool green wood carries 
in with it over eleven tons of water. Sixty pounds 
of green wood will warm a room the same as 
thirty -eight pounds of dried ; and the sixty 
pounds of green wood, while burning, di.s- 
charges into the fire, in the form of vapor, just 
twenty-two pound.'*, or two gallons and three 
quarts of water, which, in changing to steam, 
carries ofT a great amount of heat in a latent, 
useless stale. 

The Test of Value.— The value of 
fuel, as a heating material, is determined by 
the amount of water which a pound will raise 
to a given temperature; thus one poiuiil u. guiij 
wood will convert forty pounds of ice to boil- 
ing water, while a pound of coal will thus heat 
nearly eighty pounds of ice-cold water; hence> 
pound for pound, coal is as good again for mere 
heating purposes, as wood is as good again as 
peat, which is the product of sedges, weeds, 
rushes, mosses, etc. 

Varieties of Fuel Compared. — Some woods 
are softer and lighter than others, tlie harder 
and heavier having their fibers more densely 
packed together. But the same species of wood 
may vary in density, according to the ccjudi- 
tions of its growth — those growing in loresis, 
or in rich, wet grounds, being less consoli- 
dated than such as stand in open-field expos- 
ures, or grow slowly upon dry, barren soils. 

Wood is the heallhiest fuel, because it inn- 
tains a large amount of oxygen ; coal has none, 
hence in burning it, the oxygen necessary Tor 
its combustion must be supplied from the air 
of the room, leaving it "clo.sely" oppressive. 
Wood alone should be used in heating sleeping 



346 



WOOD FOR THE FARM: 



apartments. A ooal fire will go out unless it 
has a cimslant and large suiiply of air, while 
wood, with comparatively little, having a large 
BUpply within itself, turns to "live coals.' 
Close-grained, lieavy wood, like hickory and 
oak, give out the mo.st heat; while pine and 
poplar, being open-grained, heat up the 
quickest- 

Another Table of Values. — The weight of 
wood to tlie cord, and the time, in hours and 
minutes, during which ten degrees of heat were 
maintained in a room by the combustion of one 
jionnd of each of the principal kinds most used 
fur fire-wood, together with their comparative 
values, sliellbark hickory being taken as the 
standard, is given in the following table: 




The amount of heat produced by one pound 
oT each kind of wood does not greatly vary, so 
that for convenience we may consider the heat- 
ing power of each kind the same, pound for 
pound. 

Thus it will be seen tliat a cord of sliellbark 
liickory weighs about twice as much as a ton of 
coal — which measures twenty-eight bushels and 
weighs two thousand two hundred and forty 
pounds. Experiments already adverted to, 
show that a pound of anthracite coal is equal 
in producing heat to two pounds of sliellbark 
liickory. Coal at ten — perhaps even twelve 
dollars per ton — is as cheap as shellbark hick- 
ory wood or its equivalent of other kind.s, at 
ten dollars a cord. It would be much more 
equitable if wood was thoroughly dry, to sell it 
by the pound, as is the custom in France. 

Coal as Fuel. — Coal gives evidence of 
having been derived from an ancient vegetation, 
which was by some unknown means buried in 
the earth, and there slowly charred; the pro- 
perties of the different varieties depending 
upon the degree to which this charring pro- 
cess has been carried. In anthracite, which is 
the densest and stoniest of all, it seems to have 
reached its last .stage; the volatile substances 



are nearly all expelled, so that nothing remains 
but pure carbon, with a trace of sulphur, and 
the incombustible ash. The bituminous variety 
has undergone a less vigorous charring opera- 
tion, and still contains bitumen or pitch, a sub- 
stance rich in hydrogen ; this ignites readily, 
and burns with much flame and smoke. Its 
heat is far less violent than that of anthracite. 
The residue left after charring, is called coke. 

Sow to Sum Coal. — 1. To make a coal fire ; 
put in a double handful of shavings, or use 
kindling wood instead. Fill tlie earthen cavity 
(if the stove has one) nearly full of chunks of 
dry wood, say four or six inches in length. On 
the top put about a dozen lumps of egg coal. 
In ten minutes add about twenty lumps more 
of coal. As soon as the wood has burned out, 
fill the cavity half to two-thirds full of coal. 
The fire will be a good one. The coal, will, by 
these directions, become thoroughly ignited. 

2. Never fill a stove more than half or two- 
thirds full of coal even in the coldest weather. 

3. When the fire is low, never shake the grate 
or disturb the ashes, but add from ten to fifteen 
small lumps of coal, and set the draft open. 
When these are healed through, and somewhat 
ignited, add the amount necessary for a new 
fire, but do not disturb the ashes yet. Let the 
draft be open half an hour. Now shake out 
the ashes. The Coal will be thoroughly ignited 
and will keep the stove at a high heat from six 
to twelve hours, according to the coldness of 
the weather. 4. For very cold weather. After 
the fire is made, according to rules first and 
third, add every hour twelve or twenty lumps 
of coal. You will find that the ashes made 
each hour will be in about that rate. 

The art of burning coal is not properly un- 
derstood as it ought to be. Too much coal is 
usually placed in the stove, by which the 
draught is destroyed, and the gases are im- 
perfectly consumed. There are two errors in 
the way we burn coal, by which more than one- 
half is wasted. First, we have to shut the door 
of our stove or furnace to make a temporary 
overcumbustion at one time, and at another 
time we li.ave to leave open the door and let in 
cold air to cool off. Second, the gas that as- 
cends our chimneys carries oflTwith it a deal of 
coal that is unbnrned, merely coal in vapor, 
which gives out little heat for want of air to 
consume it. We lose the most of the uncon- 
sumed vapor of coal when the door is shut. 
When it is open the vapor is consumed, but the 
heat is reduced by a flood of cold air, and car- 
ried up the chimney. What is required then 



COAL AS A FUEL. 



347 



is an air-tlglit door over the ash pit, t}iioiiyli 
whii'h you can let in just wliat air is ncci-'ssury 
fur quick ur slow combustion as desired. The 
door tiiat admits the coal should be tight, and 
should never be opened, except to put coal in. 
A small flue should admit a stream of air, 
heated by contact with the stove, to mix with 
the gas on top of the lire. In buying a stove, 
if you lind that the stove or furnace door must 
be lel't open when you want to moderate your 
file, reject it, for it is essentially wrong in its 
construction, and it will consume three tons of 
coal where one would answer if the draft door 
was air-tight. 

There is an economy in the use of coal that 
is not generally known, which maybe employed 
to great advantage. We allude to the consump- 
tion of the ashes and cinders, without sifting, 
either in grate or stove, by which one-third, if 
not one-half, of the fuel may be saved, without 
diminishing the heat. Instead of tlirowing 
away the ashes and cinders, as is universally 
the case, have a water-tight vessel or box, into 
which they should be mixed with water, until 
forming a thick mortar or paste. A lew lumps 
of coal fairly ignited, with a thick layer of this 
compost, superimposed, will make a first-rate 
fire, and continue to burn as long as, or longer 
than, a grate or siove fired with coal, the lux- 
ury of a blaze being alone wanting, but none 
of the properties of heat. The trouble is tri- 
fling, and the whole process, which may be 
performed in a common ash pan, is not greater 
than the removal of the ashes, and casting them 
out of doors. The prudent housewife will soon 
perceive that she has been throwing away the 
best properties of the coal, and this economy 
peculiarly addresses itself to those occupying 
rooms above a first floor. 

Feat. — Beds of peat are found scattered all 
over the northern portions of our country, and 
are cpiite inexhaustible. Peat consists of a 
Bolidified form of vegetable matter, wliich, when 



ilried in the sun or compressed by machinery, 
burns like bituminous coal. It is cut out in 
blocks about twice the size of a common brick, 
and is soft, resembling lard or butter. It is 
then pressed in a machine, and afterward dried 
in the sun, or under sheds to keep the rain and 
dews from it, and is ready for market. It dries 
in about a week, and attains almost the density 
of coal. For burning purposes it far excels bi- 
tuminous coal, and burns without a disagreea- 
ble odor, leaving a white ash. It has been tried 
(m railroad locomotives, and in forges and 
founderies, and has given a greater degree of 
heat, pound for pound, than the best anthracite 
or bituminous coal. The great problem in the 
economical use of peat is, the invention of ma- 
chinery by which it can be cheaply and rapidly 
prepared for use. 

Other Articles of Fuel. — Charcoal is the part 
tliat remains, when wood has been slowly 
burned in pits or close vessels, with but a 
limited supply of air, so that all its volatile 
or gaseous elements are expelled. Wood yields 
from fifteen to twenty-five per cent, of its 
weight in charcoal — the more the process is 
hastened, the less the product. It ignites read- 
ily, and consumes rapidly, producing a larger 
amount of heat than equal weights of any other 
fuel ; one pound of wood charcoal raising from 
the freezing to the boiling point seventy-thiee 
pounds of water, while one pound of mineral 
coal will thus raise but sixty pounds of water, 
and one pound of dry wood, thirty-five pounds. 
While all kinds of charcoal are alike as to 
color, a ton of pine charcoal will last but sev- 
enty-five days, while a ton of maple charcoal 
will last one hundred and fourteen days, and 
a ton of oak charcoal, one hundred and six- 
ty-six. 

Alcoliol, turpentine, gas, resin, kerosine, and 
various oils, are used to a limited extent for 
heating purposes, but require no particular 
notice. 



LIVE STOCK; 



Horses, Cattle, Sheep, and Hogs; Breeding, Feeding, Care and 
Management. 



In this chapter we shall treat of those do- 
mestic animals which are bred and kept upon 
the farm. Proper attention to Live Stock lias 
already been spoken of as lying at the foundation 
of successful agriculture. Culley, an English 
writer, said, almost a hundred years ago: "A 
knowledge of stock is, at this period of im- 
provement, as necessary for the farmer as the 
proper cultivation of a field for wheat, barley, 
turnips, or any other crop. For, according to 
the present improved system of farming,there 
is such a connection between the cultivation of 
the ground and breeding, rearing, and fattening 
cattle, sheep, and other domestic animals, that 
a man will make but an indifferent figure in 
rural affairs if he does not understand the lat- 
ter as well as the former." 

The horse and neat cattle, the sheep, hog, 
and goat have been known from the dawn of 
civilization, and were mentioned by almost all 
the ancient writers. 

There appears to have been no horned cattle 
in cither division of this continent prior to its 
discovery. The first were imported by Colum- 
bus in 1493. Lieutenant Gibbon, in his Ex- 
ploration of the Valley of the Amazon, says: 
" Wl-.en the cattle came among the Indians 
they knew not what to make of them. There 
were no such animals in their wild lands. The 
fierce tiger and the poi.sonous serpent which (hey 
worshiped, were outdone. The cow interfered 
with the belief they previously had, that the 
largest animals were God's favorites, particu- 
larly those which had the greatest means for 
active aggression or self-defense. The cow 
helped to change such a religion. By degrees 
they learned that she neither bit, clawed, nor 
etung; that she carried a bag full of milk; that 
her teeth were given her to cut the pampa 
grass, and not to devour the flesh of a human 

(348) 



being; that she was docile and friendly to 
man, and not his enemy. The Jesuit mission- 
aries taught the Indians how to milk the cow 
and liow to use her milk. They soon learned 
how to tend cattle, to lasso them, and to yoke 
them by the horns, so that tliey might drag 
along a bundle of driftwood from the edge of 
the river to the middle of the plain. In this 
way they kept cattle near them, while herdij 
roamed through the pampas, became wild, and 
are now so scattered through the lands that it 
is difficult to count them." 

The wild horse of America is also, doubtless, 
of Spanish origin, and of the Andalusian breed. 
In this the authorities generally agree. From 
the chargers that escaped from thecalvacade of 
De Soto and bold South American adventurers, 
liavc come 'he wild race of the pampas and 
the prairies. 

The first cattle received by the Plymouth 
Colony came over in the ship Charity, in 1624, 
a sort of Devon, imported by Governor WiNS- 
Low. Two or three years later, the Dutch 
took cattle to New York, and the Danes a yel- 
low breed to New Hampshire, and from crosses 
of these, and later arrivals, have come the 
present so-called "native" stock of New Eng- 
land. So important were the early acquisitions 
of stock considered, that an order appears to 
have been issued in Virginia forbidding the 
killing of domestic animals on the pain of 
death to the principal, burning of the hand and 
cropping of the ears of the accessory, and a 
sound whipping of twenty-four hours to the 
concealer of the facts. This was encourage- 
ment with a vengeance to (he raising of cattle, 
and it had the intended effect. 

Few, even of those directly engaged in the 
raising and feeding of live stock, are aware of 
the enormous value of this source of the farm- 



TO ESTIMATE LIVE WEIGHT — BREEDS AND BREEDING. 



3i9 



ei's wealth. From the census reports of 1850 
and 1860, we find that there were within our 
borders: 



Hii 



Jn 1<-<1,.. 



Of cattle, alone, according to the estimate of 
Mr. YouATT, not less than 1,600,000 head are 
consigned to the butcher every year in Great 
Britain, wliile the entire value of the national 
live stock is §600,000,000 We have in Amer- 
ica about twije as many neat cattle as Great 
Britain, the same number of sheep, and ten 
times as many swine. 

The agfgregate value of live stock in these 
Stales and Territories, in 1850, was 8545,180,- 
516; and in 1860 it was $1,089,329,915— show- 
ing an increase' in ten years of $545,149,396, 
or about 100 per cent. The increase in its 
value in the New England States was 36 per 
cent.; in the Middle States, 52 per cent.; in 
the Western States, 143 per cent. ; in the South- 
ern States, 86 per cent. ; in the Pacific States, 
576 per cent. The increase was greatest in 
California and Texas — the former liaving 
grown from $3,000,000 to $35,000,000, and the 
latter from 310,000,000 to 540,000,000. From 
these figures it would appear that the value of 
the live stock of American farms is greater 
than that of all the product of wheat, rye, 
corn, oats and potatoes. 

The following table has been prepared to 
show, appro.ximately, the amount of live stock 
raised in the States referred to, during 1860 
and 1865: 



State. 


1660. 


1865. 


Maine 


10,924,627 
1B,24I,989 
12.737,744 
2.042,044 
11,311,079 
103,S.'i«,2>lti 
16,134,B93 
69,ii72,726 

3,l+l,70« 
fil,sfi8,237 
8I>,.384,8I9 
2,1,714,771 
41,S.»,5,W 
72,.'>01,226 
53,(193,673 
17,«07,375 
22,476,293 
3,642,841 
3,332,450 
1,128,771 


$ 23,721,811 
13,862,622 
27,473,732 
18,263,194 
3,735,917 
17,209,9.10 

17n,5.-.2.5(»i 
27,H'i.i,lS.i 

123,647,743 
20,161,613 




Ma^sarhnsftts 


niio li- I-land 

• '.illlicrliciit . 


NiMi- v,,,k 

N.w .l.|,~n,.. 

M'^Mviaini!"!!;;::;;;::;;;!!!! 


I)i'l;i«i,n- 


K-iiCiickv 


60i.T48;2.V) 
I4l,2ir.,1.62 
.52,091,122 
88,657,071 
115,3.->9.232 
.59,016,699 
47,6.V>,107 
71,946,682 
12,671,207 
9,127..'i06 


Mi. higan 

illii'"is';;:;:;:::;:.:;;;:;rz 

I\li-B.iiiri 

Wiyrnn-jii 

Inw;, :::: 

M,Mn.>ola 

Kal.-as 






r.ital 


$658,577,285 


$1,101,994,344 



In 1862, there were sent eastward from Chi- 
cago : 









rattle, nn 
Hu.B jivi- 


niber 




Hiit'S,ilns 
H.cl, bun 


B.-.l, numb.- 




I'ork, l.iir 
Cut meats 
Laril and 


r,-ls 

p.iuudB .... 
talluu, piiu 


nds.' 



To Estimate L,ive l^ei^ht.— Tlie 

following rules lor approximating the weight 
of live stock by measurement will be found 
valuable. If tlie dressed weight of a live ani- 
mal can be nearly approximated by them, they 
will prove of real value to the buyers and sell- 
ers of stock. The girth is the circumference 
of the animal just behind the shoulder blades. 
The length is the distance from the shoulder 
bl.ades. The superficial feet are obtained by 
multiplying the girth by the length. If less 
than one foot in girth, multiply superficial feet 
by eight. If less tlian three, and more than 
one, multiply snperfirial feet by eleven. If less 
than five, and more than three, multiply super- 
ficial feet by sixteen. If less tlian seven, and 
more than five, multiply superficial feet by 
twenty-five. If less than nine, and more than 
seven, multiply superficial feet by thirty-three. 
Tf less than eleven, and more than nine, multi- 
ply superficial feet by forty-two. 

Example: Suppose the girth of a bullock to 
be six feet three inches, length five feet six 
inches; the superficial area will then be thirty- 
four; and, in accordance with the preceding 
rules, the weight will be seven hundred and 
eighty-two pounds. 

Example: Suppose a pig to measure in girth 
two feet, and in length one foot and nine 
inches. There would then be three and a half 
feet, wliich, multiplied by eleven, gives thirty- 
eight and a half pounds as the weight of the 
animal. 

The net weight of fatted swine is four-fifths 
of the gross weight. 

Breeds and Breeding-. — Breeding 

bears tlie same relation to farm stock that 
grafting bears to fruit, and the principle of se- 
lection to the cereals. As the flint wheat, the 
Concord grape, and the Bartlett pear, have re- 
sulted from the intelligent choice and culture 
of the best varieties, so are the stud, herd, and 
flock improved by similar care in perpetuating 
the highest qualities, 

" In view of the large amount of property in- 
vested in live stock in this country, we should 
make use of all the aids and means within our 
reach to improve the quality, andj by borrow- 



350 



LIVE stock: 



ing the experience as well as drawing from the 
herds and flocks of other countries, endeavor 
to adapt to our various localities and climates 
the best and most profitable breeds of domestic 
animals. Suppose that by judicious selections, 
an infusion of better breeds, and a more accu- 
rate knowledge of the principles and practire 
of breeding and feeding stock, we could add 
twenty per cent, to the annual profit of our ani- 
mals in early maturity and in an increased pro- 
duct of milk, butter, or beef, we should have an 
annual additional value, equal to that derived 
from an increased capital of six hundred mill- 
ions! In England, such and even greater 
results have attended upon the application of 
science and improved management to the live 
stock of that country. Cattle breeding has be- 
ciiine a science ; and when such men as B.\KE- 
WELL, the brothers Collings, the Earl of Lei- 
cester, Bates, Quartly, Tomkins, Booth, 
and Webb, in England ; D' Aubenton, Cug- 
NOT, and Speck, on the Continent, and many 
others whose names are equally identified with 
the amelioration of their favorite breeds of 
cattle or sheep, devoted themselves to this 
branch of agricultural knowledge, we need no 
longer wonder that it soon a.ssumed the dignity 
of a science, or that the ends attained were 
worthy the talents, energy, time, and money 
expended upon it. For more than a century 
have such minds labored to accomplish the re- 
sults which are now proudly pointed to, in the 
matchless herds and flocks whose fame is spreiul 
over the whole world."* 

The possibility .suggested in the above para- 
graph, of adding twenty per cent, to the value 
of American live stock, by belter breeding and 
feeding, is quite within bounds. In the year 
1710, the average weight of beef cattle, at 
Smithfield market, London, was 370 pounds. 
In 1795, the average weight was 462, an in- 
crease of one-fourth ; and in 1830, the average 
was 656 pounds, an increase of nearly one-half 
in thirty-five years, and of eighty per cent, in a 
century. Since this point it has been steadily 
improving. 

In America, it has been calculated that the 
cattle offered at the Brighton market, near Bos- 
ton, average fifty per cent, more in weight, at 
the present time, than they did twenty years 
since. Within the memory of living men, there 
has been an incredible improvement in the 
average of farm stock. Though native mon- 
grels and scrubs are still the rule, their propor- 



in U. S. Agricultural Report, by Fe 



tion to the whole is rapidly diminishing, and 
at almost every local agricultural fair, pure 
thorough-bred stock may be seen on exhibition. 
The day can not be very distant, when the infe- 
rior breeds will have disappeared from the 
land. Careless farmers and breeders are not 
always to be in a majority. Of this we are 
assured, by the fact that skill in the breeding 
and management of domestic animals will al- 
ways, as now, be regaided by the production of 
individual specimens of unusual beauty and ex- 
cellence. 

One of the most prominent points of Ameri- 
can improvement has been, the more economical 
and judicious management of such of the do- 
mestic animals as form so large a portion of 
our food. The growth of new varieties of grain, 
of roots, and vegetables, has done immense 
good; these, assisted by improved culture and 
artificial manuring.*, have wroi^ht astonishing 
alterations, and great increase of produce on 
every intelligent man's farm; but these have 
been exceeded by the improvement made in 
breeding, feeding, and management of the live 
stock of the farm. 

Contrast, for a moment, the cattle of thirty 
years' since, those which were called "native 
stock," though owing their origin to every 
country of the Old World — the long, high, thin, 
lean-fleslied, large-boned, hard, unthrifty ani- 
mals of that day, with the compact rotundity 
of 8''ape, the .soft, mellow, thrifty animals of 
tlie present day; the former fed at six and 
seven years, the latter making prime beef at 
three, and ofien killed earlier. 

The same remark will apply to sheep and 
pigs, and not less to poultry. Early maturity, 
and quickness in fattening, have been looked 
to as the decided characteristics in every vari- 
ety of meat-producing animals. The great im- 
provement in cattle and sheep for the shambles, 
consists in perfecting these three great cardinal 
points : 

1st. The early period at which they are ripe 
for the butcher. 

2d. The great amount of food they produce 
in return for the food they consume. 

3d. The large proportion of prime meat which 
they yield. 

It costs no more to keep a good animal than 
it does to keep a poor one, and in many cases 
not so much. It costs no more to keep.a sliecp 
that yields a fleece of fifteen pounds than it 
does to keep one that yields five pounds. A 
breed of cattle that attain their full growth at 
three years of age, is much more profitable than 



BREEDS AND BREEDING. 



351 



a lirueil that do not get their full growth until 
tliey are four or 6ve years old. All that is said 
aud wVitlen respecting the forcing by good ma- 
nure and the carefully weeding and cultivating, 
BO as 10 give every chance for full develoimienl 
of fruit, will equally apply in ft)rcing by good 
food and carefully sheltering from extremes of 
licat or cold, and by producing nothing but 
from the most highly-prized varieties of live 
stnck. 

S. L. GooDALE, of Maine, in nn excellent 
essay on this subject, in the United States Agri- 
cultural Report for 1862, says : "What we do 
not know is a deal more than what we do know ; 
but to ignore so much as has been discovered, 
and is well e.stablished, and can be learned by 
any who care to do so, and to go on regardless 
of it, would indicate a degree of wisdom in the 
breeder, on a par with that of a builder who 
should fasten together wood and iron just as the 
pieces happened to come to liis hand, regard- 
less of the laws of architecture, and expect a 
convenient house or fast-sailing ship to be the 
result of his labors. 

" Is not the usual course of procedure anion 
many farmers too nearly parallel to the case 
supposed? Let the ill-favored, chance-bred, 
mongrel beasts in their barn-yards testify. The 
trutli is, and it is of no u.se to deny or disguise 
the I'iict— the improvement of domestic animals 
is one of the most important, and to a large ex 
tint, one of the most neglected branches of 
rural economy. The fault is not that farmers 
do not keep stock enough; oftener they keep 
more than they can feed to tlie most profitable 



that, and one which pays a profit? Let us reck- 
on a little. Suppose a man wishes to buy a cow. 
Two are offered him, both four years old, and 

ch might probably be serviceable for ten 
years to come. With the same food and at- 
tendance, the first will yield for ten montlis in 
the year an average of five quarts per day, and 
the other for the same term will yield seven 
quarts and of equal quality. What is the com- 
parative value of each ? The difference in yield 

ix hundred quarts per annum. For the pur- 
pose of tills calculation we will suppose it worth 
three cents per quart, amounting to eighteen 
dollars. Is not the second cow, while she 
holds out to give it, as good as the first, and 
three hundred dollars at six per cent, interest 
besides? If the first just pays for her food and 
attendance, the second, yielding two-fifths more, 
pays forty per cent, profit annually ; and yet how 
many farmers having two such cows for sale 
would make more than ten, or twenty, or, at 
most, thirty dollars diflTerence in the price? 
Tlie profit from one is eighteen dollars a year; 
in ten years, one hundred and eighty dollar.s, 
besides the annual accumulations of interest. 
The profit of the other is notliing. If the seller 
has need to keep one, would he not be wiser 
to give away the first than to part with the sec- 
ond for a hundred dollars? Suppose, again, 
that an acre of grass or a ton of hay cost five 
dollars, and that for its consumption by a given 
set of animals tlie farmer gets a return of five 
dollars' worth of labor, or meat, or wool, or 
milk. He is selling his crop at cost, and makea 
no profit. Suppose by employing other ani- 



point, but the majority neither bestow proper nials, better hor.ses, better cows, oxen, and 
care upon the selection of animals for breeding, sheep, he c.in get ten dollars per ton in return, 
nor do they appreciate the dollars and cents How much are the latter worth more than the 
difl'erence between such lus are profitable and former? Have they not doubled the value of 



such as are profitless. How many will hesitate 
to pay a dollar for the services of a good bull, 
when some sort of a calf can be gotten for a 



the crops, and increased the profit of farming 
from nothing to a hundred per cent.? Except 
that the manure is not doubled, and the ani- 



' quarter?' and this, loo, when one by the good ■ mals would some day need to be replaced, 
male would be worth more for veal, and ten could he not as well afford to give the price 
or twenty dollars more when grown to a cow I of his farm for one set as to accept the other as 
or an o.x. How few refuse to allow to a butcher a gift?" 

the cull of his calves and lambs for a few ex- Periods aiid Conditions of Gestation. — The ges- 
tra shillings, and tliis when the butcher's differ- tatory term in quadrupeds is much regulated 
enee in shillings would soon, were the best kept by their bulk. In the elephant it is about 
and tlie worst sold, grow into as many dollars twenty months, in the camel between eleven 
and more? How' many there are who esteem and twelve, in the mare and ass the .same. 
siz^ to be of more consequence than symmetry, .\ccording to the observations of M. Teis- 
or adaptation to the use for which they are SIER, of Paris, in 582 mares, which copu- 
kept ? How many ever sit down, to calculate Kited but once, the shortest period was 287 
dillerence in money value between an animal days, and the longest 419; making the extra- 
which barely pays for keeping, or perhaps not ordinary difference of 132 days, and of 8o days 



352 



LIVE STOCK: 



beyond the usual term of 11 montlis. The 
cow usually brings fortli in about nine months, 
and the slieep in five. Swine usually farrow 
between the 120th and 140th day, being liable 
to variations, influenced apparently by their 
size and their particular breeds. In the bitcli, 
on the contrary, be she as diminutive as a kit- 
ten, or as large as the hound, pupping occurs 
on or about the 63d day. The cat produces 
either on the 55th or 56t li day. The true causes 
which abridge or prolong, more or less, the pe- 



riod of gestation in the females of quadrupeds, 
and of the incubation of birds, are yet unknown 
to us. Many persons are also unacquainted 
with the proper age for reproduction, the dura- 
tion of the power of reproduction, and other 
conditions even of the domesticated animals. 
It can not, therefore, but be interesting to find 
in the following table the results of observa- 
tions made on this subject by the best ancient 
and modern naturalists, compiled by Johnson, 
for the farmers of England: 





KiNBS OF Animals. 


Proper aire 
fur repro- 
duction. 


Period of 
th- p.nv..r 
ol repro- 
dnctiun. 


NunilK-rnf 
feuiiilo-sfor 


Tlie most 
fiiv.ivi.ble 
soiisou for 
L'opuiatiou. 


Piriod of Gestation and 
Incubation. 




Shortest 
periitd. 


Mean 
perio,!, 


Loosest 
periiid. 


Marc' 


4 years. 

5 

3 " 

3 " 

2 " 

» 

I 

1 ;| 

2 

t " 

2 •• 
2 " 
1 

I 
emontlis. 



6 


Years, 
into 12 

\i tu l.'i 

II) 

6 
6 
7 

6 

.■> 
into 12 
12 to IS 




M;.y, 

July. 

Nov. 

Marcli, 

Nov. 

May. 


Davs. 
3J2 

220 

146 

10!! 

150 

365 

2<1 
55 

48 

20 

17 
24 
24 

19 

27 
16 


Days. 
.147 

2«4 

154 

115 

l.V. 

3S0 

308 
60 

50 

28 

24 
27 
2li 
30 
21 
30 
.30 
13 


Days. 




y 


20 toM 












3u to 4U 








Itiiiii 


40 to 50 




H,.n 




Biwr . 


■■; 


6 to 10 




He so 


t 


20 to 40 




















« tOK 
S to 9 
.■) to K 

9 to in 
5 to 6 
.'I to fl 
5 to 6 




Feb. 




















■> to t. 


Nov. 






hhit 








30 
12 to 15 












) turkey I 
itlinB on Idiick f 
t'--ortliL. llien 1 




oil 1 
























h't , 














3 to 3 








Tliicl;. 



















































In .some latitudes in this country, July will 
be too late for the best month of copulation 
for the cow. 

Producing the Sexes at Wilt. — In a treatise 
published by Professor Thury, of Geneva, 
Switzerland, he gives a summary of his ob.ser- 
vations and deductions on the subject of pro- 
ducing se.xes at will. He announces the dis- 
covery, that, in the case of animals that usually 
produce but one at a birtli, and have a regular 
rutting season, it is perfectly easy to produce 
the sex most desired. 

Tlie pith of the theory is, that before the 
ovum has reached a certain degree of maturity, 
it will invariably produce a female oflspring ; 
while, on the other hand, it is equally certain 
to produce a male after it has passed that degree 
of maturation. 

The Professor's application of the theory 
consists in ordering that the female, when it is 
desired to produce a/ema/eofTspring, be brought 
to the male at the beginning of the rutting seasonj 
or toward the close of that season, if it iis. de- 
sired to produce male ofTspring. 



M. CoBNAX, of the Canton of Vaud, reports 
that he has made twenty-nine careful experi- 
ments with cows, with a view to test the prac- 
tical value of this theory, and that every ex- 
periment was successful. In twenty-two cases 
he desired to produce females, meeting with 
success in every case ; in the seven experiments 
he desired to produce males, and in these he 
succeeded equally well. 

Aristotle observed that the pigeon ordina- 
rily laid two eggs, and that, of these two eggs, 
one produced a male and the other a female. 
He found that the first egg gave the male and 
the second the female, but he searched in vain 
for the philosophy of it. M. Flourens ex- 
peiimented on this phenomena, and in eleven 
repetitions the first egg invariably produced 
the male and the second the female. 

If MM. CoRNAX and Flourens report cor- 
rectly, it would seem that the Professor's theory 
may not be without foundation. It is very ea- 
sily put to the test, and we doubt not that it 
will soon either be established or exploded. 
We ought to say that Professor Thury is him- 



BREEDS AND BREEDING. 



353 



self, of the opinion, tluit it can only be relied 
on where the animal is running out, in a nor- 
mal condition. 

Pliysiology of Breediny. — The axiom that 
"like begets like" is good as far as it goes, 
and, if all animals were in a condition of na- 
ture, it might be a sufficient guide; but with 
domestication come disturbing influences. What 
eveiy stock grower wants is, as BAKEWEiL ex- 
pressed it, "the best machine for converting 
herbage and other animal food into money," 
This can be produced only by attending to cer- 
tain rules which the experience of stock grow- 
ers have establisiied. 

The law of similarity directs the hereditary 
transmission of certain ijualities possessed by 
one or both parents ; and within certain limits 
it is invariable. The lesson which it teaches i.s, 
breed only from the best. 

A family in Yorkshire is known for several 
generations to have been furnished with six 
lingers and toes. A family possessing the same 
peculiarity resides in the valley of the Kenne 
bee, and the same has reappeared in one or 
more other families connected with it by mar- 
riage. The thick upper lip of the imperial 
house of Austria, introduced by the marriage 
of the Emperor -Maximilian with Mary of 
Burgundy, has been a marked feature in that 
family for hundreds of years, and is visible in 
their descendants to this day. Equally noticea- 
ble is the " Bourbon nose ' in the former reigning 
family of France. All the Barons de Vessius 
had a peculiar mark between their shoulders, and 
it is said by means of it a posthumous son of a late 
Baron de Vessius was discovered in a London 
shoemaker's apprentice., Hallek cites the 
case of a lamily where an external tumor was 
transmitted from father to son, which always 
swelled when the atmosphere was moist. The 
famous English horse Eclipse had a mark ol a 
dark color on his quarter, .which, although not 
a defect, was transmitted to his progeny even 
to the fifth generation. 

These facts show how necessary it is to have 
regard to every particular ; not only the general 
appearance, size, shape, length of limb, strength, 
thickness of skin, length of liair, docility, etc., 
but also structural defects and hereditary dis- 
eases. You ATT says: "There is scarcely a mal- 
ady to which the horse is subject that is not 
hereditary." 

The law of variation teaches that breeds di 
verge from their pure character under the in 
fluence of climate, food, care, and habit. Sub 
jpcted to widely ditlereut conditions of living 

23 



pure breeds cliangc their size, and even their 
structure, and at last adapt themselves com- 
pletely to tlie necessity of the situation. The 
breeder has to deal with these divergencies and 
tendencies. Hi.s aim should ever be to grasp 
and render permanent, and increase so far as prac- 
ticable, every variation for the bettei; and to reject 
for breeding purposes such as show a downward 
tendency. 

Among the " faint rays " alluded to by Jlr, 
Darwin, as throwing light upon the changes 
dependent on the laws of reproduction there is 
one, perhaps the brightest yet seen, which de- 
serves notice. It is the apparent influence of 
t)ie male first having fruitful intercourse with 
a lemale upon her subsequent oflspring by other 
males. After a mare has borne a mule, she can 
never afterward be relied on to bring forth a 
colt of any value, because it will be apt to bear 
so close a resemblance to a mule as to render it 
unsaleable. So a bull will frequently transmit 
his qualities to several generations of calves, 
although only one is of his get. The mare and 
cow seem to be more likely to receive and repeat 
the characteristics of the first bull or stallion than 
any subsequent one. Dr. Carpenter, in the 
last edition of his work on physiology, says it 
is by no means an un frequent occurrence lor a 
widow who lias married again to bear children 
resembling her first husband. 

Kecently, in a paper published in the Aber- 
deen Journal, a veterinary surgeon, Mr. James 
'.UcliiLi.lVRAY, of llun.ley, has ofiered an ex- 
planation whicli stems to be tne true one. His 
theory is, that "when a pure animal of any 
breed has been pregnant by an animal of a dif- 
ferent breed, slie is a cross ever afier, the purity 
of her blood being lost in consequence of her 
Connexion with the foreign animal, herself be- 
coming a cross forever, incapable of producing 
a pure calf of any breed." 

Relative Influence of Parents — W. C. Spooner, 
veterinary surgeon, says, in speaking of the 
relative influence of parents: "The most prob- 
able supposition is that the propagation is done 
by halves, each pareiu giving to the oflspring the 
shape of one-hall\)f the body. Thus the back, 
loins, hind-quarters, general shape, skin, and 
ze follow one parent; and the fore-quarter.s, 
head, vital, and nervous system, the other; and 
we may go so far aa to add that the former, 
in the great majority of cases, go with the male 
parent, and the latter with the female.'' 

Among recent interesting theories on this 
branch of the subject, is that of Mr. Ortun, 
presented to a Farmero' Club, in Englaud. It 



354 



LIVE stock: 



is, briefly, tlmt llie male parent chiefly deter- 
mines tlie external characters, the-general ap- 
pearance, in fact, the outward structure and the 
locomotive powers of the offspring, as the frame- 
work, or bones and muscles, more particularly 
those of the limbs, the organs of sense and skin; 
while the female parent chiefly determines the 
internal structures and the general quality, 
mainly furnishing the vital organs, i. e., the 
heart, lungs, glands, and digestive organs, and 
giving tone and character to the vital functions 
of secretions, nutrition, and growth. 

The mule is the progeny of the male ass and 
the mare ; the hiuny that of the horse and the 
she ass. Both hybrids are the produce of the 
same set of animals. They differ widely, how- 
ever, in their respective characters — the mule, 
in all that relates to its external character, hav- 
ing the distinctive features of the ass; the hinny, 
in the same respects, having all the distinctive 
features of the horse, while in all that relates 
to the internal organs and vital qualities, the 
mule partakes of the character of the horse, 
and the hinny of those of the ass. 

In short, the mule is in its external appear- 
ance, a modiBed ass, and the hinny a modified 
horse. The male gives the locomotive organs, 
and the muscles are among these ; the muscles 
are the organs which modulate the voice of the 
animal ; the mule has the muscular structure 
of its sire, and brays; the hinny has the mus 
cular structure of its sire, and neighs. 

It is believed, however, by many, that the 
offspring is most likely to resemble that parent 
which had the greatest generative influence in 
the formtition of the fcetus ; and it follows, 
therefore, that the most perfect animals, both 
male and female, should be selected and em 
ployed in propagation, there being no other 
certain means of establishing or preserving an 
eligible breed. 

Injixi£nce of Ccmfinement. — Professor Agassiz 
has suggested the question, whether we do not 
injure the vitality and vigor of our domestic 
animals by the common system under which 
"every male is made to be nothing but a breed- 
ing machine;" in other words, by keeping 
stallions and bulls shut up in stables in a sort 
of pampered luxury unfavorable to healthful 
developnient. 

The Country Gentleman says ; " In some coun- 
tries of continental Europe, as our readers are 
aware, stallions and bulls are habitually worked 
in harness and in the yoke. In whatever other 
respects these animals may vary from the stand- 
ard we desire to attain, it is our belief that in 



healthful vigor, reproductive powers, and ca- 
pacity of endurance, they afford an example 
we might seek to imitate with advantage." 

This is, to say the least, plausible. We know 
that, among men, the most prolific and vigor- 
ous are those who work, not those 'who live in 
idleness. As they can not be properly con- 
trolled, it does not answer to let stallions and 
bulls run at large, in the pasture, with females; 
and as exercise and fresh air are absolutely 
essential to their good health and vigor, the 
best way to obtain these, and keep them in 
good condition is, to break the former, when 
quite young, to the harness as well as to the 
saddle, and the latter to the yoke, and work 
them regularly but moderately. This would 
also subdue their fierceness, and make them 
manageable and safe on a farm. 

S. M. Wells, of Wethersfield, Connectiput, 
and many of the best stock growers of New 
England oppose this view, and insist that con- 
finement does not result in injury ; so the ques- 
tion can be settled only by multiplied experi- 
ments. 

A good-sized, well-fed yearling bull will get 
as many vigorous calves as he ever will; but it 
will be likely to weaken him, if he be permit- 
ted to serve more than half a dozen the first 
season. With such moderate use, his gets will 
almost certainly lie strong and perfect, and he 
will develop more vigorously and rapidly, 

Tkorough-Breds. — It ought not to be neces- 
sary to say a word against breeding from native 
or even grade bulls. No intelligent farmer, 
who knows what is for his best interest, will 
think of admitting into his herd any but a 
thorough-bred bull of some good variety. A 
very great change has been wrought in this di- 
rection within ten years, and in some parts of 
the country, where stock raising has been 
wisely developed, it is properly regarded as a 
disgrace to permit the mongrelizing influence 
of a scrub bull. A good bull will frequently 
transmit great milking qualities inherited from 
his mother; indeed, if unusual milkers are 
chiefly sought for in the prospective heifers, 
the ancestry of the bull is as important as that 
of the cow. 

" Such knowledge as has been g.ained by ob- 
servation and experience," says Mr. GoOD.VLE, 
in the article already freely quoted, " regarding 
the relative influence of the parents, teaches 
emphatically that every slock grower should, 
in the first place, use his utmost endeavor to 
obtain the services of the best sires; that is the 
best for the end and purposes in view; that he de- 



VARIETIES OF CATTLE. 



pend chiefly on the sire for outward form and 
symmetry; and next, that he select dams best 
cnlc'iihited to develop the good qualities of the 
male, depending chiefly upon these for freedom 
from internal disease, for hardihood, constitu- 
tion, and generally for all qualities dependent 
upon the vital or nutritive system. The neg- 
lect which is too common, and especially in 
breeding horses, to the qualities of the dam, 
miserably old and inferior females being often 
employed, can not be too strongly censured." 
In rearing valuable horses the dams are not of 
less consequence than the sires, although their 
influence upon the progeny be not the same. 
Tliis is well understood and practiced upon by 
the Arab, who cultivates endurance and b(jttom. 
If his mare be of the true Kocklani breed, he 
will part with her for no consideration what- 
ever, while you can buy his stallion at a com- 
paratively moderate price. The prevalent prac- 
tice in England and America of cultivating 
speed in preference to other qualities, has led 
us to attach greater importance to the male, 
and the too common neglect of health, vigor, 
endurance, and constitution, in the mares has, 
in thousands of ease.s, entailed the lo.ss of qual- 
ities not less valuable, and without which speed 
alone is of comparatively little worth. 

"Breeding, as an art, in this country is in its 
infancy. A glimpse of the stature it may at- 
tain unto, is afforded us by the success attend- 
ing the exhibition of the hordes of Mr. Ten 
Broeck and the cattle of Mr. Tiiorne upon 
Britain's own soil, and in competition with the 
best of her own growth. We have the best 
material to begin with or to go on with which 
ever existed on the earth. We have a country 
for its development, which, in soil, in climate, 
in food, in freedom from diseases, and in other 
facilities, has no superior, and probably no 
equal in the world. Let scientific knowledge 
and practical skill take the place of prevalent 
ignorance and carelessness, and improvement 
must go rapidly forward, and accomplish al- 
most incalculable results." 

A Tax on Male Animals. — Hon. George 
Geddes, of Onondaga county, New York, 
recommends a national tax on all bulls, stall- 
ions etc., and says: "This would be one of 
the greatest steps ever made toward the im- 
provement of agricultural stock ; it would be 
more than a step — it would be an immense 
stride — for any man has only to stroll across 
country a few miles and see the wretched entire 
male animals kept on many farms, to be griev- 
ed sorely in mind at the idea of propagating 



such miserable and valueless trash. If every 
horse colt not altered when a year old entailed 
a tax of S20 per year upon his owner — if every 
bull calf of six months old had to pay $o, ami 
the same per annum afterward, and every ram 
lamb, and boar pig were taxable at Si! per 
year, commencing at three months of a^e — 
it would exterminate most of the worth le.-s 
brutes, and in five years time the live st(jck 
would be worth very many millions more, and 
in the cour.se of a few generations there would 
be nothing living but had some good blood in 
it, for the dullest of farmers would not pay 
taxes on the hideous objects which now rove 
around. If some wealthy man would buy (for 
the trifle such ugly specimens would sell for) 
one or two and send them in all their deform- 
ity to the nearest agricultural show fair, the 
exhibition of ihese monstrosities might do much 
good, for it would cans? great discus.-;ion as to 
others who made use of males no better, and 
so shame the owners that tliey might begin to 
see the folly of raising such unsightly and un- 
profitable animals." 

This proposition seems worthy of immediate 
adoption. If there is any measure so simple 
as this, which can ameliorate our stock, by 
abolishing the wretched scrubs which still in- 
fest every county in the land, its practical 
working ought not to be postponed for a day. 

Varieties or CaJtIe.— From the prin- 
ci]ile of seleeiion, from the influence of cli- 
mate, food, and care, and from many natural 
tendencies which are not well understood, have 
sprung varieties of each genus, more or less 
definitely mai-ked, and bearing greater or less 
relative value. Of the genus ox, tliere are sev- 
eral kinds well-known in America, such as the 
Dorliam or Shorthorn, the Devon, the Ayr- 
shire, the Jersey, or Alderney, the Dutch, etc., 
and a countless herd of natives, varying in 
quality up and down through the whole scale 
of merit. 

There are three points of prime importance 
in determining the selection of a breed of cat- 
tle : dairy qualities, working qualities, and, 
finally, beefing qualities. Some breeds com- 
bine two of these in admirable completeness; 
none seems to concentrate them all in the high- 
est perfection. The average Devon is probably 
superior to any other breed for the yoke; the 
average Alderney for richness of butter; and 
the average Durham for beef. Yet these points 
of superiority are subject to modification by 
manv conditions, Firstly, there is the differ- 



356 



LIVE STOCK : 



ence in value between cattle of the same breed. 
Tliere are individuals, and even herds, in each 
of the above named divisions, that are superior 
in any given quality to the average of any 
other division. Secondly, there is the modifi- 
cation caused by climate and food. In some 
localities, States, even sections of our country, 
one variety will be found to be preeminently 
adapted to prevailing conditions, and will 
[.rove superior to any other for general propa- 
y.ition. 

Puinis of a Good Cow. — The chief points 
v. hich distinguish a prime dairy cow, and are 
at the same time compatible with an aptitude 
lor fattening, are, a long and small liead, a 
bright and placid eye, tliin chops, small horns, 
iieclc thin toward the head, but thickening to- 
ward the shoulder; dewlap small. The breast 
neither immoderately wide (as is remarked in 
cattle with a great tendency to fatten) nor yet 
narrow, and projecting before the legs; the 
girth behind the shoulder deep, the ribs wide 
and gradually distending more and more to- 
ward the loins; tliere should be good breadth 
across the hips and loins; the thighs should 
be thin and the legs not too long and inclined 
to crookedness; the udder should be capacious, 
1 lit thin and not too coarse and fleshy, and 
iicarly of equal size, willi moderate-sized teats 
(ipially distant from each other, and the milk 
vein large. The tail shouUl be thick above 
a;id taper downward, and the skin fine and 
si iky. Dr. Anderson gives the following 
rythmical enumeration of the qualities of a 
t;ood cow : 
"She's long in her face, she's fine in h^-r horn, 
She'll quickly get fat without cuke cr corn ; 
She's clear in her jnws, she's full in her chine, 
bhe's heavy in flank, am) wide in her luin ; 
She's broad in ber ribs, and Inng in ber rump, 
A straight and flat biick, with never a hump; 
She's wide in Ler hips, and calm in her eye, 
She's firm in her shoulders, and thin in her thighs ; 
She's light in her neck, and small in ber tail, 
She's wide in her breast, and good at the pail ; 
She's tine in her bone and silky of skin, 
She's agraizer's without, and a butcher's within." 

In an essay in Sural Affairs, Donald G. 
Mitchell ("Ik Marvel"), says on this 
point: "First of all, the milk dairyman 
should abjure allegiance to any one strain of 
blood; it will never do for him to swear by 
the herd-book, or to have any hobby of race. 
Here and there, a Shorthorn (at a great price) 
proves a great milker; and there are individ- 
ual Ayrshires who do wonders in the filling of 
a pail; the Alderneys, I think, never. Grade 
animals of good milking points will be service- 
able ones for him; and if he keep his eye open, 



as every shrewd farmer should, he will find here 
and there some rawboned, misshapen native 
animal, who will yield golden returns. Those 
animals that will give the most milk under 
generous feeding, without respect to name or 
lineage, are the animals for him. Therefore, 
in nine cases out of ten, the best milk herd is 
very motley in form and color. In an expe- 
rience of some ten years, with a herd of twenty 
or more, the three most profitable milkers I 
have owned, have been a grade Shorthorn, 
(from Kentucky), a grade Ayrshire, and a 
rawboned native." 

The only practicable means of generally im- 
proving the quality of stock, is to put none but 
thoroughbred bulls upon the best grades and 
native cows. Some extraordinary natives are 
reported from time to time. The cow of Mr. 
Colt, of Pittsfleld, Massachusetts, produced 
one hundred and ninety-three pounds of butter 
during five months of Winter time. IIo-SEA 
Merrill's cow, same town, yielded thirty 
beer quarts of milk per day. A native cow of 
Thomas Hodges, of Noith Adams, nuade four 
hundred pounds of butler in nine months. 

The Durham. — We place the Durham, or 
Shorthorn first, because there is no doubt that 
it is Nie developement of more care, more skill, 
and more intelligence, as a uniform breed of 
cattle, than any other breed in the world. It 
is also much more bred Irom in this country 
than any other. The Durhams are pre-emi- 
nently superior for the beef market. They 
grow to a larger size than any other stock, and 
their beef is unsurpassed in weight, delicacy, 
and succulence. 

They eat according to their size, and so they 
are regarded as difficult to keep on the hill- 
sides of New England, where the Ayrshire and 
Devon are preferred. In sections where the 
air is moist and the food abundant and ricli, as 
in the blue-grass lawns and ranges of Ken- 
tucky, and on the native herbage of the prairies 
of the West, they are bred from more than all 
other breeds. 

Their milking qualities are excellent, under 
favorable conditions; and they have the advan- 
tage of turning profitably to the shambles when 
needed no longer for the dairy. A cow that 
sells readily to the slaughter for seventy-five to 
one hundred dollars, will be preferred wherever 
food enough to keep her can be found; for 
every thriving farmer will look first to milk 
and next to c;ipacity to take on flesh. 

The Shorthorn cow is heavy; it is trouble- 
some to her to travel ; she reqiures thick grass 



VARIETIES OP C.\.TTL5 



357 



in fact, slie wants to be " up to her knees in 
clover," and then she will pay most richly, bolh 
as a milker and for the butcher. But it would 
be the heiglit of folly for a farmer who has 
only poor pastures to buy Shorthorns. In lon- 
gevity, continuous breeding to an advanced 
age, and a final profitable termination of her 
career at the shambles, the Shorthorn has no 
equal. 

The majestic size, proud carriage, and beau- 
tifully variegated colors of the Shorthorn ren- 
der him easily recognized by the merest t3'ro ; 
but few who thus admire and recognize him are 
aware how many qualifications go to make up 
this splendid whole, or how carefully each 
point has been weighed and discussed, and its 
relative value decided. The " high caste " 
Shorthorn should have a small head, a broad, 
flat forehead, with no projection of the frontal 
bones ; the face should be well cut out below 
the eyes, tapering to a fine muzzle, with open 
nostrils; the nose must be flesh or chocolate 
colored; the eye must be bright, prominent, 
and yet placid; a small piggish eye is to be 
avoided ; the horn should be well set on, and 
of a waxy, yellow color at the base ; the body 
should be square, massive, and symmetrical, 
set on short legs, which should be straiglit and 
well under the animal ; the fore legs should be 
small in the bone below the knee, while the 
forearm must be broad and tapering downward, 
fitting level into the girth ; the hind legs must 
be nearly straight; if the hocks are too much 
bent, turned inward, or not well under the body^ 
it not only gives an awkward gait in walking, 
but is generally a sign of weakness; the neck 
is moderately long, clean in the throat, and 
running neatly into the shoulders, which should 
not be too prominent at the points, nor too 
wide at the top; they should mold nicely into 
the fore-quarters, and be well covered with 
flesh on the outside; the neck vein should be 
well tilled up with flesh, and form on smoothly 
to the shoulder points; the chest must be broad 
and deep, and full back of the elbows ; the 
brisket should be full and broad rather than 
narrow and projecting. In the upper portion 
of the frame we must have width and thickness 
ami length; the crops must fill up level with 
the sluxilders and back; the ribs must spring 
level and full from the back, and fill well up to 
the hips. 

The loin must be broad and well carried for- 
ward into the crops, and covered with thick 
flesh, molding nicely on to the hips, which 
though wide must not be too prominent, but 



slope away gradually to the rump bones at the 
tail ; the back must be level from neck to tail, 
with no drcjps back of the shoulders, nor any 
rise where the tail is set on ; the rumps must be 
well laid up, but not too high ; the twist should 
be well filled out in the " seam," wide and deep, 
the outside thigh full, the flank deep, and form- 
ing with the fore-flank and belly, a parallel line 
with the animal's back. The whole frame must 
be evenly covered with flesh, of a mellow 
elastic nature, readily yielding to the fingers, 
yet following them as the pressure is with- 
drawn ; the skin must be of a moderate thick- 
ness, neither too thin nor thick enough to be 
stiff and hard; it must be covered with a coat 
of thick, soft, mossy hair. 

As oxen, the Durhams are admirably adapted 
to heavy work. They are stronger than any 
other breed; just the oxen for quarries or any 
very hard, steady pulling; but they are mild, 
docile, slow, and are generally surpassed by the 
quicker Devon grades, at plowing, and all road 
traveling. 

The Devon grade oxen take a large major- 
ity of premiums at the fairs where there is 
compeiition. They are almost as tall and long, 
much handsomer than the Durham, and more 
spirited. S. W. B.vktlett, of East Windsor, 
Connecticut, a Durham breeder, says : "There 
are some objections to Shorthorns not yet men- 
tioned. Take a pair of high grade steers, and 
you will find that by the time they are four 
and a half or five years old you can not plow 
with them ; they are so broad that the off ox 
can not walk in the furrow, anil they al.^o out- 
grow the road. I have seen cows with bags so 
large that it was difficult to drive them home 
from pasture. I owned a Shorthorn cow that 
was afterwards sold at auction in Canada for 
thirteen hundred dollars." 

Of all descriptions of cattle, Shorthorn grades 
are now the most popular, where dairy business 
and fattening are carried on simultaneously. 
They are for the most part, admirable milkers; 
their calves, both heifers and bullocks, can he 
fed-off at an early age, and, coming to heavy m, 

weights, bring large and remunerative prices ; 
while the cows themselves, when no longer use- 
ful for the d.iiiy, are easily fattened, and ran be 
quickly got rid of. 

The Devon — The Devon is entitled to the 
next place, because it appears to have been the 
"first settler" of this country. The Devon 
head is handsome, and the color almost uni- 
formly a bright red. They are now bred 
mainly for beef and work ; more rarely lor the 



358 



LIVE stock: 



dairy, as their average yield of milk, tliougli 
rich, is small. The Devon beef is very sweet, 
and is preferred at Smithfield market. C. L. 
Flint, in his "Milch Cows and Dairy Fann- 
ing," says: "The improved North Devon cow 
may be classed, in this respect, with the Here- 
ford, neither of which have well-developed 
milk vessels — a point of the utmost conse- 
quence to the practical dairyman." 

Tliough indigenous to a country possessing 
the mildest climate in Great Britain, this breed 
is remarkably hardy and vigorous, and thrives 
where more delicate animals would scarcely 
live. For general farm labor, no other breed 
in the world can equal the Devon oxen. They 
liave great quickness of action average docility, 
and a stoutness and honesty of work to which 
few teams of horses can pretend. 

For the production of beef of superior quality 
they are unsurpassed, even rivalling the little 
Highland Scot in the estimation of the Limdon 
west-end butclier, whose fastidious customers 
oblige him to kill none but beef of the finest 
quality and flavor, and who may, therefore, be 
considered a good judge of excellence in this 
particular. The Devon does not, indeed, at- 
t;iin tl\e great weight of some breeds, but their 
;;dvoeates claim, that on a given quantity of 
food, and in a given time, they will make as 
much beef as any of them. The flesh is of high 
character, being well marbled and mottled with 
fat and of fine grain. The weight of meat is 
laid on the ehoice>t parts, the shoulder, .side, 
and fore-flank being well coverc<l with flesh; 
and, in addition, they have a peculiar property 
of furnishing meat of first-rate quality along 
their tops or backs. A well-bred Devon, in 
good condition, will always show flesh over 
the very backbone itself, thus, of necessity, 
securing a good thickness over the loin. It is 
this admirable distribution of flesh tliat distin- 
guishes the Devon. 

Feancis M. Botch, gives the following 
jihotograpli of the Devon: "We will now try, 
in a few words, to describe the North Devon, 
as we have seen hira in the show yard of the 
Eoyal Agricultural Society, the admired of all 
beholders, where even 'shorthorn' men con- 
fessed him a model of perfection. He has a 
small, lean head, a somewhat di.shing face, a 
delicate light-colored nose, a bright, prom- 
inent eye, surrounded by an orange-colored 
ring, small, flexible ear, elegantly symmetrical 
horns, which have an upward tendency and are 
slightly turned out at the tips, a light neck, 
round, full bosom, and a deep chest, with a 



good, full fore-flank ; the shoulder sloping^ 
without a coarse point, and rising slightly 
above the line of the back, fol-ming, with the 
crest, a sloping line from the head, which 
adds much to the style and carriage; the crops 
are full, with no hollow or drop behind the 
shoulder, and molding nicely into the full, 
springing rib, which, with the last mentioned 
point (the crops) especially marks the well- 
bred Devon; the loin is broad, the hips wide, 
but not ' ragged,' and the quarter long and 
well filled up between the hip and rumps; 
these last should be well up, but here we find 
the point most liable to weakness in the whole 
form- — they are frequently low, narrow, and 
joined with a crooked leg; but in our perfect 
specimen the rumps lie well up and are well 
covered with flesh ; the bone is fine, and the 
cord of the tail long and slender, finishing with 
a full tassel of white hair. Our Devon is of a 
rich blood-red, with a tinge of golden light 
playing over his soft rippled coat ; but the 
color varies from a decidedly yellow-red, to a 
mohogany color, though this last, when ac- 
companied with a dark nose and almost black 
color about the head, is a very questionable 
hue for a true North Devon." 

The Ayrshire. — This breed originated nearly 
a hundred years ago in Ayrshire, Scotland, and 
is the result of careful selection and crossing 
with good breeds already established, by which 
defects were removed and good qualities in- 
creased and rendered hereditary. The ameli- 
oration is supposed to have been assisted by 
skillful crossing with the Jersey and the old 
Teeswater — the latter also the foundation of 
the Durhams. 

The following is the approved description of 
the Ayrshire: "Head small, but rather long 
and narrow at the muzzle; the eye small, but 
smart and lively ; the horns small, clear, 
crooked, and their roots at considerable dis- 
tance from each other; neck long and slender, 
tapering toward the head, with no loose skin 
below; shoulders thin; fore-quarters light; 
hind-quarters large; back straight, broad be- 
hind, the joints rather loose and open; carcass 
deep, and pelvis capacious, and wide over the 
hip.s, with round fleshy buttocks; tail long and 
small; legs small and short, with firm joints; 
udder capacious, broad and square, stretching 
forward, and neither fleshy, low hung, nor 
loose ; the milk veins large and prominent ; 
teats short, all pointing outward, and at con- 
siderable distance from each other; skin thin 
and loose; hair soft and wooly. The head, 



VARIETIES OF CATTLE. 



359 



bones, horns, and all piirts of the least value, 
small ; and the general figure compact and 
wuU jiroportioned. Compared witli other im- 
proved breeds, tlie thighs, or wliat is called the 
twist of the Ayrshire cow, are thin. She is, 
churacteristically, not a fleshy animal." 

Flint, in his treatise on milch cows and 
dairy farming, devotes considerable space to 
this breed, and concludes that for dairy pur- 
poses purely, or mainly, the .\yrshires deserve 
tlie first place. In consequence of the cow's 
small syminetrical and compact body, well- 
furmed chest, and capacious stomach, there is 
little waste through the respiratory system; 
while, at the same time, there is a very com- 
plete assimilation of the food, and thus she 
converts a large proportion of her food into 
milh, and of a better quality than any other 
breed. 

A Scotch account says: "The excellency of 
a dairy cow is estimated by the quantity and 
quality of her milk. The q'uantily yielded by 
the Ayrshire cow is, considering her size, very 
great. Five gallons daily, for two or three 
months after calving, may be considered as not 
more than an average quantity. Three gallons 
daily will be given for the ne.\t three months, 
and one gallon and a half during the succeed- 
ing four months. This would amount to more 
than eight hundred and fifty gallons; but al- 
lowing for some unproductive cows, six hundred 
gallons per j-ear may be the average quantity 
annually from each cow. 

"The quality of the milk is estimated by the 
quantity of butter or cheese that it will yield; 
three gallons and a half of milk to a pound of 
butter. An Ayrshire cow, therefore, may be 
reckoned to yield two hundred and fifty-seven 
pounds of butter per annum. 

" When the calculation is formed, according 
to the quantity of cheese that is usually pro- 
duced, the following will be the result: Twenty- 
eight gallons of milk, with the cream, will yield 
twenty-four pounds of sweet-milk cheese, or 
five hundred and fourteen pounds per annum." 

The above Scetch estimates are probably 
somewhat above the average product of Ayr- 
shire cows in this country ; but it still remains 
true that, in proportion to tl.eir size and the 
food they consume, they are superior to all 
other cows as milkers. The Wells brothers, 
of Connecticut, give, as asummary of their ex- 
perience in buying and breeding for the pail, 
that two Ayrshires give as much milk as three 
Durhams or Devons, and that two Durhams eat 
as much as three Ayrshires. 



The Ayrshire oxen, though smart and hardy, 
are generally too small to take a first rank. A 
cross with the Durham has been found efl'ective 
in improving the quality. A cross obtained 
from an Ayrshire bull and a pure-bred Short- 
horn, produces a stock that for beauty and 
strength, for the milk-pail, and, at last, to take 
on fat readily, would be hard to beat. 

T/ie Aldcrney. — The cattle known as the Al- 
derney originated on the small islands of Al- 
derney, Jersey, and Guernsey, in the channel 
between England and France. These islands 
contain a thrilty population of six hundred to 
the square mile, and on every farm of eight 
acres there will be about five tows, three heif- 
ers, one horse, and three pigs. These farms 
are generally owned by the farmer, but when 
rented they fetch enormous prices, ranging 
from six to twenty-five dollars in gold per 
year per acre. 

The cows of Alderney and Guernsey are 
now generally superseded by the superior race 
of Jerseys, refined from Xorman slock. The 
cows have been long celebrated for the produc- 
tion of very rich milk and cream, but till 
within a quarter of a century they were com- 
paratively coarse, ugly, and ill-shaped. Im- 
provements have teen very marked, but the 
form of the animal is still far from satisfying 
the eye. 

The head of the pure Jersey is fine and ta- 
pering, the cheek small, the throat clean, the 
muzzle fine and encircled with a light stripe, 
the nostril high and open ; the horns smooth, 
crumpled, not very thick at the base, tapering, 
and tipped with black ; ears small and thin, 
deep orange color inside; eyes full and placid; 
neck straiglit and fine; chest broad and deep; 
barrel hooped, broad ;ind deep, well-ribbed up; 
back straight from the withers to the hip, and 
from the top of the hip to the setting on of the 
tail ; tail fine, at right angles with the back, 
and hanging down to the hocks ; skin thin, 
light peculiar fawn color; and, elastic skin, 
covered with fine soft hair; fore legs short, 
straight and fine below the knee, arm swelling 
and full above; hind-quarters long and well 
filled ; hind legs short and straight below the 
hocks, with bones rather fine, squarely placed, 
and not too close together ; hools small ; udder 
full in size, in line with the belly, extending 
well up behind; teals of medium size, squarely 
placed and wide apart, and milk veins very 
prominent. The color is generally cream, dun, 
or yellow, \pith more or less while, and the fine 
head and neck give the cows and heifers a 



360 



LIVE STOCK : 



fawn-like appearance, and makes them objects 
of attraction in the park. 

Tliey were rfceis'e<l with but little favor on 
llieir first appearance in this country— being 
regarded as delicate, requiring more care than 
other cattle, as small and mean, fit only for rich 
and "gentlemen farmers." They have over- 
come these prejudices to a gre t extent, until it 
is generally acknowledged tlia, n average herd 
of Jerseys will make more butter in a given 
lime than the same number of average cows of 
any other breed, on the same amount of food; 
that the deeply-yellow, highly-flavored, waxy 
butter has a marrowy richness that is not 
equalled ; and that it will [lay every farmer 
who furnishes milk or butter lor market, to 
kee|i at hast one Jersey to every six cows for 
the purjiose of flavoring and coloring the total 
yitkl. Their butter brings from five to fifteen 
cents more by the pound in Eastern markets 
than any other. Lieutenant-Governor E. T. 
Hyde, of Comieciicut, stated that the butler 
was regarded by bis family as too rich to be 
palatable, and Devon butter was used instead. 

For poor pasture.s and hard Winters, they 
are not equal, as it is said by some breeders, to 
the Ayrshires or Devons. But Titus Oakes, 
and other reputable breeders, affirm that no 
cow excels the Jersey in hardiness. They do 
not carry beef; tliey do not possess the symmet- 
rical and rounded form that characterizes the 
.Shorthorns and Dev(ms, nor can they probably 
ever rival them for the yoke or shambles. 

Jersey bulls are coming largely into use, as 
a means of adding to the butter-making capac- 
ity of other breeds — the Alderney and Ayrshire 
being a favorite cross. 

Dutch cattle are of large size; prevailing color 
black, with sometimes a white patch over the 
back, resembling a sheet, and are, from this, 
distinguished by the name of sheeted cows. 
They are heavy ihilkers, but the milk is of 
rather poor quality, and not very productive 
of butter. Another very serious objection to 
Dutch cattle is the difliculty of fattening thera 
when past their prime, and the large quantity 
of food they consume in the endeavor to pre- 
pare them for the butcher. On account of 
these two faults in the character of this, at one 
time rather popular breed, they have of late 
years been going down in public estimation. 

The Hereford is another aboriginal stock of 
British cattle, that has long flourished by the 
side of the Devon. In earlier days, the char- 
acteristic white face, by which they are now 
recognized, was not a peculiar mark of the 



Hereford, The first importation into this coun- 
try was by Henry Clay, in 1817. In this 
breed, the face, mane, throat, the under por- 
tion of the body, the inside and lower part of 
the legs, and the tip of the tail, are beautifully 
white ; the other parts of the body a rich red, 
usually darker in the male than the female; 
the horn is white or light yellow, of a waxy 
appearance, sometimes tipped with black ; the 
forehead is broad, with spreading horns — those 
of the bull straight and level with the poll, 
and of the ox and cow slightly curved, with an 
upward tendency; the eye is full, yet passive, 
denoting the quietness of disposition and tem- 
per cliaracterisjic of the Plereford, and which 
is of paramount importance to insure the prof- 
itable feeding of all ruminating animals. This 
race has long been famous for' its oxen and 
steers ; they are very hardy, larger and stronger 
than the Devon, and docile as the Shorthorn. 
The Hereford cow makes slight pretensions as 
a milker, and is seldom selected for the dairy. 

The Brittany cows are a small, tough breed, 
capable of enduring all hardships and living 
on little, while yielding well in milk and but- 
ter. Professor W. H. Brewer says: "They 
are noted throughout France for their milking 
qualities. They are even smaller than the 
Jersey, but more hardy, yield similarly rich 
milk, and thrive well on poor soils. Cows of 
this breed are cited, which on their native 
hills, pastured on the scanty feed of the region, 
yield eight times their weight of milk per 
year. They are a breed for poor lands, and 
thrive where other breeds iii\\." 

Mr. Flint says of this breed: "Standing 
only about three feet high on their legs, the 
most fashionable height; mostly black and 
white — now and then, but rarely, a red and 
white; they are as docile as kittens, and look 
pretty enough to become the kitchen pet of 
the hard-pressed mountain or hill-side farmer, 
with pastures too short for a gros.ser animal. 
Ten pounds of hay will sufiice for their limited 
wants for twenty-four hours." 

l^hat is a Good Co wt— This ques- 
tion has already been inferentially answered. 
The best cow would be she that produced the 
most and richest milk on the least feed, while 
her male calves made the best oxen, and her 
carcass at last the most profitable beef. These 
qualities can assuredly be bred in and ren- 
dered hereditary by careful selection, to a far 
greater extent than is now dreamed of. The 
milch cows and beeves of 1970 will doubtless 



WHAT IS A GOOD COW? 



361 



contrast witli ours more widely tlian ours do 
Willi tlie small stock that preceded Bakewell. 

And it should be remembered that a cow 
which will give twice as much milk and make 
twice as much butter as another, is worth more 
than twice as much money as a cow because 
she will not eat twice as much food, nor require 
twice us much care. 

John T. Norton, of Farminston, Connecti- 
cut, says of the product of the Jerseys: "This 
milk will make about one pound of butter from 
six quarts of milk. One pound from twelve 
quarts is not far from the average yield from 
other herds." Another writes: "They are not 
deep milkers, seldom giving over twenty-five 
to thirty-two pounds of milk per day. We 
had one which we sold to the Rev. Henry 
Ward Beecher, that gave forty and a half 
pounds of milk per day. As that gentleman 
justly observed, 'tlie Jerseys did not give much 
milk, but what they did give was all cream.' 
The most butter per week we ever had a Jer- 
sey cow give was sixteen pounds." 

A well known breeder says: "The Durhams 
and Devons, as a rule, only yield well for a 
short time, during the most lavorable period 
of their milking; while the Jersey will keep 
her yield well up during the whole season; and 
if extra care and pains are not taken, she will 
not ilry off before she calves again, which is 
not to be desired, and is injurious to both cow 
and calf" J. M. Morse, of Massachusetts, 
says of a Jersey: "We made from her in the 
month of June, sixty-five pounds of butter, 
besides using some milk. Her yield of milk 
per day was about seventeen quarts." 

Thomas Fitch, of New London, Connecti- 
cut, says: "I have a Jersey cow with a strain 
of Ayrshire in her that has produced in .seven 
days, on good pasture and no other feed, six- 
teen pounds seven ounces of splendid butter, 
besides supplying the family of five persons 
with milk sufficient for tea, coflce, etc." Mr. 
Beach, of West Hartford, Connecticut, reports 
in the Country Oentleman, that he has a Jersey 
cow that made ten pounds of butter in the first 
week of February. 

Mr. Flint, in his work on "Milch Cows," 
says: "A cross obtained from an Ayrshire bull 
of good size, and a pure bred Shorthorn cow, 
will produce a stock which it will be haid to 
beat at the pail, especially if the cow belong 
to any of the families of Shorthorns which 
have been bred with reference to their milking 
qualities, as some of them have. I have taken 
great pains to inquire of dairymen as to the ; 



breed or grade of their best cows, and what 
they consider the best cows for milk for their 
purposes, and the answer has almost invaria- 
bly been, the .\yrshire and the native." 

The Jersey cow, "Flora," made no less than 
" five hundred and eleven pounds of butter in 
one year, without extra feeding;" and J. C. 
Converse, of ''''''assachusetts, aflirms tliat his 
Jersey cow, "Ej.',dy Milton," produced fifteen 
hundred and ninety-five quarts of milk, and 
two hundred and twenty pounds of butter in 
tlu'ee months, from grass in pasture only. 

J. Bodice, a Scotchman, writes to the Gen- 
essee Farmer: "I have carried on a dairy in 
.\yrshire, Scotland, for twenty-five years, and 
always considered the Ayrshire cow the best 
that could be obtained — milking qualities con- 
sidered. Our best Ayrshire cows yielded thir- 
ty-six quarts per day, on pasture alone, and 
our poorest, twenty-four quarts per day during 
June and July." 

Joseph H. Howe, a well-known dairy feeder 
of Massachusetts, gives the monthly yield of an 
.\yrshire cow, that gave in one year five thou; 
sand two hundred and sixty-five quarts of milk. 
"The keeping consisted of a few roots orshorts, 
with as much hay and other fodder as she would 
eat — during the Summer months, nothing but 
good pasture." The Ayrshire cow, Dolly, owned 
by S. M. Wells, of Connecticut, has given five 
thousand quarts a year. Youatt estimated a 
fair annual aveiMge for an Ayrshire cow at six 
hundred gallons. AlTON thinks it approaches 
a thousand. 

The great value of Alderney stock is that it 
is almost indispensable in crossing for the pro- 
duction of the most valuable and highest type 
of the cow for rich and poor, family and dairy. 
A high-grade Alderney never gives poor milk. 
Hon. H. Ingals, of Mercer, Maine, is re- 
ported to have had a cow, half Durham and 
half native breed, that gave in June 3.53 pounds 
of milk per week, and whole height of butter 
first week, 19 pounds; weight of milk the sec- 
ond week, 367 pounds; weight of butler .second 
week, 21 pounds, making 40 pounds 10 ounces 
of butter in 14 days, requiririg 18 pounds of 
milk to one of butter. 

S. ScAMMON, of Stratham, New Hampshire, 
reported in the Country Oentleman, that he has 
an Ayrshire cow which made, in one year 
(when she was six), by accurate weight, six 
hundred and ten pounds of butter. Her milk 
weighed fourteen ihou.sand five hundred and 
forty pounds — mure than seven tons — the aver- 
e being almost forty pounds of milk per day 



362 



LIVE STOCK: 



and twelve pounds of butter per week, during 
the year. Mr. Scammon gave his cow "good 
hay, and generally two quarts of meal per d;iy." 
In the Summer, he gave her four quarts of meal 
per day, till July, tlien decreased to two quarts, 
and, after liaying, turned her out to grass, and 
gave no meal;" gave her "green stalks in the 
season of them." He says his two daughters 
milk tliis cow, " one on each side of lier, with a 
large pail apiece!" Would sell her "for 
$1,000," and nothing less. 

To Ascertain the Age of Cattle.— 

The ordinary guide for ascertaining the pie- 
cise age of cattle is the horn. At three years 
old, the first distinct ring is usually observed; 
at four years old, two are seen ; and so on, one 
being added on each succeeding, year. Hence 
the rule, that, if two be added lo the number 
of rings, the age of the animal would be given. 
These rings, however, are perfectly distinct in 
the cow only ; in the ox they do not appear 
until lie is five years old, and are often confused : 
in the bull they are cither not seen until five, 
or can not be traced at all. They are not al- 
ways distinct even in the cow. 

Far surer signs are presented by the teeth. 
Generally, if the mother have gone the average 
period of gestation, the calf will show two cen- 
tral teeth on each gum at birth; two weeks af- 
ter, a tooth will be added on each side — making 
eight in all — and in a month this number will 
be doubled. The number and appearance of 
the front or incisor teeth, at subsequent periods, 
are imlioated hv Yia'ATT in the following cuts; 





Thbee Teabs. 



Mr. HiCKEY says; "The age is indicated 
with unerring certainty by the teeth, to those 
who have judgment and experience, until the 
animal reaches the age of six or seven ; until 
two years .old, no teeth are cast ; at that age, 
two new teeth are cut ; at three, two more are 
cut ; and, in the two succeeding years, two in 
each year; at five the mouth is said to be full, 
though not completely so until six, because 
until that period the two corner teeth (the last 
in renewal) are not perfectly up. The front 
or incisor teeth are those considered, for a full- 
grown beast has thirty-two teeth" (eight in- 
cisor and eight molar teeth on each jaw). 

An Inrallible Sign of a Good 
CotV. — Is there an " inlallible sign " by 
which alone to judge accurately of the quan- 
tity and quality of a cow's milk and butter? 
Yes ; if we may rely upon the discovery of 
M. Francis Guenon, for which he has re- 
ceived a pension of three thousand francs a 
year from the French government. The #ign 
which he and his official patrons declared to 
be infallible, and which is now observed and 
studied with care by every intelligent breeder 
in this country as well as in Europe, is the 
Milk Mirror, as M. GuENON called the escutch- 
eon, formed by the lines on the back part of 
the udder and thighs of a cow. where the 
growth of hair changes its direction. 

The importance of this theory is fully recog- 
nized by Mr. Flint, and by most of the stock 
authorities of this country ; John S. Skinner 
asked in his introduction to Guenon's work : 
"Is it extraordinary or incredible that the 
milky secretions of the cow should produce, in 
the region where the process is carried' on, and 
where her characteristic e.\cellence lies, exter- 
nal eflects not more visible or striking than are 
produced on the size, color, and growth of the 
hair, on the shoulders, neck, and head of a 
bull?" 

Gdenon's claims attracted the attention of 
French Agricultural Societies as early as 1837, 
and the Bordeaux society, after putting him to 
severe tests, reported favorably. We extract 
briefly from their report : " M. Guenon has 
eslablislied a natural method, by means of 
I which it is easy to recognize and class the dif- 



AN INFALLIbLE SIGN OF A GOOD COW. 



363 



ferent kinds of milcli cows. By means of tliis 
classitication, wliicli is no less clear and dis- 
tinct than simple, we are enabled, 

1. To distinguisli with ease, in any herd of 
cows, each individual comprised in it, according 
to the quantity of milk which she is capable of 
yielding — from twenty-si.x quarts a day down to 
next to nothing, and all intermediate quantities. 

2. To know the qualities of the milk which 
each will give, as being creamy or serous. 

3. To determine during what time, after being 
got with calf, the cow will continue to give milk. 

" We have examined, in the most careful 
manner, upwjjrd of .sixty cows and heifers ; and 
we are bound to declare that every statement 
made by M. Guenon with respect to each of 
them, whether it regarded the quantity of milk, 
or the time during which the cow continued to 
give milk after being got with calf, or, finally, 
the quality of the milk as being more or le.ss 
creamy or serous, was confirmed, and its accu- 
racy fully established. 

"Alter more than twenty years of observations 
and researches, JI. Guenon has succeeded at 
length in discovering certain natural and posi- 
tive signs, which constitute the basis of his 
method; a method henceforward proof against 
all error. " * This system, gentlemen, 

we do not hesitate to say it, is infallible. The 
signs upon which it is founded, ever constant, 
invariable in the place they occupy, are strongly 
impressed upon the animal by the hand of na- 
ture. To appreciate them becomes an easy task." 

Guenon applied his system with equal con- 
fidence to young animal.s, deciding on the fu- 
ture milking qualities of calves. The marks 
from which he judged are now well known 
among farmers, visible on the posterior parts 
of a cow, in the space between the udder and 
the vulva. The escutcheon is bounded by the 
lines where the different growths of hair meet. 

All breeds of cows are divided by GuENON, 
into eight classes, according to the shape of 
the escutcheon belonging to the class, and the 
higher orders of each class are found among 
the best cows of every country. According to 
the order of a cow is her yield of milk; if she 
be a large and constant milker her peculiar 
escutcheon will be large, regular, and free from 
blemish; as the milking capacity degenerates, 
the escutcheon beco^iies diminished and its out- 
line indefinite. 

We present for the reader's inspection and 
study, an illustration of Guenon's miiror, in 
the escutcheons of the eight diflerent classes, re- 
taining the arbitrary names which he adopted. 



It is not necessary to illustrate the eight orders 
of merit into which GuENON divided each of 
the eight classes. We merely repeat that from 
the first order in each cla.ss, as here represented, 
the inferior orders descend in regular gradation, 
until the escutcheon almost entirely loses its 
distinctive character, or " runs out " 

It is only necessary to add that the kinds of 
escutcheon are deemed valuable, in the order 
in which they are named — the Flanders being 
the best, and the Horizontal the least de.sirable. 
The best cows with tiie Flanders escutcheon 
yield, according to Guenon, when in the height 
of flow, an average of about twenty quarts a 
day. This average diminishes, not only down- 
ward through the diflerent orders of the same 
class, but also through the different classes — 
the best of the Horizontal escutcheon cows yield- 
ing only twelve quarts daily in their flow. We 
omit engravings of two of the classes — the 
Square and the Limousine escutcheon — because 
they seem to us to be merely variations of the 
Demijohn. 

Cows of the first order of cacli class are 
known by their having a delicate udder, cov- 
ered with a fine downy hair growing upward 
from between the four teats. This downy 
growth continues over the hinder part of the 
udder, and the region above it, blending with 
a similar upward growth, which, beginning on 
the legs a little above the hock joint, covers the 
inner surface of the thighs, encroaching upon 
the outer surface to points on either side, and 
then suddenly contracting as it extends up- 
ward. The skin of the inner surface of the 
thighs and adjacent parts, up to the vulva, is 
of a yellowish color, with here and there a black 
spot. A sort of bran or dandrufl detaches from it. 




364 



LIVE stock: 




Class 4— Bicoe.v Escutch 




KscrTCHEOH, 



In most of the hiylier orders of cows above 
described, we find above the two hind feats two 
small oval mnrks, about an inch and a half 
wide by two inches long, formed by hair grow- 
ing downward in the field of ascending hair. 
There are a Iso, very often, two tufts of ascend- 
ing liair alongside the vulva, "indicating a 
prolonged continuance of the flow of milk as 
ihe time of calving approaches." Mr. Flint 
calls attention to the fact that "in a fat cow, 
with an inflated udder, the mirror appears 
larger than it really is; while in a lean cow, 
with a loose and wrinkled udder, it appears 
smaller." 

He adds that the mirror depends somewhat 
on the breed, and he does "not believe that 
precisely the same size and formed milk-mir- 
rors on a Hereford or a Devon, and an Ayr- 
shire or native, will indicate anything like the 



SPAYINCi COWS — WEIGHT OF BEEVES. 



365 



same or equal milking properties. It will not 
do, in my opinion," lie continues, " to disregard 
the general and well-known characteristics of 
the breed, and rely wholly on the milk mirror." 

A correspondent of Colman's Rural World 
thinks Guenon's mirror vaUiable, but by no 
means infallible, adding : 

" I saw, two years ago, a three-fourths Al- 
derncy heifer calf, of extraordinary beauty ; I 
ofl'ered the owner twenty dollars for it at two 
weeks old. I turned it out to pasture without 
other feed ; it has done well, and now has a 
heifer calf and is the most symmetrical young 
milch cow I ever owned — and what is better, 
the best milker. She requires to be milked 
three times a day although the calf runs with 
her. This heifer has not the GuENON escutch- 
eon. Three weeks before coming in, her udder 
was not bigger than that of a goat; now she 
can scarcely get about, owing to her legs being 
BO distended by her udder. 1 have another 
three-fourths Alderney, a very superior butter 
cow; neither she nor any of her progenitors 
had the GuENON escutcheon. Now, I think 
those purchasing cows for the dairy should not 
reject one that has not the escutcheon marks." 

Spaying Cows. — To spay is to castrate, 
or remove the ovaries of a female animal, a 
process which incapacitates her for reproduc- 
tion, and greatly diminishes the fervor of her 
periodical heats. It was iirst practiced on cows 
by Mr. WiNN, an American, but has been most 
popularized in France. In that country, milch 
cows are subjected to it, even when they are 
not intended for the shambles in years. 

Advantages of Spaying. — M. Levk-^t claims 
that spaying " causes a more abundant and 
constant supply of milk, an improvement of 
its quality, the certainty of a uniform flow, ex- 
emption from the perils of receiving the bull 
and delivering the calf, ana, finally, greater 
facility of taking on fat when the milk fails, 
and a flesh that is more tender and juicy than 
that of an ox." 

The best age for spiiying is six; after .drop- 
ping the third or fourth calf. M. Moein, says: 
" The cow spayed thirty or forty days after 
calving, and at the time when she gives the 
largest quantity of milk, continues to give the 
like quantity, if not during her whole life-time, 
at least during many years, and at the time 
when the milk begins to dry up the animal fat- 
tens. We are able to add, moreover, at this 
day, certain facts, the result of many years' ex- 
periment, that the milk of the spayed cow, 



although as abundant, and sometimes more 
so, than before the operation, is of a superior 
quality to that from a cow not spayed ; that it 
is uniform in its character, that it is richer, 
consequently more buttery, and that the butter 
is always of a golden color. We believe that 
we ought to remark in passing, that if we feed 
the spayed cow too abundantly, lactation dimin- 
ishes and the bea.st promptly fattens. It is, 
therefore, important that the feeding should 
not be more than sufficient to enable us to ob- 
tain the desired result." 

Spaying is chiefly valuable as applied to: 1, 
Siiuill or decrepit cows; 2, those which though 
fine in appearance and good milkers, calve 
badly; 3, those subject to miscarriage; 4, those 
which calve with difficult)'; 5, those that are 
always in heat ; 6, those that for any reason it 
is not desirable to keep. 

Prof. MoClure recently published a treatise 
on this subject, in which he set forth that 
"spayed cows are less liable to prevailing dis- 
eases, and when sick are more easy of cure; 
they are always in condition and fit for the 
butcher and when pleuro-pneumonia is among 
them they can be sold without loss ; they give 
the same quantity and quality of milk the 
year 'round, if they are properly fed and 
cared for. Ten spayed cows will give the year 
^round as viiich milk as double the nuinher of c&ws 
nut spayed, thus saving the interest on the onUlayin 
the purchase and feed of ten cows." 

Disadoanlages of Spaying. — The disadvantages 
of the operation are summed up as follows: 
1. The risk of death to the animal under the 
operation will be about one in a hundred — less 
than in the castration of bulls. 2. Spayed 
cows are apt to accumulate fat and flesh, so 
that they will become dry much sooner than 
cows not spayed. Still there can be little loss 
in this, for a fat cow is always ready for sale. 
3. The expense of the operation will be from 
S3 to $5, which will depend upon the distance 
the operator has to travel, and how many ani- 
mals are to be operated upon. 

The ovaries are attached near the backbone. 
We shall not describe the process of removing 
them. Until spaying becomes more common 
in this country, the veterinary surgeon, or the 
neighborhood " horse doctor" must be relied on. 

■Weight of Beeves. — The net weight is 
from fifty to sixty-eight pounds to one hundred 
pounds of live weight, according to the condi- 
tion of the animal, and according to the inclu- 
sion or exclusion of the hide and fat from the 



36G 



LIVE STOCK : 



calculation. The largest ox ever killed in 
America, wliose weight is verified, was a Mas- 
Eachiisetts Durham grade ox, eight years old, 
fatted b_v John Sanderson, of Bernardslown, 
in 1S62. His live weight was 3,600; his net 
weight 2,473, after shrinking a week. He 
girted back of shoulders ten feet eight inches ; 
forward of hips, eleven feet eight inches; 
height, six feet three inches; length, nine feet 
eight inches. A Connecticut ox, presented to 
W.\.SHINGT0N, weighed on the hoof 3,500; and 
i-evernl oxen have been killed in this country 
whose live weight was more than 3,300. The 
Iowa Homestead tells us of a white steer, be- 
lonuing to .SAMt!EL II. Joxe.s, of SanL'amon 
county, Illinois, that girted ten feet six inches 
' and weighed 3,600. K.tcursion parties visited 
it from different parts of the State. The aver- 
age weight of our cattle increases every decade, 
and it can not be long before a four tliousand 
pound ox will be grown. 

The Cattle Market.— No other coun- 
try in the world consumes so much meat as 
America, per capita; for in no other country is 
it so easy for the common people to earn a liv- 
ing, and to live well. 

Something like two million head of cattle, 
including sheep and swine, are received every 
year at the New York shambles, and of this 
number much more than one-half are swine. 
The total value in 1S63 was over S.30,000,000. 

In 1863, 210,384 bullocks were sold in the 
New York market. Almost all of tliern came 
from the West, and six States furnished propor- 
tionately as follows: Illinois, nominally 118,- 
692 — though many of these were raised in 
Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas; Indiana, 14,232; 
Ohio, 19,269; Michigan, 9,074; Kentucky, 6,- 
782 ; New York, 28,985. 

Cruelty in Transportation.— So- 
lon Robinson speaks in his " Facts for Farm- 
ers" of the shocking cruelty that is often dis- 
played in the confinement of cattle, without 
food or water, during long journeys, and makes 
the following humane suggestions; "We must 
have an improvement in cattle-cars. It cer- 
tainly would not be difficult to construct them 
so that cattle should stand with heads to one 
side, where w.ater could be given them in a 
trough, by means of a hose; and if this can 
not be done, it must be made a criminal otTense 
to keep the animals on a car more than thirty 
hours without water. In fact, it would be bet- 
ter for all parties if the number that a car 



.should contain were limited (by law), and if 
the stock in no case could remain on the cars 
over thirty hours without being unloaded, 
rested, fed, and watered." The philanthropist, 
Mr. Bergh, is also urging the same much 
needed reform. The attention of legislators is 
invited to the shameful abuses which now 
prevail. 

'Worklngr Oxen. — The Egyptians wor- 
shipped the ox for his services as a laborer. 
In New England he still holds the first place 
a.s the farm laborer; but in the West he is 
largely superseded by the quicker horse. The 
tendency to dispense with oxen is likely to be 
carried too far. They are most useful in all 
heavy operations, and every farmer with a 
hundred acres of arable land can keep one pair 
to great advantage, as an auxiliary to the 
horse team. Progressive farming commands 
deep, rather than wide, culture, and the ox will 
be found useful here until steam shall be ad- 
vantageously harnessed to the implements of 
tillage. 

In a good working ox we want to see the fol- 
lowing qualities : Let him have large nostrils, 
a long face, a bright hazel eye ; which will indi- 
cate docility and intelligence; a hoof rather 
long, and not turned outward very much ; a 
straight back, a broad breast, wide ganibrel, 
small tail, and horns of medium size. When 
you tind such an ox as that, he will be a good 
worker. 

Remember that oxen are not deaf. Don't 
bellow at them. Don't flourish around them, 
and yell like an Inilian, when you wish to di- 
rect their motions. By this folly you exasper- 
ate yourself, confu.se the team, and disturb the 
neighbors. The ox is one of the most tracta- 
ble of beasts ; and the best driver we ever saw 
was a boy, who addressed his oxen in a low 
lone, and never struck them. They obeyed his 
voice and gesture, as horses obey the rein. 

Breakinij Steers. — Some hard tussling is gen- 
erally involved in breaking a pair of wild, 
vigorous three-year-olds. John Y. Smith 
thus advises in the Western Farmer : "Take two 
animals of about equal size and strength, and 
tie them together with a strong rope, by placing 
one end around the horns of one animal and 
the other end around the horns of the other, 
and make them fast, a.s for leading or tying up, 
leaving three or four feet of rope between the 
inner horns, and turn them into a field free 
from trees. Let them run and pull and haul 
till they are tired of it, and they will walk side 



MANAGEMENT OF COWS. 



367 



by side and feed together. Tlien tiike offtheroiie 
and they will ever after lead with the docility 
of a child, even tliongh the first occasion may 
be years afterwards. It is much easier than 
for a m:in to be jerked around all day by a 
wild heifer or steer, and more eflectual. We 
have tried it, and know." 

A better way is to break steers to the yoke 
while calves and accustom them to llie word 
of command. All animals, male and female, 
intended either for breeding, milk or work, 
should be thoroughly domesticated and taught 
to "handle well " and have no fear of man. 

It is one of the first essentials in early train- 
ing to bring the animal to depend upon the 
driver. Food, water, care, and training should 
be mainly given by one person. A feeling of 
dependence as opposed to independence .should 
be cultivated. There should also be a strong 
friendship, a familiar acquaintance, and the 
fullest confidence of the animal. The labor is 
half accomplished when the animal has confi- 
dence in and a thorough acquaintance with the 
driver. 

W. H. Gardner says: "No demand should 
ever be made of a young animal with which 
he can not readily comply.. It ia a good rule 
to so direct that the easiest way to move is in 
the very direction you want the movement 
made. Any and all demands made must be 
enforced. The trainer never svffers in the esti- 
ntation of the animal when he succeeds, even 
if force be necessary to effect the wished-for 
result. It is probably necessary to teach all 
working animals a wholesome fear of the whip. 
This done, its further use is .seldom necessarj'. 
The whip should not be used in urging to 
higher speed. The best of all gaits is a quick, 
nimble walk. Train all teams to walk well." 

"Young steers should not be cosseted and 
handled more than is necessary to keep them 
familiar with their master; more petting than 
this is apt to make them a slow, plodding pair 
of oxen. When loo donieslic, they lose spirit." 
They should seldom be worked with old oxen ; 
it will restrain their lively walk, and give them 
slow and plodding habits. 

Management of Cows.— We append 
a few simple rules for the general management 
of cows: 

Heifers designed for the dairy can hardly be 
fondled or petted too much. The calf should 
be made familiar with her owner's presence 
and touch, until she becomes fond of him and 
follows him about the yard, courting his atten- 



tions. Her bag should be handled occasionally 
before calving. Treatment of this kind will 
keep her in hand, and by the time she comes 
to milk, after the first few manipulations, she 
will be as gentle and steady as an old cow. 

Never buy a cow of a dairyman ; if he is a 
good manager he will .sell only his poor stock. 

As a rule, cows should be run dry four to 
six weeks before calving. If milked closely 
before calving, the calves will be poorer. This, 
however, depends much on the cows; some will 
give good milk without harm up to nearly the 
time of calving. 

To determine which cows are best for keep- 
ing, try their milk separately, and weigh the 
butter — for sometimes a cow may give much 
milk and little butter, and vice versa. 

Heifers dried nptoo early beforecalving will 
always run dry in after years about the same 
time; therefore be careful to milk closely the 
first year until about six weeks before coming in. 

Spring cows should come in while they are 
yet fed on hay, and before they are turned to 
grass, which will be more likely to prevent 
caked bag and milk fever. 

Cows should generally be fattened before 
they are fifteen. While the value of the udder 
in a good dairy cow exceeds the value of the 
cow, her pasture, and the necessary attendance, 
she may be kept to any age. A dairyman 
should rai.se two or three calves a j'ear to every 
fifteen cows, to restore the losses. 

For a luilker we would have the heifer come 
in at two years old, and if she has been well 
kept, so as to have attained a good size, she is 
then old enough to become a cow. She will 
give more milk for coming in early. 

A large p.isture field for cows in milk is det- 
rimental to quality of milk; the cow that gets 
her fill in a short time, and then lies down to 
ruminate quietly, will do much better than the 
same one required to spend a much longer time 
in obtaining the .same amount of food. 

Kicking Cows. — Cattle difier in natural dis- 
positions as widely as their masters do. Some 
are nervous and irritable ; others calm and 
docile. But nine cases in ten, bad habits in 
cattle result from the bad treatment of calves. 
If a cow have acquired a habit of kicking furi- 
ously whenever the milker approaches, the best 
cure is the butcher. If too valuable to spare, 
she can be restrained by elevating her nose 
with a strap tied to a beam overhead ; or by 
passing a buckled strap over one of her bent 
fore legs. Simply tying the ears together 
has been found a preventive, hy diverting the 



368 



LIVE STOCK : 



attention. Scolding, fretting, loud threiiten- 
ing, thumping, and flagellations, are silly, as 
well as useless. A kicking man is worse than 
a kicking cow. 

"If a cow or heifer persist in kicking under 
kind treatment, take a small rope, and quietly 
fasten it around the opposite fore foot, and 
thence bring it over her back so as to hang by 
the milker. When she kicks again, without 
saying a word, draw her foot up to her body. 
You can now handle her as you please. She 
will struggle to release her foot, but to no pur- 
pose, and will soon croucli to the floor. Tlien 
let her get up again, and pet her a little. If 
she kicks again, repeat the operation as often, 
and you will soon find she will not move a foot 
while you are milking, unless there is some 
irritating cau.se, like sore teats or sharp fin- 
ger nails." 

]>Iilking'. — In the first place, a cow giving 
milk should have all the good feed she will 
consume. Summer and Winter, with a suitable 
allowance of pure clean water to drink, and 
good comfortable stables during Winter, with 
access to shelter in inclement weather during 
Summer and Fall ; should be milked at' regidar 
stated intervals, by the same milker, who shall 
perform the milking in the least possible time 
to do it thoroughly; and in a dairy of several 
cows, in regular succession — that i.s, the game 
cows follow each other in being milked, in reg- 
ular course at each milking; and whatever 
feeding, or other caring for there is, should be 
done in the same regular, orderly course. Cows 
in milk, as well as all other stock, and they in 
particular, should have suit where they can 
have constant access to it — not only for their 
health, but for the quality and quantity of 
milk, and to keep up a constant flow. 

Milk as fast as possible. Experience proves 
this to be the best way. Talk as little as possi- 
ble while milking. Let the cow be perfectly 
quiet and contented. Milk at regular hours; 
let those hours be nearly or quite equidistant — 
say twelve hours between each milking. Then 
there will be no straining of the bag by over- 
distension. 

Milk clean. To leave milk in the udder 
tends to dry up the cow. A French agricult- 
ural writer stales, also, that, from recent experi- 
ments, it appears that the last milk drawn from 
the cow contains ten times more cream and but- 
ter than the first milk. Hence it follows that if, 
after drawing, say some seven or eight quarts 
of milk from the cow, the operation should be 



stopped, and a pint or more left in the dugs, 
near one-half the cream and butter are lost. 

Yet it is best always to milk with a full 
hand. Never strip with the fingers. Many a 
good cow has been spoiled by stripping. Milk 
firmly with the whole hand, and the cow w ill 
.soon learn to drop all her milk within the time 
allotted to her. The teats and bag ought to 
be washed clean before milking. 

Hard Milkers. — Cows generally milk hard 
because the orifice of the teat is too contracted. 
A correspondent of the New England Homestead 
states that he had a valuable young cow that 
milked so hard from the hind teats as to make 
the operation slow and very fatiguing to the 
milker. He adds: "By the aid of a probe I 
ascertained that the obslrucaon was at the lower 
end of the teats ; I therefore thought that a 
little surgical skill might remove the evil. I 
took a narrow-bladed knife, gave it a keen edge, 
took the teat in my left hand, inserted the point 
very genlly to the milk pa.ssage, and then, 
without fear or trembling, gave a sudden thrust 
of the knife in the right direction, and the cure 
was effected. The cow started a little, and 
then stood still. A few drops of blood followed 
the cut only. I then operated on the other 
teat with the same result. Another young cow, 
that came of the above-mentioned, had lost one- 
quarter of her bag, and milked so hard from 
one teat that the stream of milk was no larger 
than a small knitting-needle. With the same 
success I operated upon that." 

To Make Cows ''Give Down." — A timely 
taste of salt, or sometimes of meal or roots, 
will make a cow yield her milk. John John- 
ston says sour milk is better. "As the cow 
stops drinking she will give down freely." 

To Prevent Leakage. — Some cows have a 
habit of shedding their milk in the pasture and 
yard, between milkings. There is an article 
called collodion, or liquid cuticle, which may 
be obtained of druggists. Apply this to the 
end of the afi'ected teats after milking the cow. 
It at once forms a thin tough skin, and closes 
the orifice. At tlie next milking, this skin can 
be broken through, and after milking the col- 
lodion is again applied. After a few applica- 
tions in this way, the defect will be permanently 
cured. 

Another useful purpose of this article may 
be mentioned. Cow's teats often become tender 
from chaps and deep fissures in them. They 
may readily be cured by moistening a piece of 
muslin in this fluid, and applying it smoothly 
to the parts affected. It adheres so firmly that 



TO PREVENT CATTLE FRuJI JUMPING — CALVES. 



369 



it will not be looseiicil, even if the calf is al- fore lier, anj warm gruel, or water from which 

lowed to draw the milk. some of the coldnes.s has been taken off. Two 

Cows Sucking Themselves. — Some try a yoke, or three hours afterward, it will be prudent to 

and others a shingle on the nose as a prevent- give an aperient drink, eon.sisting of a pound of 



ive of this bad habit; and another u.ses "an 
old bridle with the bit in her mouth." W. S., 
in the Prairie 'Farmer, reeommend.s the follow- 
ing remedy: "Mix cayenne pepper with lard, 
as strong as you please, the stronger the better, 
and after milking, grease the teats and lower 
part of the bag with the compound, and repeat 
tlie application until she forgets tlie habit, 
which will not be long. The pepper is so un- 
palatable that she will not try it many lime-i." 

To Prevent Cattle fa-om Jusiip- 
ing'. — "A Soldier Boy" writes that he has 
always succeeded in curing cattle of the habit 
of jumping by piercing the ears of the unruly 
animal, and tying them together over tlie head 
with twine. "The philosophy of it is that an 
animal always drops its ears when about to 
jump. When this is prevented, the jumping 
is abandoned." 

A Western farmer says he makes it a rule 
that whenever cattle are made to pass a fence, 
whether through bars or "slip-gap," to leave 
one rail for them to pass under. This gives 
them a downward tendency, and lessens tlieir 
inclination to jump or look upward, as they 
are sure to do when a lazy attendant throws 
down a part of the rails, and makes them' vault 
the rest. 

The habit of breaching is generally acquired 
through the negligence of the owner. When 
the habit has become fixed, the slaughter-house 
is the_ only cure. The poke, and all mechan- 
ical contrivances about the face, are deformi- 
ties, and ought seldom to be resorted to. 

Calves.— YoUATT says: "Parturition hav- 
ing been accomplished, the cow should be left 
quietly with the calf; the licking and cleaning 
of which, and the eating of the placenta, if it 
is soon discharged, will employ and amuse her. 
It is a cruel thing to separate the mother from 
the young so soon; the cow will pine, and will 
be deprived of that medicine which Nature de- 
signed for her in the moisture which hangs 
about the calf, and even in the placenta itselfj 
and the calf will lose that gentle friction and 
motion which help to give it the immediate use 
of all its limb.s, and which increases the lan- 
guid circulation of the blood, and produces a 
genial warmth in tlie half-exhausted and chilled 
little animal. A warm mash should be put be- 
2i 



Ep.som salts and two drachms of ginger. This 
may tend to prevent milk fever and garget in 
the udder." 

W. H. White, of East Windsor, Connecticut, 
says: "The best way to raise calves, is to take 
them from the cow as soon as dropped; if pos- 
sible, never let them suck, as they learn to eat 
or drink sooner, and there is no .sore teat from 
biting, and the task of weaning the cow from 
the calf is soon over. 

A writer in the Oermantmvn. Telegraph pre- 
sents his method as follows: "A calf that I am 
going to raise I never let suck the cow. It is 
niucli easier to learn it to drink without than 
after sucking. I have had calves drink alone 
before they were twelve hours old, and after 
the second day, have but little trouble with 
them, as they drink freely if in good healih. 
Besides the great advantage of this Is, that 
when they are turned out with the cows they 
never trouble them. For the first two weeks I 
give them milk drawn from the mother; after 
the cud comes, then I scald a little bran or 
ground oa!s and corn, cake meal, etc. This 
mixture I have about milk warm, feeding them 
three times a day, making fresh each time, as 
they do not relisli stale food. They will soon 
eat a little hay ; clover is best. If there is grass, 
I tie them out for a .short time, and in six weeks 
may be left to run, and the slop is gradually 
slacked off. I consider March the best time to 
start calves, as in April they can get a little 
grass, and by the following Winter they have 
a good beginning." 

The Massach-usetts Plowman says that when a 
calf is fed with milk by hand, it ought to be fed 
three or four times a day, slowly, as it would 
get it from suckling, otherwise instead of going 
; to the fourth stomach, wliere it would go nat- 
urally from the cow's udder, it will be liable to 
fall into the rumen, paunch, or first stomach, 
and cause a derangement of the digestive or- 
gans. Professor Tanner says the best breeders 
in England give their calves liquid food, at 
least eight or ten weeks. 

A calf will thrive better on milk that is not 
rich in butter than on what is commonly called 
rich milk; because the nutricious elements of 
milk reside chiefly in the casein. 

The Irish Parmcrs' Gazette gives the follow- 
ing : "The best substitute for milk for such a 
purpo.se is a compound of three quarts of lln- 



370 



LIVE stock: 



seed meal, and four quarts of bean meal, mixed 
with thirty quarts of boiling water, and left to 
digest for twentj'-four hours, when it is poured 
into a boiler on the fire having thirty-one quarts 
of boiling water. Let it boil for half an hour, 
keeping it constantly stirred with a perforated 
paddle to prevent lumps and to produce perfect 
incorporation. It is then put to cool for use, 
and given blood warm. When iirst used it must 
be given mi.\ed with the milk in small quantity, 
and increased gradually; decreasing the milk 
in the same proportion till they get the above 
mucilage only." This suggestion has been fol- 
lowed with great success by some farmers in 
Great Britain and Ireland. 

Cotton-seed meal, though a third richer, is 
similarly used, and with the happiest results. 
A few have reported the death of calves from 
feeding it; but it was undoubtedly the result of 
0!)er-feeding. Calves are very fond of it; and 
it must be given in very limited quantities. 

It is bad practice to leave calves and colts to 
take their chances among older cattle. The 
older ones will get the best picking, while they 
need it least. They will select the best shelter 
and the warmest beds for themselves, and leave 
the little ones to take the chances that are left. 

Calves well fed and taken care of, with a 
quart or two of meal daily in Winter, will be 
double the size at two years they would have 
attained by common treatment. 

Oat-meal gruel, corn meal, sliced .sugar beets, 
and boiled potatoes, are much used as food for 
a growing calf. 

The Scours in Calves. — -Rennet is said to be a 
sure remedy for scours. "Soak a piece as large 
as a thimble in a cupful of water, and admin- 
ister it; one dose will effectually check the dis- 
order." 

Diseases of Co'»VS. — Abortion. — The 
frequency with which cows have prematurely 
slipped their calves in some districts of this 
country within the last five years, has been 
such as to cause wide-spread alarm in the States 
affected. In many instances, it seems to have 
taken an epizootic form, whole droves, town- 
ships and counties being similarly afflicted as 
by a contagion. In 1866, the New York State 
Agricultural Society memorialized the Legisla- 
ture to take action for the suppression of the 
disease, setting forth "that in New York the 
annual value of the butter made exceeds forty 
millions of dollars; and the annual value of 
the cheese manufactured exceeds si.K millions 
of dollars; that a subtle and hitherto undis- 



covered disease has existed for years past, which 
causes abortion in the cows of the dairy dis- 
tricts; that this disease has been constantly 
increasing, and that its ravages during the past 
year have been unusually appalling. Over 
eight thousand cows have been lost in Herki- 
mer county alone during the past year from 
this disease, which is spreading in the counties 
of Oneida, Lewis, and other dairy districts." 

A commission was appointed. A report was 
made in 1868, by Professor Dalton, who had 
ascertained the following mentioned facts: 

" 1. Abortion in cows only exist to an alarm- 
ing extent in the States of New York and Mas- 
sachusetts. 

" 2. In New York State it is increasing, 
abortions being now ijbout five per cent, of all 
pregnancies 

"3. The disease does not depend on the 
amount of butter and cheese taken from the 
cow. 

"4. Good milkers are shown to be no more 
liable to it than poor ones. 

"5. It does not occur oftener with the first 
calf than afterward. 

"6. The greatest number of cases occur dur- 
ing the seventh, eiglitli, and ninth months of 
pregnancy — during January, February, and 
March — the increase beginning to be marked 
about the time the cows are housed in No- 
vember. 

" 7. The disease can not be ascribed to cold 
and exposure, nor to defective stables. 

" 8. It is not caused by allowing the heifera 
to go to the bull at an immature age. 

"9. It is not caused by the use of bulls too 
young and therefore imperfect in vigor or de- 
velopment. 

" 10. It is not due to an inflamed or diseased 
state of the uterus, post mortem examinations 
revealing only stoppage of foetal circulation pre- 
vious to the occurrence of abortion. 

"11. No original defects in the foetus can be 
seen which will account for its expulsion. 

" 12. A cow having once aborted, is about 
four times more likely to do so .subsequently, 
than one never affected. 

" 13. The disease is not due to a too early 
separation of the calf from the dam. 

" 14. It is remarakably local in its ravages. 

"15. Farms on which no cases are known to 
have occurred, are often contiguous to, and 
sometimes lie directly between farms on which 
the disease has been most severe, and via 
versa. 

"16. The disease is often carried from farm 



DISEASF.S OF CuWS. 



371 



to f.irm, and so far as the present state of the 
iiivesliyalioii aff'oiJs any liglit, it appears that 
farms on which the cows are habitually raised, 
are much more likely to be exempt than those 
on which the cows are habitually purchased." 
Here is no positive recommendation. Youatt 
says: "The sympathetic influence is the main 
cause of the slinking of the calves. Another 
cause is the extravagantly high conditi(m in 
which cows are sometimes kept." These two 
causes can hardly account for the a-tonishing 
prevalence of abortion in the large dairy dis- 
tricts. 

The editoi" of the North British Agriculturist 
attributes the disease, in many instances to 
drinking stagnant water. C. V. Sharpleigh, 
in the American Stock Journal says: " No doubt 
this is excited and produced by the fungi found 
on our gras.ses, which appear to possess a power 
somewhat similar to, but milder than, the ergot 
of rye." 

Johnson says: "The causes are frequently 
involved in obscurit}- ; bnt it may be men- 
tioned, that an extremely hot and foul cow- 
house, a severe blow, violent exertion, starva- 
tion, plethora, an overloaded stomach, internal 
inflamations, constipated bowels, bad food or 
water, improper exposure, and the like, will 
now and then produce abortion." These con- 
ditions then, are to be avoided, and it may be 
that a disease which seems to be semi-infectious 
■will yield to hu-nane care and healthful influ- 
ences. 

Milk Fever — "Dropping after Calving." — Al- 
though parturition is a natural process, it i< 
accompanied with a great deal of febrile ex- 
citement and liability to local inflammation. 
A sudden change of function from the womb 
to the ndder results in pain with which the 
system sympathizes, and puerperal fever ap- 
jiears. Great milkers are very liable to it. 
The fever sometimes appears in two or three 
hours after calving ; if four or five days have 
passed, the animal is usually considered safe. 
Youatt recommends moderate bleeding to re- 
lieve the plethora, a dose of a pound to a pound 
and a half of Epsom salts, and an injection to 
move the bowels, and the subsequent adminis- 
tration of sedatives if needed. Some good prac- 
titioners object to bleeding, unless the cow was in 
too high a condition at the time of calving. 

The Rural Neiv Yorker says : " To prevent 
this fever keep the cow from exposure to cold 
and dampness near calvTng time, and for some 
time afterwards ; give warm messes of wheat 
bran — after calving, made thin — three times a 



day, and some water to drink fnuu which the 
chill has been taken, if drawn from a well or 
cold spring. Four years since we had a cow 
which came in the first of May; she .seemed 
smart, and the third d.ay was given a cold mess 
of bran and water at noon. The next morning 
she was in great distress, would rise up, trem- 
ble, and fall down, and had not eaten the bay 
placed in her manger over night. The stable 
floor was littered with straw a foot thick to pre- 
vent her from injuring herself when falling. A 
piece of saltpeter the size of a large pea was 
dissolved in a pint of water, put in a long- 
necked bottle and poured down her ; then she 
was vigorously rubbed all over with wi.sps of 
straw, and covered with a thick woolen bed- 
quilt, to draw the internal warmth to the sur- 
face — her lin)bs often well rubbed. Some warm 
gruel (made of bran and flour, mi.xed) was 
poured down her, as she could eat nothing 
herself, her calf permitted to run with her, 
and having a good appetite took every oppor- 
tunity to get what milk it could. The rubbing 
and external warmth were kept up ; the second 
dose of dissolved saltpeter was giveti twenty- 
ty-four hours after the first ; repeated doses o I' 
wheat bran and flour gruel given, and some 
young, tender grass picked and placed in her 
mouth. The second day she did not tremble 
so much, and could stand longer; the third day 
was much better, and the fourth being pleasant 
she was let out to feed on tender grass near, 
and return lo the stable when tired. She .soon 
became as well as ever." 

Mr. Benjamin Wilcox, a well-known and 
extensive dairyman, of Herkimer county. New 
York, speaks of several cures that have been 
made for this disease by a simpler remedy — 
merely the use of cold water thrown upon the 
body of the cow. The cases alluded to were 
bad, the animals' limbs paralyzed, the cows 
unable to rise, and were given up as lost by the 
owner. At that stage of the disease several 
pails of cold water were thrown upon the loins, 
along the back, and over the body of the cows, 
which soon gave relief, the use of the limbs 
restored, and the animals saved. It is his 
opinion that los.ses may be generally avoided 
by the use of water in the way described, more 
especially if the animal be placed on a low 
diet, and kept in a cool place for a few days 
before and after being attacked with the disease. 

Milk Sickness, or Trembler. — This disease is 
peculiar to America, and little known west of 
the Mississippi Valley. Its prevalence is ccm- 
fined to no season. Mr. Stevens, in his edi- 



LIVE STOCK : 



tion of YouATT, says: -'Its latent presence 
may be discovered by subjecting llie suspected 
animal to a violent degree ul' excicise, wlien 
according to tbe intensity ol' tlie existing cause, 
it will be seized with tremors, spasms, convul- 
sions, or even death." Its cause has been en- 
tirely unknown, and its cure has consisted solely 
in opening the bowels. Since 1860, according 
to the Medical and Surgical Reporter, it has been 
discovered by William Jerry, ot'Edwards- 
viUe, Illinois, and Dr. McPheeteks, of St. 
Louis, that the disease results from eating the 
White Snake root. 

Garget, or Caked Sag. — Inflammation of the 
udder is very apt to attack young cow.s, and is 
often induced and promoted by the new-milch 
cow lying down on the damp groinid or a cold 
floor. Warm stables are a preventive of many 
ailments. A writer in the Prairie Farmer re- 
commends another ''ounce of prevention," in 
drawing the milk from the bag a few days be- 
fore tlie call is expected, and .is soon as tlie 
udder becomes distended. This has saved him 
much trouble and expense. 

"The most eflectiial remedy for this," says 
YouATT, "in the early stages, is very simpl 
The calf .should be put to the mother, and it 
should suck and knock about the udder at 
l>leasure." If it becomes very serious, he adds, 
tlie cow should be bled ; a do.se of physic ad- 
ministered ; 4he udder well fomented; the milk 
drawn gently off, at least twice a day, and an 
ointment applied to the bag. The ointment may 
be made of sage or bittersweet and bog's lard, 
simmered together — or simple linseed oil. Soft 
soap is sometimes an eflective application. An 
old dairyman writes: "It can be effectually 
cured by administering half a tea-spoonful of 
tincture of aconite given in a little ground 
feed. I liave known cows, when it was im- 
possible to draw the milk, cured in twenty- 
four hours' time." 

The Western Fiu-mer confidently recommends 
thorough bathings of the bag in cold water, two 
or three time.s, and daubing the udder with hop 
yeast. 

Warts on Teats. — One recommends the fol- 
lowing remedy: " Neats foot-oil, beef's gall, 
spirits of turpentine, and old brandy, equal 
parts of each. Shake well before using. Ap- 
ply once a day." Another: "Five cents worth 
of either lunar caustic, or caustic of potash, 
will cure warts on the teats of cows. Keep the 
caustic in a vial ; take a stick, wet the end with 
water and rub the caustic on the warts. Two 
or three applications will suffice. Be very care- 



ful or it will eat too deep and make a sore." 
Warts on teals usually go no deeper than the 
skin, and they may be cut off close with sharp 
shears, without harm, when the cow does not 
give milk. A double teat may be removed by 
twisting a piece of fine wire around it and stop- 
ping the circulation. In ten or twelve days the 
teat will drop off, and new skin will form over 
the scar. For sore teats, apply an ointment of 
beeswax and linseed oil, or a preparation of 
an^unce of glycerine and fifteen grains of tan- 
nin. It will save the milk from spilling, and 
the cow from kicking and getting kicked. 

Dtseases aim Ailments of Cattle. 

Under this brad we shall tieat brieily some of 
the more common ailments of neat cattle in 
America, referring the reader who seeks for 
more elaborate directions, to those books which 
are devoted specifically to Farm Stock. In 
several instances, wy l',;>,ve recited two or more 
remedies w hich are recommeJided on good au- 
thority for the same disease, leaving the choice 
to the reader's own judgment or convenience. 

Let him remember, liowever, first and last 
of all, that there is no veterinary surgeon so 
effective when animals are sick, as Doctor 
NtTESE. Give the afflicted creature the best 
care anil shelter, and feed and water, with good 
judgment and caution, and the necessity for 
medicine will very often be avoided. 

Bloat. — This is sometimes known as hoove, a 
gaseous distention of the stomach and bowels, 
occasioned by overeUting or the evolution of, 
g.is from green food, especially clover in a state 
of fermentation, which results from an im- 
paired state of the digestive functions. An 
animal thus aflfccted requires immediate relief, 
or it dies. The Boston Cultivator suggests the 
following as the best remedy: Dissolve, in a 
quart of warm water, about two ounces of hypo- 
sulphite of soda, then add two oinices of fluid 
extract of ginger, and drench the animal with 
the same; give injections of soap-suds about 
every twenty minutes, or until the animal 
passes wind from the i-ectum, when immediate 
relief is the result. In cases of great disten- 
tion, the probang and stomach-pump are most 
efficacious, and sometimes the main reliance. 
We may add here that for all sorts of ind- 
gestion in cattle, powdered charcoal is an ad- 
mirable remedy^five to ten tea-spoonsful being 
a dose. 

Black Leg is an insidtious disease that seizes 
cattle and kills them in a few hours. The fore 
legs and shoulders become congested, and the 



DISEASES AND AILMENTS OF CATTLE. 



37H 



animal altacked drops helpless. A correspond- 
ent of the Western Farmer says : " For two 
years, the black leg prevailed in this vicinity, 
severely attacking colts, calves, and yearlings. 
I have never known it to attack an animal 
over two years old. The great difficulty is in 
not knowing of the disease in time to eS'ect a 
cure. The only remedy I know of is sulpluir 
and spirits of turpentine, mostly sulphur, 
given plentifully." 

Barn Itch. — This is often a troublesome dis- 
order. It is contagious, and liable to run 
tlirough the wliole herd, if not arrested. The 
disease is ciired by mingling sulphur with oil 
or lard, and applying the mixture to the dis- 
eased parts. A strong dose of phj'sic may also 
be administered. 

Mad Itch has been cured by giving cows as 
much soot and salt as tliey would eat, with a 
•pound of sulphur a few hours afterward, and 
in the morning as much salts. Another says: 
"Give a mixture of powdered maiuirake, one 
drachm; ginger, half an ounce; cream of tar- 
tar, half a drachm; flaxseed tea, one pint. 
Give an injection of two quarts of soap-suds, 
In which mix half a drachui of mandrake, and 
two drachms of ginger. For food, give them 
thin gruel, seasoned with salt, for a few days." 

Clioking. — For cattle choking with turnip or 
potato, get eight feet of telegraph wire, double 
it in the middle, and twist it together, so as to 
leave a loop in it. Take the creature by the 
horns and run the loop end of the wire care- 
fully down its throat, and jiull it out, and the 
turnip will be either pushed down or pulled 
up, giving instant relief. Some farmers use a 
stick with a flaxen .swab on the end, soaked in 
melted lard or oil. If not too far down, the 
obstruction may be removed with the hand. 

A Portland correspondent of the A'ew Eng- 
land Farmer gives the following easy and sim- 
l)Ie remedy ; "The instant a creature becomes 
choked, no matter what with, the throat be- 
comes dry, and the longer the substance re- 
mains, the drier the throat. The following is 
a sure remedy : Take some oil, no matter what 
kind, and hold the creature's head up and turn 
down About one gill of oil, and then let go of 
the head, and the creature will heave it out in 
two seconds ! I have tried it for years, and 
never knew it to fail." A drench of six beaten 
fggs and two ounces of salt is also said to be 
effective in giving relief. 

Epileptic Fits. — Horses, cattle, sheep and 
pigs are subject to these tits. The best thing 
that can be done with the last-mentioned tliree 



classes, is to fatten and butcher them after the 
appearance of the first fit; and, if you ride a 
horse occasionally .so afflicted, get your life in- 
sured for the benefit of surviving relations. 
Valerian has been much recommended as a 
remedy for epilepsy. In the horse and ox it 
may be given in two ounce doses ; in the sheep 
in half ounce doses, and in the pig in two 
drachm doses. 

Flies. — Cattle cease to be annoyed by flics if 
washed with a weak solution of phenic or car- 
bolic acid; or they may be rubbed with strong 
solution of walnut leaves. 

Foot Hot, or foul-in-the-foot, is one of the 
most common and painful ailments of the ox. 
An old English work proposes the following 
remedy: "If the disease first appears between 
the claws, wash the part clean; when dry, rub 
a tar rope to and fro between the claws till an 
evident warmth is produced ; then dress the part 
with a wooden skewer dipped in butter of anti- 
mony, oil of vitriol, or nitrous acid. Let them 
stand dry for an hour or two, and then turn 
them on a dry |i;islure. Repeat this for three 
or four days successively. If inflammation ap- 
pears, reduce it l>y a poultice of linseed meal, 
or rye flour. The cure will be accelerated by 
administering the following saline purgative: 
Take of glauber salts, one pound ; ginger, pow- 
dered, two ounces ; molasses, four ounces ; add 
two pints of boiling water, and when blood 
warm, give at one dose. Particular care is re- 
quisite to keep the animals on dry pasture for 
a week or two." 

Hon/ Ail is quite a diflerent disease, and 
more formidable, and is chiefly visible at the 
crown of the hoof. Various remedies are pro- 
posed for it, but none seem to have given 
speedy or eftijclual relief. Sawing ofl' the ends 
of the hoof, at tliS outset, has been found much 
the best remedy. 

"Horn Ait." — There is probably no such 
disease as horn ail, or hollow horn, or "horn 
distemper;" it is really only a symptom of 
fever and other derangements of the body. 
When the horns are unusually cold or warm 
it indicates only that the animal is snftering 
from some functional difiiculty elsewhere. A 
writer in the Rural Americiin says, when these 
symptoms appear, "take a quantity of black- 
ash bark; steep it strong and give a pint of tli6 
warm decoction to a dose, at the same time 
bathing the loins thoroughly with the same. I 
will warrant a cure in two days. It needs to 
he given but once." Dadd says: "Endeavor 
to promote a healthy action through the whole 



374 



LIVE stock: 



Fystem ; to stimulate the digestive organs; to' 
remove obstructions, botli by injections, if 
necessary, and by the use of aperients; lastly, 
invite action to the extremities, by stimulating 
liniments, and 'horn ail' soon disappears." 
Boring holes in the horn, pouring boiling 
water on the head, and cutting off "an inch 
of the tail," are cruel delusions of the ig- 
noiant. 

Lice. — Caleb Canpield, of Livingston 
county, Michigan, writes to the Rural that he 
is not troubled with lice on cattle, horses, hogs, 
hens, or geese, or ticks on sheep. Ilis remedy 
is sulphur. To an ox, or cow, or hen, he gives 
a table-spoonful in tlie feed; to sheep less. He 
puts it in the coops of the fowls in small lumps; 
feeds it once a month in Winter, but not in 
Summer, except to hogs. He gives his horned 
cattle and horses a spoonful of pulverized salt- 
peter in the montli of March or April, and 
again, without fail, when he turns iheni onl to 
grass. Isaac Schaubek, of Saratoga county, 
Xew York, says : " A few applications of good 
cider vinegar along the backbone, on the liead, 
and other places where the lice gather, will 
soon finish them." Another certain remedy is, 
first grease the afflicted animal, and then sift 
anthracite coal ashes all through the hair. 

Onions fed to calves and other neat stock 
will rid them of lice, and improve their appear- 
ance and condition. So tobacco will kill lice, 
as it will kill any animal but man — and it kills 
him after a while. Water for this purpo.se 
should be prepared by boiling cheap damaged 
tobacco. Effie Grev, of Cumberland county, 
Pennsylvania, says she killed all the lice on 
a terribly-infested herd by pouring petroleum 
over their backs. "I then turned them out in 
tlie sun, and such pranks as they cut ! I 
thought they were going cra«y — but it did its 
work. About four o'clock I examined them, 
and every lou.se, little and big, was on the outer 
end of the hairs, dead enough." 

Insects have no lungs, but breathe by spira- 
cles or minute holes in their bodies; and if 
these spiracles are clogged with grease or fat, 
tbey become suS'ocated and die. Tlie applica- 
tion of oil in cold weather is bad, however. 
All mercurial poi.sons are dangerous, for the 
cattle will lick themselves. Good wholesome 
food and care will generally keep lice out of a 
barn-yard. 

Jilurraiu. — This is an ancient disease which 
has afflicted cattle ever since the earliest his- 
tory of the Egyptians. It is really an epi- 
demic catarrh in a malignant form. In some 



parts of Europe whole districts have been 
swept of their live .stock. In its dangerous 
form, the cough becomes frequent and convul- 
sive; bloody matter runs from nostrils and 
mouth; the eyes become unusually dull; the 
pulse is small and feeble ; the respiration is 
quicker; the flanks are tucked up; the tender- 
ness on the loins is removed; insensibility is 
siealing over tlie frame; and the faeces are 
more loaded with mucus, and more fetid. The 
patient moans and lows, and grinds his teeth 
almost ince,osantly ; the head is agitated by a 
convulsive motion ; blood begins to mingle with 
the fa;ces; the breath, and even the perspira- 
tion, becomes ofl'ensive; and the beast staggers 
as he walks. 

"The early stage of murrain," says YouATT, 
"is one of fever, and the treatment should cor- 
respond with this — bleeding. Physic should 
be cautiously, yet not timorously, resorted to. 
For sedative medicines there will be rarely 
room, unless the cough should continue. Small 
doses of purgative medicine, with more of the 
aromatic than we generally add, will be serv- 
iceable, effecting the present purpose, and not 
hastening or increasing the debility which gen- 
erally is at hand; but if the bowels be suffi- 
ciently open, or diarrhea should threaten, and 
yet symptoms of fever should be apparent, no 
purgative must be given, but the sedatives 
should be mingled with some vegetable tonic. 
The peculiar fetid diarrhea must be met with 
astringent.s, mingled also with vegetable tonics. 
In combating the pustular and sloughing gan- 
grenous stage, the chloride of lime will be the 
be.st external application; while a little of it 
administered with the other medicines inwardly 
may possibly lessen the tendency to general 
decomposition." 

Pleuro Pneumonia. — The pleuro pneumonia 
is one of the most fatal and distressing mala- 
dies tliatever attack cattle. At all times liable 
to spread rapidly among animals coming near 
or in contact with those diseased, it frequently 
a.ssumes the form of a contagious epidemic, 
being taken by almost every animal coming 
witliin striking distance. It is a malignant 
form of inflammation of the lung.s, of an emi- 
nently contagious character, peculiar to the ox- 
tribe, and has existed within the memory of 
man in the mountain regions of Central Eu- 
rope. 

Within a few years it has made serious rav- 
ages in some sections of this country. The 
first signs of the disease are visible in two to 
eight weeks after exposure; the animal has a 



DISEASES AND AILMENTS OF CATTLE. 375 



Blij;Iit cough and shiver, and there is a diminu- 
tion of the appetite and milk secretion. Cos- 
tiveness soon follows; shivering fits recur ; the 
temperature and pulse rise, and all the symp- 



toms of an acute fever set in. The creature thinks, should be avoided. 



moans; the action of the abdominal muscles i: 
spasmodic. Pressure on the ribs cau.ses pain 



cording to the condition of the animal; 2, purg- 
ing with half-hour doses of Epsom salts. "The 
commencement cf purging should be the signal 
of recovery." Astringents and stimulants, he 



This disease seems to be peculiar to certain 
pastures; it oftenest occurs in woody districts, 



and shrinking. The eyes are bloodshot, mouth and e.specially in low, swampy land ; and it is 
clammy, skin dry and tightly bound to the most prevalent in Spring and Autumn.- Some- 
subcutaneous tissues, and the urine is scanty times it seems to be infectious. Little is known 
and high-colored. of its real cause. 

There are symptoms like the bronchitis ; and , The Westet-n Rural says : " Cattle and sheep 
the lungs rapidly give way. The beast has a fed exclusively on turnips, or on rank, innutri- 
discharge from tlie eyes, and a fetid, sanious tious pastures for a considerable time are liable 
discharge from the nose. Not uufrequently ix to red water. Food which contains a very high 
coughs up disorganized lung-tissue and putrid percentage of water, and but a .small percent- 
pus. Great prostration, and indeed, typhus age of the nutritive substances necessary to re- 
symptoms set in. There is a fetid diarrhea, pair the waste of the body, does not supply a 
and the animal sinks in the mo.st emaciated sufficient amount of nutrient n^terials to the 
state, often dying from suffocation, in conse- blood." 

quence of the complete destruction of the or- A writer in the Mural American says the 
gans concerned in respiration. . jafflicticm is referable to leeches taken into the 

In treatment, cut off all communication with stomach : " If you have an animal die of this 
the ascertained source of the disease. Do not disease, open it, and take out the liver, wash 
disturb the cows or the oxen from their stalls, it, and take a knife, and begin at the end and 
as removing them tends to spread disea.se, and slice it thin, and you will find holes that ap- 
does no good to the cattle. Allow water, feed ' pear as if a small bullet had passed through ; 
judiciously, and give carbonate of ammonia, ' and if you examine the liver carefully you will 
preparations of iron, gentian, or other tonics, find a leech there. I had an ox that lived two 
sparingly. • weeks after tlie attack, and on opening him I 

About three-fourths of the animals exposed found a leech in his liver. In another case, a 
take the disease. One-fourth die, and about two year old steer kicked up liis heels and 
one-fourth are rendered comparatively worth- played at evening, and the next morning he 
less. Few, if any, ever entirely recover. , was dead. I opened him and found three 

Red Water. — The disease known as red water leeches in his liver. No one who waters his 
from the color of the urine, is one of the most stock the year round, in pure deep water, loses 
intractable maladies of cattle and sheep, and any by this disease." 

is frequent in this country. It may be tech- , The Soul/tern Planter publishes the I'oUowing, 
nically divided into acute and chronic, or fa- from Fuank G. RuFElN : ' " As a sure prevent- 
miliarly into red water proper, and yellow ive, lake a mixture of the following propor- 
water. tious: Salt, one gallon ; flour sulphur, one-half 

Red water, also known as the bloody murrain, pint; saltpeter, one-half pint; copperas, one 
is from inflammation of the kidneys ; it is at gill. Pulverize thoroughly and mLx, and keep 
once characterized by pain and high fever, dys- it where the cow can get to it daily. As a cure: 
eutery followed by costiveness and a flow of Either sugar or molasses — the sugar as a bolus, 
bloody urine. It requires active treatment and the molasses as a drench — a pint of sugar or a 
runs its course in a few days. gallon of molasses, and the dose repeated at 

Yellow water is more prevalent; it is from intervals until the animal is relieved or dies. 
inflammation of the kidneys; the urine is char- After the beast is relieved a tea-spoonfnl of 
acterized by the dark-brown color of vitiated calomel may be used." 

bile; its action is slower but equally fatal. In Mr. Sheldon, of Michigan, cured an ox 
this disease, the liver always becomes enlarged violently attacked, by mixing half an ounce 
and inflamed, sometimes rotten, and clotted of copper:is and half an ounce of alum, dis- 
witli blood. solving them in hot water and while warm 

The remedy recommended by Youatt for turning it down the animal. In twelve hours 
both forms of the disease, is: 1, Bleeding ac- he was better, and a repetition of the dose 



376 



LIVE STOCK : 



cured hliii, thoiigli for a time weak from llie 
great discharge of blood. 

Scours {Diarrhea). — A large stock grower 
recommends corn meal as an infallible cure for 
scours in animals — a pint in a warm-bran mash, 
given once a day. Youatt says " the most ef- 
fectual medicines are prepared chalk, opium, 
catechu, and ginger, mixed in the proportions 
of one ounce of the first, one drachm of the 
second, four drachms of the third, and two of 
the last to each dose — to be administered in 
thick gruel," after tlie action of a mild pur- 
gative. 

Sores. — "Wounds and sores of tattle are 
quicklj' cured by washing them several times 
a day with a mixture of spirits of turpentine 
and the yolk of eggs." S. Bird, in the Ilaiiw 
Farmer, says : " For sores, flesh wounds, bruises, 
sprains, etc., o|| horses, shower with cold water 
two or three' times a day, and when dry wash 
witli Roman wormwood lea, salt and water, or 
beef brine. Never wrap up sores or sprains." 
Youatt recommmends the following ointment 
for sores and abrasions : " An oinice of becswa.K 
and three of lard, with a quarter of an ounce 
of sugar of lead, and a drachm of powdered 
alum." 

Smut Cum Disease- — .\ disease, attributed to 
eating smut corn, often proves very fatal in a 
herd of cattle. The eyes soon appear blind 
and staring, the limbs stretched and rigid, the 
breatli hot, and tlie muscles of the flank and 
shoulder, together with those of the face and 
lips, twitching convulsively, with a low moan- 
ing of distress. The remedy of Professor 
Gangee, President of the Loudon Veterinary 
College, is: One pound of Epsom salts, an 
ounce of aloes, or lour ounces of sulphur, the 
whole mixed, and poured down the animal's 
throat. A few hours will show a favorable 
change, and full restoration will soon follow. 
This remedy has been tried in the Northwest, 
and its efficiency has been vouched lor by re- 
liable men. 

'Texas Cattle Disease. — In 1868, the cattle- 
growing States 6i the West were visited by a 
new and alarming disea.se in their herds, in- 
troduced by Texan cattle, and transportation 
spread the plague and the consequent jxinic 
through many of the Northern States. The 
most stringent measures were introduced to 
confine and abolish the disease, with complete 
apparent success, but it was feared that it would 
reappear with subsequent warm seasons. 

The Special Commissioners for Massachu- 
setts reported to the Legislature, January 1, 



1869, the result of tlieir investigations. We 
e-xtract from their report : " As a general rule, 
the first symptoms of the disease was a loss of 
appetite, and desire for isolation or separation 
from the rest of the herd. The animal soon 
showed indications of pain and fever, stood 
with all fi>ur feet drawn together under the 
body, inclined to lie down and get up often, 
occasionally stretching and turning the muzzle 
to the side, eyes looking wild, horns cold. The 
urinous discharges usually were of a blu(;dy 
color, though this discharge in many cases ap- 
peared natural and healthy. Tlie faeces were 
of a slimy or mucous character, and passed 
with difficulty, and the mouth and tongue in- 
clined to be hot and dry. On being slaught- 
ered, we noticed that the blood of the animals 
was very thin and watery, and would not color 
the hand when dipped into into it, and appa- 
rently without coagulating properties. The 
surface of all internal viscera, the brain, and 
the white of tlie eye, was of a pale yellow color. 
The organs of the chest appeared healthy, but 
it was otherwise with those of the abdomen. 
The milts, or spleen, in every case, were three 
or four times as large as in a healthy animal, 
and its texture soft and granulated, the kidneys 
dry and lifeless, the bladder inflamed and dis- 
tended with a collection of bloody-colored wa- 
1^-, and in most cases the liver very much en- 
larged, and the gall bladder contracted and 
filled wiih a gelatinous substance. 

In December, 1868, a national convention to 
consider the disease assembled at Springfield, 
Illinois. Twelve States were represented. The 
convention urged the enactment of stringent 
laws to prevent the siiread of the disease, and 
the appointment, in each Slate, of three com- 
missioners to execute them, and to watch over 
the general wellfare of the animals within the 
State. Three theories were advanced : 1, That 
the Texas steer carries within him a virus 
which he deposits on the soil where he grazes ; 
2, that his blood contains cryptogamic plants, 
or spores; 3, that he sheds multitudes of dan- 
gerous ticks which are consumed in large num- 
bers by animals feeding subsequently in the 
field. 

From the evidence already obtained, .says E. 
F. Tiiayee, Commissioner for Massachusetts, 
the following deductions are made : 

That Texas cattle when driven or transport- 
ed North in the Spring or Summer months, 
communicate a fatal disease to native cattle, 
although the Texas cattle appear perfectly 
healthy. 



CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



377 



Tliat Texas catUe are not subject to the same 
disease in Texas. 

That it is necessary, with exceptional cases, 
that native cattle feed on the same land where 
Texas cattle have grazed, to become infected. 

That aged animals are more susceptible to 
the disease than young ones. Suckling calves 
rarely die from it. 

That native cattle do not communicate the 
disease to others. 

That Texas cattle, after having been Wintered 
North, will not communicate the disease. 

That severe frosts remove the danger of com- 
municating the disease, and that Texas cattle 
may be safely brought North from November 
to March. 

That it is of great importance, both to the 
Eastern and Western people, that the ti-atfic in 
Texas cattle be unrestricted as far as it can be 
done with safety. Through it the Western 
farmer is enabled to turn his rich fields of grass 
and corn into money, and the Eastern people 
are furnished witli a supply of beef at a price 
■within the means of every one. 

As but little is known about the di.sease, but 
little can be said of treating it. In the West- 
ern States the turning of a herd of sick cattle 
into a field of green corn hiis proved benefi- 
cial ; consequently, when practicable, cathartics 
should be administered. 

In Chicago seventeen animals were treated 
with quinine and aromatic sulphuric acid, nine 
of which recovered. In New York carbolic 
acid has been administered, and highly ex- 
tolled. In Cincinnati several animals were 
treated with the same remedy, without ap- 
parent benefit. Of course an infected animal 
should immediately be separated from all other 
cattle. 

Care and Feeding' of Cattle.— A 

farmer has as much right to abuse his wife or 
starve his children as to neglect his neat cattle, 
and leave them in the AVinler to "shift for 
themselves." It is not only cruel and un- 
manly, but it is — what some men appreciate 
better — unprofitable. It is no fancy of senti- 
mental philanthropists, but a well-attested fact, 
that stall-fed cattle will keep in good condition 
on one-third less food than is required by cat- 
tle that are unhoused in cold weather. Sheep 
properly protected from the cold and storms 
produce better and finer fleeces ; cows yield 
more milk, and all kinds of animals retain and 
take on flesh more readily and rapidly, on 
much less food than when exposed to the ex- 



tremes of the temperature to which this coun- 
try is so subject. 

There are certain conditions, says the Stock 
Journal, always required in growing, feeding, 
or using stock for labor or pleasuie, and unless 
you can make up your mind to comply with 
these conditions, j'ou had better not engage in 
the business. It must have enough to eat of 
the right kind of food, just enough and none to 
waste; must have this at regular intervals, not 
less than three times a day ; must have water 
as often ; must be kept clean ; must be kept 
comfortable — not too much exposed to heat in 
Summer, nor cold and storms in Winter; must 
have access to salt, or be salted not less than 
once a week; must not be driven about by 
other more powerful or ill-natured animals; 
and must be looked after every day to see that 
it is in good health. 

Care of Cows. — Every animal, but especially 
milch cows, should be kept in a comfortable 
condition, both as to tennjerature and food, 
from the day of their birth. This is strict 
economy. They should have a warm barn and 
a clean one ; they should be fed at regular 
hours with roots in Winter; they should be 
milked and niiinagcd with all gentleness; they 
should never be left out in the cold; they 
should be curried every morning; they should 
have water passing before them in a trough, if 
the amount of .stock will justify the expense; 
they should be milked dry every time, and 
milked quickly and tenderly. How are they 
treated? Occasionally they are left out to be 
weather-beaten, and are seen crawling about by 
day, to pick cornstalks out of the morning's 
snow-drift, and lying by night under the warm 
side of a haystack. Some men who would not 
be guilty of such treatment, keep cows that are 
hurried to an unshaded pasture in Summer, 
ai>d in Winter are thrust into hideously offen- 
sive stables, whence they are driven to water 
by chance, and where they never see a pint of 
meal or smell a root, but are milked and strip- 
ped till the persistent milker is kicked from 
his stool by a new-born calf. 
^ Currying. — Milk does not all come, as the 
Scotch say, "through the mouth." It comes 
largely from Care. Warm stables and a daily 
currying bear the same relation to cows after 
they have been fed, that hoeing bears to corn 
after it has been manured. Cows that are cur- 
ried will give more milk and thrive better 
than others on the same food. Yet how many 
milch cows do we see that exhibit from month 
to month their unchanged heraldry of nasti- 



378 



LIVE STOCK: 



ness, wearing upon the breach an impenetrable 
coat of-'mail, suggestive of anything but sweet 
milk! If GuENON had lived in some Ameri- 
can counties, he would never have discovered 
his "milk mirror." 

Yards and Stables. — A jolly philosopher 
writes: "In going to fodder the cattle in the 
yard these cold mornings, the first thing done 
should be to rouse them up, slap their hams, 
catcli them by the horns, pull their ears, hustle 
them around the yard, clap your hands, make 
a joyful noise, and have a good frolic with 
thLiu. It will warm tliem up and give them 
an appetite fur their fodder. They will soon 
learn to like it and greet your appearance with 
a knowing wink and an affectionate brute smile, 
as much as to say, 'Now for the fun.'" 

But our playful counsellor forgets that cattle 
should not be foddered " hi the yard these cold 
mornings." They should invariably be kept 
on Winter nights in warm stables, or much 
better, in comfortable stalls, where they should 
always be fed in the morning. If turned out 
at all, let it be at midday, when the sunshine 
falls warm into the yard, which should, of 
course, have a full southern exposure. Let 
them pick for two or three hours at a rick of 
salted straw or cornstalks, and turn them back 
for their evening feed. This is the method 
generally adopted in Pennsylvania, and largely 
in New York, and in no States is live stock 
better cared for than in these. 

It sometimes seems necessary to the pioneer 
to leave his cattle exposed on the prairie, but 
it is surely a foolish and wasteful cruelty; for 
a slab shed is inexpensive, and can always be 
afforded, and, if topped and surrounded by hay, 
it will be tolerably comfortable. 

Cullle Stalls. — We have described and illus- 
trated, under tlie proper head, a model barn, 
with the stable arrangements lor cattle. The 
floor of a stall should always have an outward 
pitch of at least half an inch to the foot, and 
should consist of a raised platform, just long 
enough for a cow to stand upon, and termina- 
ting, in the rear, in a manure gutter six inches 
deeji, running the whole length between the 
dais and the walk, to catch the droppings and 
the urine. In this way, the stalls will be kept 
entirely clean, with little trouble. 

The Saturday Evening Post says : " We have 
seen Lately in one neighborhood up in the moun- 
tain farm regions of Pennsylvania, three in- 
Btances of what appear to us to be comfortable, 
common-sense stalls for cattle. The stalls are 
wide enough to admit of the animals turning in 



them, the sides closely boarded up. There are 
no rings, stanchions, or any tying or fastening 
by the head. No animal not absolutely a fool, 
will ever stand, head down hill, and always, in 
every instance, we found the cattle in these 
stalls, standing "right end up," well up to the 
rack, and as clean and comfortable as animals 
ever need be. As all the bovine animals have 
their little itches and inconveniences to attend 
to as well as ourselves, and would be better for 
the use of their tongue with which they can 
reach nearly every part of their bodies, this 
freedom of the stall seems to be a very good 
common-sense arrangement, besides provid- 
ing comfortable quarters in all cold, stormy 
weather." 

Stanchions. — Stanchions, as fixtures for cows, 
seem to be returning to favor in some States. 
Each one consists of two upright stakes or strips 
of plank, placed just far enough apart for the 
neck to move up and down freely, but not allow- 
ing the escape of the head. One of the strips 
is movable at the top so as to slide open far 
enough to admit the head of the animal, when 
it is returned to its place, and secured hy a pin. 
In one large establishment wliere a hundred 
cows are kept, the movable stakes are attached 
to a long rod, by which all the cows are re- 
leased, and returning to their messes, are fast- 
ened by a single movement of the hand. Stanch- 
ions are economical of space, they prevent litter 
of food, and they do not permit the animal to 
lie down on its droppings ; but they always 
suggest imprisonment, and we think stock will 
thrive better at a chain tie. 

A Cuttle Tie. — One of the best, if not the very 
best, plans for stalling cattle, is that represented 
by the accompanying cut of a movable chain tie. 




Movable Catile Tie. 
The large ring plays up and down on a sta- 
tionary round post set up in a low manger, and 



CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



379 



(he chain is fastened to the horns. It maj- be 
thouglit that this chain wears off the hair on 
the head of tlie animal, but this is not tlie fact. 
It is the neatest and most secure fastening in 
use, and at the same time the most comfortable; 
the animal slips the chain up and down the 
stationary post, by the hirge ring, as it wishes 
to move its head in feeding or getting up and 
lying down ; it can al.so turn and lick itself 
when thus fastened. The great superiority of 
a chain is its durability, while its expen.se is 
slight. When animals are fastened in this way, 
there need be no partitions between them, and 
no tumbroiis machinery about their heads. 
They can .stand within four feet of each other. 
The farmer's stock around him partakes more 
or less of the quality of llie owner or those who 
attend upon it. A man's influence is imparted 
to his beasts, particularly the hor.se.s, the work- 
ing cattle, and the milch cows. A man of 



horse or cow. The brute becomes afraid of 
him; and, if of a vicious nature, is apt to be 
hurtfully, spitefully influenced, perhaps irre- 
claimably spoiled — whereas, a mild-tempered, 
discriminative man will gradually smooth down 
the asperities of a harsh disposition. 

Sack for Feediiig Cattle. — The accompanying 
cut from Rural Affairs, represents a manger lor 
the barn-yard, which has obvious advantages. 
The rack is made like a ladder, and slides up 
and down in slots on the back side of both 
ends, and drops as the bay is eaten. It turns 
up like the lid of a chest when the hay is put 



through which the air will freely pass, and 
near a brook if possible, should be erected and 
provided with boxes for holding salt, that the 
cattle lu.ay partake of it at pleasure. In the 
middle of these hot Summer days they will not 
eat, and how much belter und more humane 
for the farmer to build such a shed in wh'ich 
they can lie and rest themselves. Sheep and 
milch cows especially need such a protection." 
JSand for Bedding. — Dry forest leaves make a 
better and cheaper bedding than straw, and 
they are worth more to work into manure, and 
nothing for any other purpose. At the State 
Almshouse, Ma.ssachusetts, the manager of the 
farm beds his cows regularly witli sand, which 
he considers superior to .any other substance 
for that purpose. It is warm, easy to lie upon, 
prevents the cow from slipping, when reaching 
her food, is an excellent absorbent of liquids, 
easily shoveled in and out, a superior divisor 



irascible temper, gets up nervousnesss in a of droppings, and is an excellent substance to 

apply to cold lands. For these reasons he likes 
sand for bedding. Many good farmers agree 
with him. 

Waier for Stock. — There are thousands of 
lazy, shiftless, thriftless farmers in every State, 
who reganl water for stock as quite an insig- 
nilicant matter, and who compel their cows to 
wander about each day in pursuit of it, and 
drop their manure where it will be a nuisance 
rather than a benefit. It is the opinion of ex- 
perienced stock growers, that cattle suffer more 
in Winter from want of water than from want 
of feed. When we consider the quantity of 
water contained in the green feed of Summer, 
and the quantity which cattle drink besides, 
and that the Winter feed, with the exception 
of roots, is almost destitute of water, the neces- 
sity fur ample provisions for water in the Win- 
u-r is obvious. It is doubtless true that stock 
niiuire more water in Summer than Winter, 
as they throw off more by perspiration ; but it 
is a well-ascertained fact that when chilled by 
the cold, animals are inclined to take less water 
than the proper digestion of their food requires. 
Added to this, the frequent difiiculty and dan- 
ger of access to the water, even when it is near 
at hand, and the necessity they are under of 
sipping it slowly at the freezing points, leads 
them to content themselves with less than they 
really desire, if they could obtain it with ease 
and safety and at a temperature that would not 
make their teeth ache, and the cold chills to 
run along their backs. The consequence is, 
that they get but a moiety of tl>e nutriment 
contained in their feed, their bowels become 




C'.\i'TLK Rack. 
in. The manger may be from six to ten feel 
long, two and a half feet wide, and two feet 
liigb. The spaces in the rack may be eight 
inches. Thus secured, little food will be lost, 
whether it be hay, straw, or stalks, cut feed, 
or roots. 

Summer Slielter for Stock. — The Dixie Farmer 
makes the following suggestions for the com- 
fort of stock in pasture in midsummer: "Trees, 
which are more or less common in all p.astures, 
afTurd a good shade, but a cheap temporary 
ehed is even better, and sliould always be built 
if there is no other protection. .Vn open shed. 



380 



LIVE STOCK : 



constipated, their hides bound, and tlicy are 
pecnliarly exposed to the attacks of lice, mnr- 
rain, or the mad itcli. 

The cattle may be, without great exjiense, 
supplied with water from a spring, when there 
is one near and above the barn-yard level; or 
from a well, pumped by a cheap windmill; or 
from a cistern supplied from the barn eaves. 
Most large dairy farmers will find it profitable 
to send ilie water through the stalls in a pipe, 
so feeding a little tank in each manger that the 
cows can help themselves whenever they thirst. 
The tank should have a cover that will shut 
of its own weight. Any cow will .soon learn to 
open it with her nose. 

The arrangements for obtaining water will 
be found treated more definitely elsewhere. 

Does it Pay to Keep Cattle Warmf — Many 
farmers who keep their stock warm, add the 
expense of stabling to account of profit and 
loss, and reflect complacently on their philan- 
thropy. But they have actually pat money in their 
purse. Here is farmer X, wfio lets his cattle 
"lie out" half the Winter. He began the 
Winter with a barn full of liay, a crib full of 
corn, and a field full of stacks. Now it is 
S|)ring, and every kernel and wisp is con- 
fuiiied, yet the stock are poorer than in No- 
vember. Where has the food gone? It has 
been used up wholly in keeping these animals 
warm. Nature requires that the blood of an 
animal shall be tlie same temperature at all 
times; this heat is mostly derived from the sun 
in warm weather, and the food that the animal 
consumes is turned into growth and fat. If 
the farmer will keep his animals ns warm in 
January as in July, on tlie same food, they will 
increase in flesh as rapidly in Winter as in 
Summer. 

In hot climates, under the tropics, for in- 
stance, the human diet is almost exclusively a 
vegetable one. Under a latitude of forty or fifty 
degrees, we require considerable animal food — 
if we advance to the frozen regions of the north, 
whale oil, bear's fat, and walrus grease are 
found among the luxuries of the board. These 
gross materials, almost to the exclusion of 
vegetables, are there found indispensable to 
keep up the necessary supply of nutrition and 
warmth. It is just as true of animals that a 
cold atmosphere requires an extra quantity of 
food to sustain life and maintain health. If 
kept warm and snug with plank and straw they 
will need much less food. 

Moreover, any experienced dairyman will 
tell you that a stall-fed cow will give one-l'ouith 



to one-third more milk than a barn-yard fed 
one, on the same food. Suppose it costs forty 
dollars each to Winter four cows exposed to thfi 
cold, and suppose that only ten percent, of this 
is required for animal heat when it is freezing 
weather; there is a leak of sixteen dollars an- 
nually or one hundred and sixty dollars in ten 
years, besides a loss of as much more in milk, 
all of which might have been saved by one 
day's work, and five dollars worth of lumber! 
The entire Summer is sometimes necessary to 
restore the vigor and condition lost by the short- 
sighted economy of the Winter. 

Exercise or Quiet f — It is generally held that 
some sort of daily exercise out of the stable is 
essential to the health and vigor, not only of 
bulls and stallions, but of cows and all farm 
stock. Yet some of the be.st stock growers 
practice on a diflerent theory, keeping their 
stock in stall, month after month, through the 
entire Winter, without once letting them out. 
S. M. Wei.i.s, of Wethersficld, Connecticut, a 
large dairy farmer, keeps his cow's tied from 
.\utumn to Spring, and insists that they appear 
the better for it, that their manure is all saved 
in the most economical form, that they give 
more milk and consume less food, and come 
forth sleeker and more active to the first taste 
of grass. Water is constantly at their noses. 
Mr. Wells writes: "Cows in a dairy must be 
kept as quiet as possible. A uniform quantity 
of milk is demanded every day. When we 
h.ad a cellar under our stalls, we found that 
the noise and disturbance caused by our oc- 
casional removal of the manure below, dimin- 
ished the milk some fifteen per cent. Cows 
must not be annoyed." 

A prominent feeder of Chester county, Penn- 
sylvania, who fats beeves for market, writes to 
the Country Gentleman: " Experience has shown 
that cattle housed all the time will accumulate 
nmre fat, and be better contented, than if al- 
lowed to go out and become chilled every day 
for water; in fact, I consider it a loss of sev- 
eral days' feed for a steer to get loose. The 
temperature of the stable should be kept uni- 
form as possible, and if a little care is taken, 
it need never fall below the freezing point in 
the coldest weather, as the animal heat gener- 
ated by so many cattle, creates a warmth all 
through the building. Some of your readers 
may ask, do your cattle keep healthy without 
exercise ? I reply that I have never had a sick 
steer for the past five years that I have been 
ceding in this manner, and their good ap- 
petites and glossy coats attest to their general 



CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



381 



welfare. An e-xperienceJ caltle feeder, and one 
to wlioiu I am mostly indebted for this system of 
feeding, informs me that he has not lost a steer 
in eighteen years that he has been stall-feeding 
cattle this way." 

An English stock grower says of fattening 
animals: "The animal shonld not be need- 
lessly intruded upon during the hours of eat- 
ing. All animals fatten much faster in the 
dark than in the light, a fact only to be ac- 
counted for by their greater quiet. Some of 
those creatures that are the most irritable and 
impatient of restraint while feeding, such as 
turkeys and geese, are found to take on fat 
rapidly when confined iu dark rooms, and only 
fed at staled hours by hand. There is no surer 
proof that a pig is doing well, than to see him 
eat his meal quickly and then retire to his bed 
till the hour of i'eeding returns. Animals, 
while fattening, should never be alarmed, never 
rapidly driven, never be fed at unseasonable 
hours, and, above all things, never be allowed 
to want fur food." 

What Feed is Best foh Stock? — We 
present a carefully prepared table of compara- 
tive equivalents : 



Irish potatoi's 

Carn.t 

PaiBUip 

.TerusiU.iii ,ii i . 

BuK&r b.cl 

Swc<lii.h tniiii|.. I III. I I 
Common nliiti- tuvmp.. 

Blausel wurzcl 

Green pe,i stalks 

i^purry. 'cr.'Piil 

C.r-'-n «t.lk"n' 1.11. k« I 

]■',',' "i"",, ', '• : 

Ur.-t-ii ..:.!, . : 1 
Grwn liiii 1,1. 
Green le.l-i.. . . i .-- 
Hnp.Ti.iv I-n,;. .1 'i . 
Up,1,I.....|. .,...,. 

\i ll.'.,t':r. .ir./..LV.^^'.^'.'.'.Z 

lii.hii, . ..I II 

Hv.- .11. Ill 

llul . . ...il 

liii "..■'. .' ',.'.. lV.VZ.'.' 

Willi. 'll. ri"li ■:VllS.''"V^' 

Lentils 

EngliRli linseed cake.... 
American linseed cake. 



1 •^ 




^ 








3ri 


w o 


« p 








P ^ 


C ° 


5' a 


Si 


SS 


s5 














3 ? 




- o 






S.^ 


■ ? 


T ? 
















1.4 

l!2 
Ml 


18.9 
fi.li 
7.0 

1.S.S 


20.3 
7.2 
8.2 

19.S 


O.H 


I3.l> 


14.5 


1.0 


6.2 


6.2 


0.9 
1.0 


3.3 

12. ri 


4.2 
13.6 


0.9 


7.9 


8.8 




2.3 


5.0 


0.2 


4.7 


4.9 


0.7 


4.7 


5.4 


1.3 


2.3 


4.1 


l.U 


2.7 


3.7 


1.0 




9.5 


4.0 


9.7 


13.7 


3.3 


8.7 


12.0 


13..'. 


.30.3 


49.8 


2.0 


3.6 


5.6 


1.9 


2.7 
3.0 

18.7 


4.2 
5.5 
41.2 


1.S.7 


40.0 


58.7 


12.7 
14.7 
11.0- 
11.3 


38.0 
6H.4 
66.7 
55.8 


50.7 
.■-1.1 

77.7 
70.1 


13.0 


.52.0 


r.5.0 


18.0 


51.1 


69.1 


9.0 
23.1 


52.1 
41.9 


61.1 
65.0 


23.9 


.39.3 


63.2 


24.0 


39.7 


63.7 


23.7 
22.1 
22.2 


3S.9 
51.0 
48.6 


64.6 
73.1 



922.2 
1212.1 
1345.9 

524.2 



The foregoing table is well worthy of thought- 
ful study by all stock growers. The figures 
are the result of averaging a large number of 
analyses made in England, Germany, France, 
and America ; and they show, at a glance, the 
chemical value of each kind of food, and the 
kinds that may be used together the mo.st ad- 
vantageously. The "English hay" which is 
made the unit of the comparison, is about equal 
to our best timothy and red-top. A careful ex- 
amination should save thousands of dollars, 
often injudiciously expended. It should be 
borne in mind, however, that some of these ar- 
ticles as, for example, the succulent roots, have 
an important auxilliary efifect which is not in- 
dicated in this table. They act upon other 
food ; they assist digestion ; they serve as ap- 
petizer.s, and keep up the spirit and "tone" of 
the animal ; so that their actual value, as proved 
in practice, is generally much greater than their 
apparent value, as indicated by chemistry. 

Swedish turnips, represented in this table aa 
being only one-fifth as nutritious as good hay, 
pound for pound, are shown by practice to be 
from one-third to one-half as nutritious. The 
use of carrots for feeding purposes, justifies a 
.similar modification of the table in their favor. 

Proportion of Water. — The following table, by 
Dr. Lyon Playfair, is interesting, as ex- 
hibiting the relative amount of water in vari- 
ours plants. The result of his analysis will 
be found to be similar to that of the analysis 
of Sprengel: 



One hundred pounds of 



Barl.y meal... 

Hay 

White turnip; 

Ruta baga 

Manuel wavM 
White canol. 

Potatoes 

Red hi.ets 



Daily Consumption of Hay. — A large number 
of experiments indicate, that the average 
amount of hay consumed daily by neat cattle, 
is about three pounds for each hundred pounds 
of the animal. From this ba.sis an approxi- 
mate estimate may be made of the amount re- 
quired of the various kinds of food. 

Proportion of Heat- Producing Elements. — We 
find in the Cultivator, from a correspondent, the 
following table, arranged to show, " as near as 
the present state of our knowledge enables us 
to exhibit the facts, the relative proportion 



382 



LIVE stock: 



between the heut-prodiicing and nutritive qual- 
ities of certain leading articles of food : " 







Nutritive. 


Heat-producing. 


Milk 




2 

2« 

5 

7 

4 

8 

9 
10 
11 












Pul;,l,.,s 


Hie.-... 


Turnips 







Our system of feeding farm animals is cer- 
tainly very defective, in that the feeding is not 
varied according to the service the animals are 
required to perform. An animal at rest re- 
quires relatively more heat-producing than nu- 
tritive food ; while one subjected to labor in 
harness or yoke, requires more of the flesh and 
muscle-forming, and less of the heat-producing. 

Another Comparison. — A correspondent in- 
dulges in the following speculation: "In esti- 
mating the comparative value of several of 
these products for feeding, I may be best under- 
Btood by calculating that land that will grow 
fifty bushels of corn per acre, will also produce 
two and a half tons of clover hay — one and a 
half at the first cutting and one at the second ; 
two tons of meadow hay, and five hundred to 
six hundred bushels of roots. These crops will 
vary on different .soils, so that while not strictly 
correct, they are near enough for our present 
purpose. These calculations are made from a 
table of nutritive equivalent.s, in which the re- 
sult of 'several different experiments' makes 
one hundred pounds of meadow hay equal to 
ninety-five pounds of clover hay, two hundred 
and sixty-two of ruta bagas, three hundred and 
forty-six of field beets, two hundred and eighty 
of carrots, and fifty-six pounds of corn. The 
cornstalks will be of some value and the second 
cutting of clover hay not quite so good as the 
first, so I will allow two pounds of clover hay 
to one of corn. Then, fifty bushels at si.\ty 
pounds per bushel per acre of corn, will make 
an acre of corn eqiL-^l to three tons of clover 
hay, or one and one-fifth acres of clover. Oti 
the same estimate of two pounds of hay to one 
of corn, and two tons per acre, it will take one 
and a half acres of meadow hay to equal one 
acre of corn. Calculating turnips and carrots , 
at five hundred bushels per acre, and beets at 
six hundred, one acre of roots will be nearly! 
equal to two acres of corn — the root tops being ! 
put as an offset to the cornstalks." \ 

Preparation of Food. — Johnson says : " Food 
should be so prepared that its nutritive prop- 



erties may all be made availaljle to the use of 
the animal; and not only so, but appropriated 
with the lea.st po.ssible expenditure of muscular 
energy. The ox that is obliged to wander over 
an acre to get the food he should find in two or 
three square rods — the horse that is two or 
three hours eating the coarse food he would 
swallow in fifteen minutes if the grain were 
groimd, or the hay cut as it should be — the 
sheep that spends hours in making its way into 
a turnip, when if it were sliced it would eat it 
in as jiiany minutes— the pig that eats raw po- 
tatoes, or wliole corn, when either cooked could 
be eaten in one-quarter of the time, may in- 
deed fatten, but much less rapidly than if the 
food were properly prepared. All food should 
be given in such a state, to fattening animals, 
that as little time as possible, on the part of 
the animal, shall be required in eating." 

Steaming Food — The above paragraph brings 
us naturally to the subject of steaming for 
stock — a method of preparing food whose pro- 
fitableness is still beitig earnestly discussed, 
There have, doubtless, been some extravagant 
estimates of its value; and many of the most 
experienced hold, that steaming will not pay 
in cases where the hay is all of good quality, 
or the stock less than twelve or fifteen head. 

T/ie Admntar/e. — Some have affirmed that 
the value of food is tripled by cooking, and 
Gkorge Geddes, of Syracuse, one of the most 
careful farmers in New York State afiirms, that 
cooking, independently of cutting, at least 
doubles its value. An English farmer, who 
keeps ninety head of cattle and horses, esti- 
mates that he saved thirty tons of hay in one 
year by chopping and steaming a mixture of 
equal parts of hay and straw, thus saving two 
hundred and seventy dollars worth of hay. The 
cost of the cutting and steaming was not forty 
dollars. E. W. Stewart, of New York, 
writes to the American Farmer that after an 
experience of more than (en years, he finds 
two bushels of steamed hay is worth three 
bushels of unsteamed, and that one quart of 
corn meal steamed with a bushel of straw is 
equal to a bushel of hay. 

Mr. Wells, of Connecticut, already quoted, 
has steamed his cattle-food for some years, with 
much benefit. In the State Board of Agricul- 
ture for 1809, he describes his process of feed- 
ing, as follows : " We feed cotton-seed meal 
with steamed hay and beets. Our method is, 
to prepare a sufficient quantity for two days 
supply. This requires for forty head, about 
500 pounds of hay, 300 pounds of cornstalks, 



CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



383 



anil 200 pounds of meal. After it is tlioronglily 
wet and iniced, it is put into it tank and steamed 
until corn put in with it can be crnslied in tlie 
han<l. We keep the cows in the stable about 
seven inoiitlis of llie year, turning them out in 
June. They are put in about the first ol No- 
vember. We do not allow the cows to go out 
in the Winter a4 all. In the morning at five 
o'clock we milk; then Iced each cow with a 
bushel and a half of the prepared fodder. 
The Ayrshires do nut need quite so much. The 
cow.'5 that are in milk receive, in addition, eight 
quarts of mash made of rye bran and wheat 
shorts. When this is consumed, they get a half 
bushel of t'oots, generally beets. At noon they 
are fed with the best upland bay, about seven 
pounds to each cow. At half past four I'. M., 
they are led with steamed lodderand bran mash, 
as in the morning. 

"We are now milking about one hundred 
and seventy-five to two hiuidnd quarts per day. 
The expense of steaming is very triHing. The 
cows have water in the stalls ; it is a very great 
advantage. They drink fifteen or twenty times 
a day. When a team conies in at night, they 
first eat their supper and then drink. The bot- 
tom of the barn is cemented, and the mangers 
are two feet wide, and between each two stalls 
is an iron box fed by a pipe. The water is 
brought from the side-hill through a siphon. 

" Confinement does not seem to hurt them in 
the least. They are in excellent health. They 
are curried almost every day. The ventilation 
is very good. The stable is above ground, with 
plenty of light. We steam good hay now, hav- 
ing nothing else left. Wet it thoroughly and 
mix it. I have never had any trouble with the 
cotton-seed meal. It never hurt my cattle, 
though I liave fed as much as si.t quarts a day 
to a cow. It takes about three-fourths of an 
hour to steam the food. We use an engine and 
a small tubular boiler. Our tank is six feet by 
seven. The hay is put in from the floor above 
and taken out below. We have about forty beail 
on that floor a>w. One great advantage in 
steaming is, that there is no waste whatever. If 
there is anything left in the mangers, we take it 
in the basket and put it through another steam- 
ing; so that there is no more le t on the last 
day in the Spring than there is on the first day 
in the Fall. I think one and a half tons of 
bay to a cow \vill keep her. We feed no roots 
but mangel wurzels. It is easy to raise one 
thousand bushels of mangel wurzels to the acre. 
I do not think that sugar beets are any more 
valuable than mangel wurzels. 



"Water does not freeze in my barn. The 
thermometer would not fall below forty-six de- 
grees above zero there. T have piu'chased 
cotton-seed meal from different mills. I am 
now feeding six quarts to the cows which I am 
fattening. I once fed to a cow for milk, wlieu 
I wanted a good deal of milk, six quarts of 
colton-seed meal, and four quarts of corn meal ■ 
per day. The feed did not hurt her at all. She 
did not come out of the stall tiil Spring and 
then came out decidedly fat and frisky. She 
milked well the next year. I like to have my 
cows fat when they come in. I fed the cow so 
heavily because I wanted her to make 4jutter 
enough for the family — and she did. We feed 
salt in the cut-feed." 

George A. Moore,, at the New York State 
Fair discussion, 1864, says: "I was feeding 
sheep, and cutting for them timothy hay, mil- 
let, carrol.s, and feeding with beau ami oat 
meal. Before steaming, I fonud, by weighing, 
I was putting on two pounds of flesli per week. 
After steaming, I put on three pounds per week, 
and the stock ate the food cleaner, and I noticed 
they laid down quietly after feeding. I also 
experimeiUed with sixty-four cows. Used one 
of Prindle's steamers; bad a quantity of nuisty 
hay which I cut and steamed. They wouhl eat 
it entirely up, and seemed better satisfied with 
it than the sweetest nnsteamed hay. Steamed 
food does not constipate the animal, the hair 
looks better. I think cutting and steaming 
combined, insure a gain to the feeder of at least 
thirty-three per cent. The manure resulting 
from feeding steamed food is worth double that 
I'rom feeding in the ordinary way. Have kept 
eighty head of .stock, and had a surplus of food, 
on a farm where, previously, only fifty were 
carried through, and hay bought at that. After 
cows come in, steamed food inerca.ses the milk 
one-third, and the cows do better when put out 
to gra.ss." 

Cutting Food — The object of mastication of 
food is to comminute it, to break down its struct- 
ure, and to render it more easily acted upon 
by the gastric juice, thus enabling the animal 
to appropriate its nutriment. Now, the more 
finely divided fooi is, when subjected to the 
gastric juice, the more rapidly and easily it is 
digested. For, when finely divided, it (iresents 
many himdred times more surface to the action 
of the digesting fluid. This is simply repre- 
sented in cooking fine meal or whole grain. We 
know it takes but a few minutes to cook the 
meal, while hours are required to soften the 
whole grain. 



384 



LIVE STOCK : 



From this It will be seen that it will gener- 
ally pay to cut all hay before feeding it to 
cattle; and many farmers contend that it will 
pay to steam it all, and reduce it, as far as pos- 
sible, to pulp. The whole eBoit, in cutting and 
ste.iinini,', is to produce an i'niitation of nature's 
green food. 

Science and Experience. — The theories of sci- 
entists, and the practice of the best farmers, 
agree that cutting and cooking food for their 
stock lidtjs Re'AUMer instituted a series of 
experiments to determine the rate of increase 
resulting from cooking different articles of food 
most commonly used for animals, and found 
that some of them swelled as follows : 

'i pirns of oats, after boilius!, flll.^d 7 pinte. 
l«irl.-y, " II) 

buckwliettt, " u 

libliaii oi.in, •• l.'i 

"Ileal, " lu 

lye, " 16 " 

"Starcli," says R.VSPAIL, "is not actually 
nutritive to man until it has been boiled or 
cookedi The heat of the stomach is not sufli- 
cient to burst all the grains of the feculent 
mass which is subjected to the rapid action of 
this organ. The stomachs of graniinivcrous 
animals and birds seems to possess, in this re- 
spect, a particular power, for they use feculent 
.siibslanccs in a raw state. Nevertheless, recent 
e.xperiments prove the advantage that results 
from boiling the potatoes and grain, and par- 
tially altered farina, which are given to them 
for food; for a large proportion, when given 
whole, in the raw state, passes through the in- 
testines perfectly unaffected as when it was 
swallowed." 

LiEBiG, Johnston, Peueira, Regnault, 
Br.vconnot, and other chemists confirm this 
fact, and boiling hay, straw, and stalks, is quite 
as beneficial, and lor similar rea.sons. 

Stewart's Experiments. — E. W. Stewart, of 
North Evans, New York, says :* " The writer of 
this paper has practiced cutting and steaming 
fodder, of all kinds, in Winter, for a stock num- 
bering frojn ten to fifty-five neat cattle and 
horses, during the last ten years. He there- 
fore deems bis experience sufficient to enable 
liini to speak with some degree of confidence. 
He tried a long series of experiments, to deter- 
mine the quantity of middlings or meal neces- 
sary to mix with a bushel of straw, to render it 
equivalent to the best hay. Ten animals of 
about uniform size, standing in the same stable, 
were parted — five being fed upon hay, and five 
upon the mixture. At first, four quarts of mid- 



1 the U.S. AgricuUural Kepor 



dlingswere mixed with a bushel of straw. The 
animals were fed for one month — fi^e upon this 
mi-vture, and five upon the hay. Tlujse fed 
upon the mixture were found to gain decidedly 
upon those fed upon the hay alone. 

"The experiment was then reversed, putting 
those upon the mixture that had fed upon the 
hay, and vice versa. At the end of the month, 
those fed upon the straw and middlings had 
gained rapidly, while those fed upon the hay 
had hardly held their condition. Then the 
experiment was contimied by reducing the 
quantity of middlings one-half, or to two quarts, 
on which mixture the animals did rather better 
than those upon hay, while, upon reversing, 
those at first fed upon the hay when fed upon 
this mixture did better than those oif hay. 
Upon several trials afterward it was uniformly 
found that a bushel of straw with two quarts of 
middlings was quite equal to the same weight 
of cut hay, and was worth twenty-five per cent, 
more than uncut hay. It was found that the 
animals would eat twenty-five per cent, more 
hay uncut than cut. The same experiment waa 
then tried with corn meal, and one ami one- 
half pints were found to make a bushel of straw 
equal to hay, though the formula is generally 
given as a quart to a bushel of straw, which 
will render almost any quality of straw equal 
to the same weight of good timothy hay." 

Biniie's Experiments.— !VfiL,l,l AH litRNlE, of 
Springfield, Massachusetts, whose stock for sev- 
eral years has consisted of about fifty head of 
thoroughbred Ayrshire cattle, and five horses, 
has practiced steaming feed since 1868, and, as 
he says in a letter to the Country Gentleman, 
" with increasing confidence in its economy." 
The process and apparatus employed for this 
purpose, is thus described: "My barn is built 
on a side-hill, and is three stories in part, the 
principal story on which the barn floor is sit- 
uated being level with the ground on the high- 
est side, and used entirely for the storage of 
hay, grain, etc. The next story below opens on 
to the barn-yard, and is used for stabling and a 
root cellar, being under ground at one end. 
Under a portion of this story is a manure cellar 
fifty by twenty-eight feet, and eight feet deep, 
which opens on to a still lower yard. 

"On the stable story is located the steam 
arrangement. In one corner of the under- 
ground part is the boiler-room, about ten feet 
square, made as near fire-proof as possible. 
The chimney is built of brick, on the outside, 
against the corner of the barn, and extends 
about six feet above the roof at that point. The 



CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



385 



boiler (tubular) is about the capacity of a four- 
lioise engine. Tlie vat or cliest in wbieli the 
steaming is done, is bnilt of brick and lined 
witli two-incli plank, tongned and grooved, is 
six feet sijnare inside and eight feet deep, and 
extends I'rom the stable floor to the barn floor 
above, with a lid tlie whole size of the top, 
opening on a level with the floor. There is 
also a door four feet square on one side, near 
tlie bottom, for tlie purpose of taking out the 
feed. Tlie vat steam-pipe passes directly from 
the boiler to the vat, and extends around the 
fonr sides and across the middle, about six 
inches above the bottom. It is perforated with 
small holes, about six inches apart, for the es- 
cape of the steam. Conveniently located at one 
side, above the top of tlie vat, is a cask, which 
holds about two hundred gallons of water, 
v.iiich is kept full by a pipe connected with an 
aqueilnct. 

"T!iu fodder is cut by horse-power on the 
barn floor, and consists usually of about one- 
half cornstalks and straw and one-half good 
hay. It is thrown from the floor into the vat, 
and thoroughly wet and mixed with a small 
quantity of meal or bran, according to circum- 
stances, continuing the process until the vat is 
full, and taking care to tread down well, using 
as much water as poxaible, to cause the fodder to 
absorb as much as it will hold. 

" I usually direct my fm-eman to start the fire 
in the boiler before he begins to fill the vat, and 
by the time it is full the steam' begins to pass 
into it. I never attempt to get up much press- 
ure, but let the steam pass into the vat as fast 
as it is generated, and like to keep it on three 
or four hours — the longer the better. 

"I feed with the .steamed mixture morning 
and evening, and with good dry hay at noon. 
When feeding time arrives, the door at the 
lower side of the vat is opened, and a sufiicient 
quantity withdrawn iijto a bo.x, and the door 
closed at once; it is then carried to the cattle 
in a basket, giving to each about a bushel, less 
or more, according to size and condition. By 
the time it reaches the cattle it will be quite 
warm, but not hot. 

" Last AVinter I steamed but twice a week, 
finding no unfavorable effect from keeping the 
feed so long. This was done to save labor and 
fu'ol. Three times a week is better." 

Mr. BiRNiE said, in 18G8: "I am satisfied 
that I save more than twenty-five per cent, by 
steaming food." 

Stcaminci Tub. — We are indebted to "The 
American Farm Book " bv R. L. Allen, editor 



of the Agriculturist, for the accompanying cut 
of a small boiling \\ pii itus 




This cut will be undcrstooi witliout de crip 
tion. Fifteen bushels of Indi.in coin can be 
cooked in the tub, and fifty bushels of hay, 
roots, and fodder can be steamed in a separate 
bo.x at the same time. 

A Cheap Steaming Apparatus. — Mr. Stewart 
gives in his essay, this description of a cheap 
and simple apparatus, that is within the re.ich 
of every farmer. Get a sheet of No. 10 iron, 
thirty-two to thirty-six inches wide, and seven 
or eight feet long (or two sheets may be riveted 
together, and thus make one fourteen feet long, 
if much work is to be done). Take two-inch 
maple plank about two feet wide; let the sides 
extend three inches past the end plank; make 
a box a lillle flaring at the top, and wide and 
long enough so that the bottom sheet will cover 
and project half an inch on each side and end. 
Let tlie ends into the sides one-fourth to three- 
eighth inch in ' making the box, and put it 
together with white lead and oil, and put two 
three-eighth inch iron rods through the sides 
at each end, outside of the end plank; then 
nail on the bottom sheet with two rows of five- 
penny nails, the nails about one inch apart in 
the rows, and breaking joints, and bend up the 
sheet where it projects. This will hold some 
tliirly buslnels. Now take flat stones or bricks, 
and make a fireplace the length of your box, 
and eight inches narrower on tlie inside than 
your box is wide on the outside. Fire bed 
should be sixteen or eighteen inches deep. Put 
across at each end a flat bar of iron, one-half by 
one and a half inch, so as to lay a row of bricks 
on these for the ends of the box to rest on, and 
at the back end let the arch run out so as to 
build a small chimney, and put on some joints 
of stove-pipe, and you have a cooking appa- 
ratus. This is a good boiling arrangement, 
where only water or some tliili liquid is to be 
heated; but if hay or straw, or even potatoes 
are to be boiled with little water, as would be 
the case, especially in steaming fodder, it would 



386 



LIVE stock: 



settle and burn on the bottom. This difficulty 
can be obviated entirely, and a good steaming 
apparatus be made of it by placing a false bot- 
tom one inch above the real bottom, in the fol- 
lowing manner: Take a sheet of No. 18 iron, 
of the size of tlie box, or perhaps nne-b:ilf inch 
wider; hare this punched witli small holes, so 
as to let the water down and the steam up. It 
can be let into the side of the box, or a half- 
inch cleat can be nailed on the side and enr" 
of the box for it to rest on. This would not 
sufficiently support the weight of feed to put 
on it, and, therefore, three-eighth-inch rods 
must be put through the sides, under this fake 
bottom, to sustain it — one, perhaps every foot. 
Then a wooden or iron faucet must be: put 
through the side between these bottoms, to 
draw otF the water. Now a wooden cover on 
the top of the box to keep the steam in, and 
here is as complete, effectual, and cheap a 
steamer for cooking without pressure, as can 
be desired. The whole apparatus would not 
probably cost over twenty-five dollars for the 
seven feet, or fifty dollars for the fourteen feet 
length. This will be sufficient to feed fifty to 
seventy-five head of cattle and horses. 

The accompanying cut represents a cheap 
steam boiler, easily made by any farmer, aided 




by a tinner. It nearly explains itself. The 
box has a fal.se wooden bottom, elevated three 
inches above the sheet-iron bottom, and on this 
the roots rest. This is perforated, and most 
of the water is below it. The box may be 
made on rollers to run out on a tramway to 
receive and deposit its load. 

Summary of the Advantages nf Cooking. — We 
quote again from Mr. Stewart's essay: 

1. It renders moldy hay, straw, and corn- 
stalks, perfectly sweet and palatable.* Ani- 
mals seem to relish straw taken from a stack 
which has been wet and badly damaged for 
ordinary use; and even in any condition, ex- 
cept "dry rot," steaming will restore its sweet- 



*But It should be remembered that coolting weedy hav 
Id moldy cornstalks, and thus making them palatable 
id eoa.xin£; poor cattle to eat them, will Dot make up 



ness. When keeping a large stock we have 
often purchased stacks of straw which would 
have been worthless for feeding in the ordinary 
way, and have been able to detect no difference 
after steaming, in the smell or the relish with 
which it was eaten. 

2. It diffuses the odor of the bran, corn 
meal, oil meal, carrots, or whatever is mixed 
with the feed, through the whole mass ; and 
thus it may cheaply be flavored to suit the 
animal. 

3. It softens the tough fiber of the dry corn- 
stalk, rye straw, and other h:ird material,- ren- 
dering it almost like green succulent food, and 
easily masticated and digested by the animal. 

4. It renders beans and peas agreeable food 
to horses, as well as other animals, and thus 
enables the feeder to combine more nitrogenous 
food in the diet of his animals. 

5. It enables the feeder to turn everything 
raised into food for his stock, without lessening 
the value of his manure. Indeed, the manure 
made from steamed Ibod decomposes more 
readily, and is therefore more valuable than 
when used in a fresh state. Manure made from 
steamed food is always ready for use, and in 
regarded by those who have used it as much 
more valuable, for the same bulk, than that 
made from uncooked food. 

6. We have found it to cure incipient heaves 
in horses, and horses having a cough for sev- 
eral months at pasture, have been cured in 
two weeks on steamed I'eed. It has a remarka- 
ble effect upon horses with a sudden cold, and 
in constipation. Horses fed upon it .seem much 
less liable to di.sease; in fact, in this respect, it 
.seems to have all the good qualities of grass, 
the natural food of animals. 

7. It pi'oduces a marked difference in the 
appearance of the animal, at once causing the 
coat to become smooth and of a brighter color; 
regulates the digestion^makes the animal more 
contented and satisfied, enables fattening stock 
to eat their food with less labor, and conse- 
quently requires less to keep up the animal 
heat, gives working animals time to eat all that 
is necessary for them in the intervals of labor; 
and this is of much importance, especially with 
horses. It also enables the feeder to fatten 
animals in one-third less time. 

8. It saves at least one-third of the food. 
We have found two bushels of cut and cooked 
hay to satisfy cows as well as three bushels of 
uncooked hay, and the manure in the case 
of uncooked hay contained much more fibrous 
matter, unutilized by the animal. This is 



TAllE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



3S7 



more particularly the case with liorses. The 
cooking of hay and straw destroys all foul and 
troublesome seeds. 

It may be added that cooked food, being usu- 
ally fed out warm to animals, contributes to 
their comfort and thrift. Everybody knows that 
warmth of itself greatly promotes the flow of 
milk. A warm spell of weather in Winter often 
increases the milk in a dairy twenty per cent., 
and a cold snap will as suddenly diminish it. 
Three hours shivering in a cold wind, after 
dri[iking a couple of buckets of ice water, will 
almost stop the secretion of milk in a cow. 

Experienek in lite [Vest. — Many Western farm- 
ers have adopted the practice of cooking, gen- 
erally with favorable results. Jarvis Hab- 
IIEL, of Kiclifiond, Indiana, reports: "In the 
Fall of last year (1808), I began feeding twenty- 
one head of three-year-old steer.-,. In addition 
to fome oil cake and rough food, I gave them, 
daily, the meal from six bushels of corn. I 
tried cooking the corn without shelling it — my 
apparatus costing one hundred and fifteen dol- 
lar.s. I am perfectly satisfied with the result. 
I first tried feeding three bushels a day, and 
found it was too much. For three weeks I fed 
but two bushels and a half a day; since that 
time I have fed but two and three-quarter 
bushels, instead of the meal from six bushels 
of raw corn. With my apparatus the trouble 
and expense of cooking are less than the shell- 
ing of the corn used to be, and I save the toll. 
I build a fire in my furnace at night and put 
in my com; the next morning it is in the finest 
condition for feeding. I can cook over four 
hundred bushels of corn on the cob with one 
cord of wood. From my experience I am well 
Satisfied there might be a net saving of one- 
third of all the corn fed in this country by 
cooking it. My cattle have disposed of all 
their long, rough hair, and are now smooth, 
sleek, and in fine condition." 

Loss by Raw Feeding. — If we take the amount 
of grain and Indian corn raised in the United 
States, by the census of 1860, we shall find, by 
allowing forty bushels of grain to the ton of 
straw or corn fodder, that there were of the 
latter about 30,000,000 of tons. Now, at least 
one-third of this is wasted for every purpose 
except manure, and vast quantities not even 
used for that. Suppose we estimate this at one- 
half the value put upon it by Mr. Mechi, 
or five dollars per ton, and we have the enor- 
mous sum of $50,000,000 wasted, for want of 
proper economy, in a single year. We believe 
this estimate much below the real loss. These 



[ facts are worthy of a thorough exaniiiialion by 
the farmers of the whole country. Let them 
study their own interests. Many of them will 
see where they have thrown away enough in 
ten years to double their property. 

Cost of Feeding. — Judge French, of Exeter, 
New Hampshire, says : " My own estimate is 
that two tons of good hay, fed dry, will keep 
an average cow through the six months of Win- 
ter. If she is giving much milk, which by the 
way, she will not do on dry hay alone, a cow 
will consume nearly that amount of hay with 
a bushel of roots, and four pounds of shorts or 
corn meal daily." 

Hon. George S. BotJTWELL, now Secretary 
of the United States Treasury Department, 
makes the IbUowing statement : " In Decem- 
ber, 1868, I fed the following cattle in the man- 
ner described : 

14 cou s and biafers in mill:, 

1 bull thr^-e y.iirs oM, 

1 '• two 

8 heifers from six to tweuty months old, 

1 horee. 

"In all twenty-five animal.s, estimated equal 

to twenty-two cows. Fed as follows : 

340 pounds corn fodder, at Sill per ton $1 70 

85 pounds meal, corn, and cob, at £10 per tun 1 70 

1211 pounds hay, at SJil per Ion 1 20 

'6 bu>h' Is luiDips, at 22c. pur bushel 75 

S5 35 
" Equal to twenty-four and one-third cents 
each per day, or about one dollar and seventy- 
one cents per week. Upon this basis, the cost 
of keeping a cow a year would be : 

S44 66 



" Eight of my cows were four years or over 
in the Spring of 1868, and these have given 
during the ' year an average each of 4,723 
pounds of milk, or 278 cans of 17 pounds each. 
During the Summer months the price per can 
was 27 cents, and in the Winter 39 cents, or 83 
cents for the entire year — equal to $91 74 per 
cow. This statement shows a balance to the 
credit of each cow of $22 OS. 

" I have made no estimate for the care of the 
animals, barn rent, or value of manure pro- 
duced. The corn fodder was cured in the 
stook, cut in a machine, placed in a close feed 
box, saturated with water at boiling point, 
mixed with meal, and then fed in ten or twelve 
hours after being thus prepared. Twice a day 
the animals are fed upon corn fodder, a meal 
consisting of 170 pounds of corn fodder and 
one-half the meal." 



3S8 



LIVE stock: 



Mr. BiKNiE gives his iiietlioJ of feeding dur- 
ing llie Winter of 18GS-9. He fed forty-lhree 
liiiiid of neat slock, three horses and six colts — 
the wliole deemed equal to forty-three mature 
animals. Enough coarse hay, with some meal, 
was steamed at once to last three and a half 
days, and the statement is given as follows : 



44 lbs. cotton-seed uieal, at S:i 25 per bush. 

Total cost of steamed food for i)i days. $10 99 



_ shorts for 'M cows— 7i) I 

12 buslu'lf) of roots at Is. per bushel.. 
17U puuuds uf hay, at SliO 



The " extra" meal and shorts are not cooked, 
but are added in the manger, and the 12 bu.<hels 
of roots are fed raw, and so are the 170 pounds 
of good hay. 

The weight of fodder consumed by Mr. Biu- 
nie's animals is very small, only a small frac- 
tion above 16 pounds a day each, besides 12 
bushels of roots, equal to 600 pounds, or 1-1 
pounds to each of 43 animals. Of the 16 
pounds given each animal, about 3 1-5 pounds 
is meal or shorts, which costs about twice as 
much per pound as good hay, and is equivalent 
in nutriment to double its weight in good hay. 

Oil Cake. — One of the most valuable of all 
artificial foods is linseed and cotton-seed meal. 
Of the latter there are two kinds that have been 
used, tlie difference arising from the manner in 
V liich they are prepared. The one called the 
decorticated meal is made from the kernel of 
the seed only, the husk or hull having been 
stripped ofTby machinery before grinding; tlie 
other is made of the whole seed. The differ- 
ence in the composition of the two is very 
great ; the decorticated meal contains sixteen 
per cent, of oil — more than any other descrip- 
tion of meal — while the whole-seed meal con- 
tains only six per cent. The proportion of 
albuminous or Uesh-forming matter in the de- 
corticated meal amounts to forty-one per cent.; 
in the whole-seed meal it is only twenty-three 
per cent. — about one-half. So with respect to 
the other constituents; the proportion of woody 
fiber is much larger in the whole-seed meal 
than in the other. The husk in the whole-seed 
meal was for a long time a great impediment to 
the general use to which cotton-seed meal ought 
to come, and probably will come, in this coun- 
try. It is richer than meal from linseed, and 
obtainable at a much less rate. The difference 
between the kinds of meal is so great that 



probably one ton of the decorticated meal will 
go as far as two tons of the whole-seed meal. 

This oil cake costs forty to sixty dollars a 
ton. It is richer than any other food for stock. 
It lias from six to si.xteen per cent, of oil, and 
its value depends greatly on the proportion 
retained. It is also peculiarly rich in llcsh- 
forming materials. More than four-fifths of 
these matters are found again in the dung. 
The condition of cotton meal is very much de- 
termined by its color — when fresh, being as 
yellow as mustard. 

George F. A. Spiller, of Somerville, Ten- 
nessee, recommends feeding the unground cot- 
ton-seed. He says : " It is fed to the cattle in 
the raw state, as it comes from the gin. There 
is no danger whatever in feeding^t to cattle in 
its unhuUed state. I feed it to my cattle at least 
once a day, and often three times a day, with 
the most satisfactory result. I sometimes 
sprinkle a little salt over it, and at other times 
mix a little meal in it. In addition I feed lib- 
erally with fodder or husks. Most farmers in 
this section hardly feed anything else to their 
milch cows but the raw cotton-seed. It is 
highly improved by boiling for a few hours, 
making an excellent slop, which increases the 
flow of milk and enriches the butter. In fact 
the cow we are milking now has been kept 
from going dry by giving her cotton-seed slop, 
warm. Cotton -seed when fed alone to milch 
cows, produces a very while kind of butter, not 
of the best flavor. But an addition of corn 
meal or wheat bran, or field peas, or even oats, 
will correct this, and impart to the butter an 
excellent flavor. A cow will hardly con.sume 
more than two bushels of seed a week, which 
can be bought here for a pound of butter." 

Cotton-seed is ordinarily cast aside to rot, or 
thrown into the rivers and bayous of the South 
to be got rid of, so that every dollar it can be 
made to net the planter is so much addition to 
tlie profits on the cotton itself. In Egypt it 
sells at a higher price than wheat. 

Oil cake is especially valuable for the result- 
ing manure. There are those who think ma- 
nure is manure, no matter from what it is pro- 
duced. This is not the case. A ton of manure 
made from clover hay ia worth twice as much 
as a ton made from straw. Some manure is 
ten times as valuable as other manures. From 
numerous analj-ses and from actual experi- 
ments!, J. B. La WES, of England, estimates the 
manure made by the consumption of a ton of 
food as follows : 



CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



389 



Description Eslitniitcd monry valun 

of "r tlie uiaiiuH- fii.m 

Fooil. one ton of each food. 

1. Decoi tUateil cotton-sc-.i! .jlii- $1'7 Si! 

2. Riip.- ci.k.' 21 "1 

3. LinsecJ caki- 19 72 

3. Malt ilii^t l-^ 21 

5. Lentil- li> r.I 

i;. I.ins.T.l 1-. ^5 

7. Tar.- I'. 7,-. 

8. Beiins 1- 75 

9. r.Ms 1-135 

10. hmnl ' .■ i 61 

11. lliit. 7 40 

1:;. u ill ,: 7 (IS 

l.l. Iioli , . I 6 65 

14. iMalt 6 65 

l.'>. linll V B 32 

16. Clover hai 9 64 

17. Meailow liay 6 43 

18. Oat straw 2 Wl 

19. Wheat sira« 2 6S 

20. Bail. \ suau 2 a 

21. P.iliit."- 1 .W 

22. Maiif.l u.iiz.l 1 07 

■JX. .Xwe.li^h tiin.i].- Ill 

24. C.mimon tuiuipB ^6 

2.i. Cunols 66 

Soiling. — In its European sense, soiling cattle 
mcan.s the practice of supporting them in the 
Summer sea^i with green food from crops 
sown from month to month, cut daily, and led 
in the stall or j'ard. An experiment was made 
by a member of the Royal Academy of Agri- 
culture of Pru.ssia, extending ihnmyh seven 
years, to test the companilive merits of soiling 
(stable feeding) and pasturing. The pasturing 
averaged 1580 quarts per cow, per year, for the 
whole seven years; and the average of the soil- 
ing plan, for the same time, was 3,442 quarts 
per cow ; tlie cows in both ctises being about the 
same in natural production of milk. 

In a late communication to the British Board 
of Agriculture, it is slated that thirty cows, one 
bull, four calve.s, and five horses, were fed 
through the Summer from fifteen acres of clo- 
ver, .Bown tlie preceding year. The labor of 
two men and two women was suflicient to tend 
tlieni, and the net produce of the sea.son, in 
biuter, from June to October, was £19 10s., 
nearly $90 from each cow 

The Zoaritcs, a religious sect of German.^, 
on the Muskingum river in Ohio, keep their 
milch cows constantly in the .stall, and obtain 
an extraordinary yield of milk. Tliere is no 
doubt that, with judicious soiling, a greater 
number of cows can be kept on a given num- 
ber acres, with a larger yield of milk than from 
any pasturage. In soiling, one acre per ciiw 
will be found sufficient with land in average 
condition ; a half an acre per cow will be suffi- 
cient under the highest care and industry. In 
the soiling .system may be found the solution 
of the " fence" problem. 

JosiAH QuiNCY, .Ir., has been very successful 
in keeping cattle in stables the year through, 
and feeding them by soiling. A hundred acre 
farm, by this means, has and needs no interior 
fence. The amount of mtmure thus made had 



enabled him to improve the fertility of a poor 
farm, so tlnit in twenty years the hay crop had 
increased from twenty tons to three hundred. 
His animals are healthy, and he scarcely ever 
had a sick one. In a well arranged stable, this 
mode is attended with very little trouble. The 
cattle are let out into the j'anl an hour or two, 
morning and afternoon, but they gen'erally ap- 
pear glad to return to their quarters. With 
this management an acre will support three or 
four cows, enabling liim to keep much slock on 
little land. 

The materials he uses for the feed are grass, 
oats, corn, and barley, cut green. He begins 
with grass, which lasts nearly to midsummei". 
Sows the first crop of oats very early in Spring, 
four bushels per acre; the next, half a month 
later, and the third nearly two weeks later. 
These furnish food during July and August. 
In early corn-planting time, he sows Southern 
corn, and again twice, after intervals of three 
weeks each. These supply food through more 
than half of Autuiiin. Several sowings of bar- 
ley are made in Summer, about ten days apart; 
which give plenty of food until the digging of 
roots, when the tops are fed. English writers 
think .seven cows may be kept by soiling for 
one by the old plan. 

It is said that one miin will take care of and 
feed fifty cows. A large supply of carrots for 
Spring feeding would be valuable; and clover 
for early Summer would doubtless be better 
thaii grass. Corn sown in furrows three feet 
apart, at the rate of three bushels per acre, and 
cultivated (not hoed) once, will yield twice or 
thrice as much feed per acre as good meadow. 

But this practice will not be largely adopted 
in America, at least in the West, as long as 
labor is so dear and pasture so cheap. Soiliyg, 
as used among us, has come to mean, chiefly, 
the feeding of green fodder of corn, rye, clover, 
lucerne, cabbage, kohl rabi, etc., to fattening 
cattle in stalls, or to cows, to keep u[) the flow 
of milk during the Fall transition from gra.ss 
to hay. Dairymen should remember that sowed 
corn, as Fall feed for milch cows, has received 
the endorsement of the m.ajority of the pro- 
fession for years. It is grown with the greatest 
ease, and yields most profusely. It is rich, 
succulent, and consequently just the thing for 
cows at the time when pasture begins to fail in 
the Fall. It should alw.ays be .sown in drills — 
never broadcast — for twice as much lo the acre 
can be grown by drill citlltire. 

The following is a gotid metl...a: Make the 
gruund mellow by plowing and harrowing; 



390 



LIVE STOCK : 



furrow with a small plow three feet apart; 
strew common, or, better, sweet corn IVoin a 
half-bushel hand-basket along tlie furrows, at 
the rate of thirty or forty grains to tlie foot, or 
three bushels per acre; cover by harrowing, or 
running a cultivator lengthwise, anj the plant- 
ing is completed. Plant three or four times 
during the early Summer. Pass the cultivator 
two or three times while it is growing, and cut, 
before it tassels, witli a scythe or corn cutter. 
It may be fed in llie Fall (being first slightly 
wilted) and what is left over sliiiuld be saved 
for Winter, for cows relish it better tlian almost 
any other food. 

It does best if bound in bundles, put in hirge 
shocks, and suffered to remain some weeks, 
when it may be diawn and stacked, or it may 
remain in shocks till fed in Winter. If stacked, 
tlie stacks must be small and uell ventilated hy 
placing three rails or poles vertically in the 
center, a few inches apart, tluis leaving an 
opening up which the steam shall escape. If 
stacked in the common waji, it will ferment 
and spoil, even if apparently well dried. Good 
soil will yield three to six dried tons per acre. 
It should invariably be cut fine, moistened, and 
slightly salted, before feeding; then it will pro- 
duce more Winter milk and butter than any 
otlier fodder. 

l'"or constant soiling, Winter rye is the first, 
in our climate, which will come to a sufficient 
lieight for cutting^we will say by the 20th of 
May. At first the cows eat it with avidity — 
jiarticularly if wilted before it is placed before 
them ; for this reason, it would be advisable to 
sow an acre or more of rye in later September — 
but not too much; so soon as the crop becomes 
rank, it grows distasteful to the cows, and the 
flow of milk falls o2'. The next cutting which 
can be depended upon, is clover, or — still bet- 
ter — lucerne. "Though very liable to be win- 
ter-killed," writes Donald G. Mitchell, "I 
am able to affim from my own experience, that 
lucerne will give two, three, or four cuttings in 
the season — that cows prefer it to any otlier 
forage plant that can be set before them, and 
that no one tells .so immediately and effectively 
upon the flow of milk." 

The Wells brothers, of Connecticut, main- 
tain the flow of milk in the Fall with corn fod- 
I'.er, cut rowen, and green rye — the latter sown 
in August, three bushels to the acre. 

Mixture of Grasses. — Mr. Fllnt, Secretary 
of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, in 
his works on "Milch Cows," and on "Grasses 
and Forage Plants," recommends a mixture of 



twelve varieties of grasses for permanent pas- 
ture, and thinks that no improvement in grass 
culture is more important than the mixture of . 
grasses. The varieties most likely to give sat- 
isfactory results, as a mixture for permanent 
pastures, dependent to some extent on the na- 
ture and preparation of the soil, as suggested 
by Mr. Flint, are as follows : Meadow foxtail, 
orchard grass, sweetscented vernal, meadow 
fescue, redtop, June grass, Italian rye grass, 
perennial rye grass, timothy, rough-stalked 
meadow grass, perennial clover, and white 
clover. For mowing lands, he would leave out 
entirely the meadow foxtail and sweetscented 
vernal, and increase the quantity of timothy 
and red clover. 

Animals Apt to Fatten. — Headley, an expe- 
rienced cattle observer, informs us that the 
lean cattle that have broad, full and capacious 
skulls, with strong, evenly bent horns, a thick 
neck at the base, and a wide breast, invariably 
possess a strong, nervous system, and the great- 
est aptitude to fatten early and quickly; while 
those cattle that have long, narrow, and con- 
tracted skulls, and puny and abruptly bent 
horns, will be characterized by weakness, wild- 
ness, and slowness to fatten. He furthermore 
says: A small, dull, sunken eye, betokens hard- 
ness of "touch," and inaptitude to fatten; and 
a bright, large, and open eye the reverse. 

Roots, etc. — All first-rate fanners understand 
the value of roots for stock. Their relative 
value has already been treated, in this article 
and under the head of "Field Crops." Good 
hay is not " good enough for anybody's cows," 
if a few roots daily will make the hay go much 
I'urther, make the cattle do much better, and 
their aggregate keeping cheaper. Cattle will 
Winter well on turnips with steamed straw and 
cornstalks, without a mouthful of hay or grain. 
Roots that have been reduced to pulp with a, 
machine will feed more economically and ef- 
fectively. 

Carrots and mangels are the best roots to feed 
to milch cows. The latter will keep well into 
the Summer, the warmer the weather, the bet- 
ter becomes their fattening quality. Carrots 
are the best Winter food for milch cows, where 
the production of good, rich butter, like that 
from grass, is the main object; while field 
beets will yield more milk. 

Turnips are objected to because they leave a 
"turnip taste" on milk and butter. This may 
be entirely avoided by feeding them only imme- 
diately after milking. (So cabbages and even 
garlic may be eaten with impunity during the 



CARE AND FEEDING OF CATTLE. 



391 



forenoon). Milk maybe divested of tlie tur-l 
nip taste by putting into each pail of fresh 
milk one pint of boiling water — most effective 
when a little niter is added. Some dairymen 
will need to resist the temptation to add more 
than a pint. 

Parnsnips contain six per cent, more mucil- 
age than carrots, and are more fattening. In- 
deed, they are considered superior to carrots, 
but are not so easily grown. 

Eleven thousand heads of cabbage, says the 
Valley Farmer, may be raised from an acre. 
These, sold at five cents, will bring five hund- 
red dollar* It is said by those who have 
raised cabbages extensively, that this is one 
of the best crops to feed stocls — young stock 
and cows particularly. 

In Europe, the kohl rabi, a fine vegetable, 
intermediate between the cabbage and turnip, 
is extensively grown for stock, are thought to 
keep belter than the turnip. Morton's Cyclo- 
paedia says : "Kohl rabi is Ihe bulb of dry Sum- 
mers ; heat and drouth are congenial to it, and 
it prospers and yields an enormous crop un- 
der cii'cumstances wherein white turnips and 
Swedes could barely exist. It bears trans- 
planiing better than any other root; insects 
do not injure it; drouth does not prevent its 
growth; it stores quite as well, or better, than 
Swedes ; and it affords food later in the season, 
even in June." Cattle are very fond of it. 

Valentine Hallock writes from New 
York : " I also proved by experiment, this 
AVinter, that fat cattle will grow faster on eight 
qnarts of grain and one bushel of ruta bagas, 
than on .sixteen quarts of grain and no ruta 
bagas." A correspondent of the Illinois Farmer 
Bays : " In feeding store cattle I should com 
mence with Swede turnip, proceed with the 
orange-globe, then with the mangel wurzel, and 
finish off with the sugar beet ; thus not only 
frequently vai-ying the food, but using them in 
the order corresponding exactly with the nutri- 
tive matter contained in each." ' 

Salt for Stock. — All neat cattle find salt in the 
hay, grain, and roots which they receive; nature 
has secreted from one to ten pounds in every ton 
of vegetation — the amount varying according 
to location. Those that are kept within twenty 
miles of the sea-shore get, perluips, all that 
they need in the crystal deposits on the herb- 
age, and the saline particles with which the 
winds come laden. A few insist, indeed, that 
salt is unnecessary for any stock anywhere; that 
the natural supply is sufficient. This number 
is small, however. 



Salt operates both as a tonic and a gentle lax- 
itive. It regulates the stomach and bowels, 
favors the formation of bile, improves the hair 
or wool, keeps up the tone of the .system, and 
gives an edge to the appetite. Cattle may eat 
too much salt, as of anything else, but they 

11 seldom take it in excess if it is kept con- 
stantly near, so that they can satisfy' their nat- 
ural cravings. LiEBiG says: "Salt does not 
act as a producer of flesh," but he thinks that 
the flesh of cattle that have received salt while 
fattening is better, and concludes that " the 
advantages attending its use can not be esti- 
mated too liighly." The free use of salt is 
certainly a valuable preventive of tlie spread 
of infectious diseases. 

In Great Britain, in the best farmed districts, 

; find the allowance of salt oscillating around 
the subjoined figures, taken as a basis: 



'alf, six 11 
iiillnck Ol 




CUM, OIK- year OKI 2 


■ 



An excess of salt produces irritation and 
inflammation of the mucous membrane, and 
causes several kinds of skin disea.se, especially 
in sheep. With horses an excess of salt has 
been known to produce dysentery, and in oxen 
di.sea.ses of the blood. Salt should never be 
given to cattle when a deficiency of food does 
not enable them to receive abundance of nour- 
ishment; in which case we excite appetite 
without satisfying it, and the animal loses flesh 
rapidly. 

Solon Boeinson says that cattle can be 
most economically and conveniently supplied 
by leaving a large lump of rock salt in a 
manger, where they can lick it. 

Fresh wood ashes should also be left where 
all the stock of the farm can occasionally get a 
ta.ste of it. 

Brief Suggestions for Feeding. — Corn for fat- 
tening animals, and maintaining animal heat, 
during cold weather, excels all other grain. 
But it is not adapted to feed to stock of all 
sorts, for it requires strong digestive powers, 
and oats, peas, beans, and roots, a diet rich in 
bones and muscle, are better for young and 
growing animals. A generous diet of corn 
meal, unassisted by roots, is almost certain, in 
the long run, to injure the health. Nothing is 
better than corn meal to "finish off " on ; and 
in the West, where it is abundant, it will be 
used instead of oil cake. 

A daily feed of three peeks of roots and 



392 



LIVE stock: 



three qiiaits of corn meal, will do an animal 
much more good than a peck of meal without 
roots, while they will generally be cheaper. 

In fattening beef cattle with corn meal, 
never feed so high that you can see or smell 
the effect of it in the excrements, for if you do 
you may be sure you are losing your feed, as 
the cattle do not assimilate all the nutriment 
there is in the grain. 

In feeding with corn, sixty pounds of meal 
goes as far as one hundred pounds in the 
kernel. 

There are few really good feeders. It re- 
quires both judgment and strict attention. The 
farmer who throws out a pile of hay and turns 
his back upon the barn will never have nice 
cattle. He should stop and see if they all 
take hold of it. If there is one that fails to 
fill it.self, a little extra pains should be taken to 
"set it np" again, with a special feed of roots 
or grain. Feed little and often. 

Never feed a cow while she is being milked. 

"Potatoes are worth more, for all kinds of 
stock, than most farmers think they are. If 
you can have them frozen," says a farmer, 
"and then cooked before they thaw, the starch 
is changed to sugar, and I know of no food 
that will fatten faster, or give a better flow of 
milk." 

A correspondent of the Ohio Cidlivalor gives 
the following preventive of winter-hilling in 
cattle, hogs, and sheep, many often dying dur- 
ing Winter and early Spring : 

E.-Good shultor-uui, q. s. Ortaiilitm suficil.) 
Corn meal-uni, q. s. 
Clear wsiter-um, tj. 8. 

The " corn meal-um " to be made into a poul- 
tice, and to be kept constantly applied to the 
mucous membrane of the stomach. For the 
benefit of strictly professional men, the above 
may be given as follows : 

K. — Refujj. opt., q. 8. 
Zeu pulv., q. a. 
Aq. font., q. s. 

Every farmer should reserve his best hay 
for the latter part of Winter and Spring. Let 
the animals rather improve instead of their 
falling away as warm weather advances. Let 
them enter the pasture in good condition. It 
is an old axiom, "cattle well-wintered are half- 
sumniered." 

" If you desire to get a large yield of rich 
milk, give your cow three times a day water 
slightly warm, slightly salted, in which bran 
has been stirred at the rate of one quart to two 
gallons of water. You will find, if you have 
not found this by daily practice, that your cow- 



will gain twenty per cent, immediately, under 
the effect of it, and she will become so attached 
to the diet as to refuse to urink clear water un- 
less very thirsty, but this mess she will drink 
almost any time, and ask for more. The 
amoimt of this drink is an ordinary water pail- 
ful each time, morning, noon, and night." 

Cows sometimes get a surfeit of grass, espe- 
cially in wet, warm weather, when the grass is 
succulent and rich. This feed distends the 
bowels uncomfortably. An armful of dry hay 
once a day will .serve to absorb some of this 
moisture, and benefit the cow in several re- 
spects. 

Feeding animals should be commenced early 
in the season, because the same amount of food 
will then make more flesh than when the 
weather becomes colder. 

Squashes and pumpkins cut tine, furnish an 
excellent feed for milch cows, and even for fat- 
tening pur[ioses. But the seeds should always 
be removed ; if they are retained the quantity 
of milk will not be increased. Pumpkin-seeds 
have a decided diuretic (urine producing) ef- 
fect, and they must be removed before the 
pumpkin can be profitably fed. 

If straw is stacked as well as hay is, with 
salt scattered through it at the rate of one peck 
to every foot in height, cattle will eat it with 
avidity, however they may be fed. But it is 
better to cut it. According to the analysis of 
Dr. Charles A. Cameron of Ireland, oat 
straw contains one-half as much nutritive ali- 
ment as oil cake, pound for pound. 

Stock will thrive best with just as much food 
given as they will eat up clean. 



THE HORSE— VARIETIES, CARE, 
AND DISEASES. 
Tarieties of tbe Horse.— The horse 

seems not to be a native of the Western Conti- 
nent, as has been already intimated. The prin- 
cipal varieties which now prevail in the 
United States are the thoroUgh-bred or race- 
horse; the Arabian; the Norman; the Mor- 
gan ; the Cleveland Bay ; the Dray ; the Amer- 
ican Roadster ; and the mongrel known as the 
"common hor.se," loo doubtful in parentage 
and too infinite in kind to admit of any de- 
scription. 

The Racer {Runner.) — The horses known as 
thorough-breds trace their lineage back to 
some well-known European racer or beyond, 
till it is lost in oblivion. The standard Stud- 



THE HORSE — VARIETIES OF. 



393 



book refers all the old racers to an Eastern ori- 
gin — generally Arabic, Turkish, Bai-b, or Per- 
Rian. The modern English race-horse is a well- 
marked animal, and is generally derived from 
a jndicious mixture of the beat Eastern liorses, 
tiiough a few of the best racers, have been 
wilhout ancestry. The figure of a racer indi- 
cates swiftness, which, in the case of Fashion 
anil Flying Childers, reached four miles in 
Ktve;) and a half minutes. Firetail ran a mile, 
in 1772, in one minute and four seconds. In 
17SG, Quibbler ran twenty-three miles in fifty- 
■seven minutes. 

Professor 4iOW observes that tlie form of the 
racer corresponds to the conditions required, 
but that "his length is greater tlian consists 
with perfect symmetry, the power of speed hav- 
ing been sought for in greater degree than that 
of strength and enduiance. His legs are longer 
and his trunk smaller than the eye indicates as 
strictly graceful. The length and depth of tlie 
hind -quarters, a point essential to the power of 
making long strides, are extended to the degree 
of appearing disproportionate. The chest is 
narrow, and the fore-quarters liglit, a point 
likewise characteristic of speed. Tlie neck is 
straight ratlier than gracefully arched, and the 
pasterns very long and generally oblique." It 
is the opinion of the best informed, lliat this 
breed is now bej^nd the Arabian, and can be 
improved only by Judicious selections and in- 
tercrossing. There are few thorough-bred racers 
in America, as trotting is much more popular 
here. 

The Roadster (Trotter). — The American trot- 
ting hor.se was derived in part from the racer. 
The properties so obtained are nervous energy, 
spirit, or courage, and elasticily of movement. 
In reference to this combination of blood, the 
remarks of the distinguished veterinarian and 
author, W. C. Spoonek, are worthy of notice. 
He says: "We obtain from the thorough-bred 
horse the small head, lengthy (hind) quarters, 
powerful thighs, and extended stride; but it 
is from the Norfolk trotter, the old English 
hunter or hack — descendants to some extent of 
the ancient Spanish horse — that we derive the 
oblique shoulder, elevated withers, good fore- 
hand, safe walk, and fast trot, accompanied by 
a larger and wider frame, greater bone, and 
more powerful digestive organs than the blood 
horse generally possesses. Wlien once these 
varied qualifications are combined, it is a/act 
accomplished — the means in our hands for con- 
tinued excellence, by which we can impart to 
the next generation tlie requisite amount of 



breeding without that risk of weediness which 
so often attends the first cross." 

Yet some of the very best trotters ever pro- 
duced on this continent, like Lady Suffolk and 
Dutchniaii^ are without known ancestry. By 
careful breeding and training for the cour.se, 
the United States has produced the fastest trot- 
ters in the world. There are prub ibly more 
horses in this country tluat can trot a mile 
within 2.40 than there are in all Europe. The 
best English authorities concede our superiority 
in this respect. Our food, air, breeding, and 
training for this definite purpoae, combine to ef- 
fect the result. 

The Morgan horses of Vermont are the only 
American horses that can properly take rank 
as a distinct breed. They class as roadsters, 
with some of the qualities of draught horses. 
They are fourteen to fifteen hands, bay, short 
and round, small heads, deep chests, fore legs 
set wide apart, strong backs, docile and tracta- 
ble temper, good wind and bottom. They are 
spirited, with good action and form, and admi- 
rable roadsters and carriage horses. 

The original Morgan stallion was reared by 
Justin Moeqan, of Randolph, Vermont, and 
sired by True Briton or Beautiful Bay ; tie 
by Traveler, and among the ancestors of the 
latter were probably Eclipse, Flying Cliilders, 
and the Godolphin Arabian."' The dam was a 
light bay of the Wild Air breed, but probably 
not thorough-bred. A marked improvement 
esults from grafting the best Morgan cliarac- 
teristics on a larger horse, like the Messenger 
stock. 

The Blackhawk is a scion of the Morgan, the 
first of the branch, owned by Mr. Mathews, 
of New Hampshire, having been sired by the 
Sherman Morgan. His dam was a three- 
quarter blooded English mare, that could trot 
under three minutes. The Blackhawk is one 
of the best proportioned and most spirited and 
graceful roadsters that this country has yet 
produced — a great favorite for the buggy and 
the saddle. 

The Percheron 2\^ormans are a pure race, ca lia- 
ble of reproducing their qualities indefinitely, 
without deterioration or intermixture. They 
sprang from the splendid war-hor.ses of Norman 
William and Cieub de Lion, and are still 
the heavy draught horses of France. Some of 
them have been introduced into New Jersey. 
They are enormous, shaggy, bony, sliorl, with 
steep rump, broad quarters, wide chest, heavy 
muscles and large iron-like feet. Tbev Let 



L' ilUd SPOUNEB. 



394 



LIVE stock: 



Iheii- spirit from the Andiilusian, and are said 
to be a capital race for hard work and scanty fare. 

Tlie Canadian horses are a distinct family, 
originating in the Percheron Norman. Their 
characteristics are exlreme hardiness and un- 
usual sliagginess, broad forehead, clear and bold 
eye, broad chest, strong shoulder, a stout barrel, 
good loins, muscular thighs, and the soundest, 
llatlest-boned legs, and toughest and liardest 
leet to be found in any race. 

The Cleveland Bay is the original of the En- 
glish coach, hunter, and hackney horses, and 
many of the best American dray horses. Mr. 
Spooner says: "Cleveland Bays were im- 
ported into western New York, a few years 
since, where they liave spread considerably. 
They have often been exhibited at our Slate 
Fairs. They are monstrously large, ami, for 
their size, are symmetrical horses, and possess 
very respectable action. * * The half- 

blood.s, the produce of a cross with our common 
mares, are liked by many of our I'armers. They 
are said to make strong, serviceable farm beasts 
— though rather prone to sullenness of temper." 

Sanford Howard, of Boston, subdivide-s* 
the difi'erent breeds in reference to certain spe- 
cial purposes, as follows: 

"1. For long distances, with heavy weiglit 
on the back, at a galloping pace, the true Arab 
is the best mode'l ; for short distances, with 
light weight, at the highest practicable rate of 
speed at the galloping pace, the English racer 
is preferable; for hunting, a more substantial 
horse, with greater weight and heavier fore- 
hand than the racer is required. 

"'1. Of trotters, for quick driving, in light 
vehicles, the roadster best meets the require- 
ments; the best American horses of this des- 
cription being probably superior to any in the 
world, certainly superior to the English. For 
city coacli-horses, less speed and hardiness 
being needed, an animal of more size is called 
for ; a purpose for which the Cleveland bay, or 
a mixture of the racer with some larger-sized 
stock, answers well. For omnibuses and horse- 
railroad ears, a more muscular horse, able to 
endure hardship, is prel'erable, the French Per- 
cheron being well adapted to the place. 

"3. Of horses, the uses of which only re- 
quire a walk, and where heavy burdens are to 
be drawn, a conformation more adapted to 
strength and less to speed is necessary. For 
heavy draught, some of the English and Scot- 
tish breeds are best; for farm work, where 



•Essuy on Horses, U. S. Agiicultunil Report, for lsi;2. 



hor.ses only are used, and for the drays, carts, 
etc., of cities, the SuflTolk and Clydesdale breeds 
would be preferable to the horses now generally 
used for these purposes in thi« country." 

In America, we have little use for tlie race- 
horse (the runner), with his low fore-quarters 
and elevated and expanded hind-quarters, 
built like the hare, becau.se moving like the 
hare, by a succession of bounds. Eclipse was 
taller at the rump than at the shoulder or 
withers. In this country the public taste pre- 
fers trotters, which, instead of springing simul- 
taneously with both hind legs, works the legs 
about equally, and so require a more equal dis- 
tribution of muscular power before and behind. 
Our road distances average thrice as long as in 
England or France; so we require more speed 
and inore endurance — fast walkers being what 
we should especially seek. Our horses need to 
be bred on a radically difl'erent model from the 
foreign types; the best breeds which have been 
adopted, should now be carefully and scienlilic- 
ally adapted. 

Tlie average American wants a horse of all 
work; one that can go on the road and not 
lea\'e him behind his neighbor; that can draw 
his produce to market, and as mr ;li if it as it 
is reasonable for any horse to draw ; lliat can 
carry his family to meeting, his grist to mill; 
or grind cider or saw wood ; one, in short, that 
can turn his feet and his muscles to anything 
and everything that ciimes within the range of 
muscular power tu iierlorm. He wants a horse 
that will pay his way in almost any given di- 
rection ; and he does not want a pet, to eat ita 
head oil' in pampered idleness. 

In general, and especially for roadsters, and 
draught-horses, it is better to keep the varieties 
distinct, breeding each in reference to an ideal 
or standard, combining the points which, ac- 
cording to mechanical principles and practical 
observation, denote the highest adaptation to 
their difl'erent purposes. In crossing dill'erent 
stocks, experiments should be conducted with 
great care, the object being kept in view to com- 
bine and perpetuate the valuable properties of 
sire and dam. 

To AsJDcrtain a Horse's Age.— The 
teeth are covered with a polished and exceed- 
ingly hard substance, called the enamel. It 
spreads over that portion of the teeth which 
appears above the gum, and not only so, but .is 
they are to be so nmch employed in nipping 
the grass, and gathering up the animal's Ibod, 
and in such employment even this hard sub- 



HORSES — TO ASCERTAIN ACE OF. 



395 



stance must be gradually worn away, a portion 
of it, as it passes over tlie upper surface of the 
teelh, is bent inwaril, and sunk into tlie body 
of the teeth, and forms a little pit in theui. 
The inside and bottom of this pit being black- 
ened by the food, constitutes the mark of the 
teeth, by the gradual disappearance of which, in 
consequence of the wearing down of the edge, 
we are enabled, for several years, to judge of 
the age of the animal. 

"When about two years old, the horse sheds 
the two middle teeth on the under jaw; at three 
years old he sheds two other teeth, one on each 
side of tIiQ0e he shed the year befoi-e ; at four 
years he sheds tlie two remaining or coiner 
teeth ; at tive years the two middle teeth are 
full, being no longer hollow, as the others are, 
and the teeth will have penetrated the gums, 
at six years old the four middle teeth are full, 
the corner ones only remaining hollow — the 
tusks are sharp, with the sides flinled ; at seven 
years old the corner teeth are full, the tusks 
larger and thicker, and the horse is said to be 
of age." 

The eighth year having passed, it is ditli ult 
to decide on the e,xact age of the hor.se. The 
inci.ssors of the upper jaw are then the best 
guides. At nine years the mark is said to be 
worn away from the central teeth ; at eleven, 
from the next pair; and at twelve, from the 
corner ones. The tusk likewise becomes shoi ter 
and blunter. 

There are many circumstances, besides the 
scoundrelly filing, which some jockeys resort to, 
that render a decision as to the age of a horse 
very difficult. Horses always kept in a st.ible 
have the mark much sooner worn out tli in 
those that are at gra.s.s, and it is impossible to 
form any calculation at all as to cribbers. 

The following dental chart shows, as satis- 
factorily, perhaps, as can be shown on paper, 
the condition and marks of the teeth at the va- 
rious ages : 





IWO ASl) A II 11,1 \i-Vl till tL AiD A U *LF 'i 1- ABS. 

Appearance of a Nipper 




TwF.LVF, Years. Fifteen Tears. 

A New Wrinkle About Horses. — Some close 
observer furnishes the following novel direc- 
tions about estimating the age of a horse after 
he passes the age of nine: "After the horse 
is nine years old, a wrinkle comes on the eye- 
lid, at the upper corner of the lower lid, and 
every year thereafter he has one well-defined 
wrinkle for each year of his age over nine. If, 
for instance, a horse has three wrinkles, he is 
twelve. .\ild the number of wrinkles to nine, 
and you will always get his age." 

Feeding Horses.^ Grass. — "Many 
think," observes the Rural World, "that horses 
that are kept in the stable all Summer should 
not be allowed to eat grass. They think it will 



39G 



LIVE STOCK 



make the horse soft and wish\'-wash_v, that it 
will throw him out of condition for hard work, 
and that he will not eat hay so well. This is 
particularly the case with some of the trainers 
of trotting or running horses. But these are 
all erroneous opinions and practices, and are 
giving way, gradually, to a more reasonable 
and natural system of feeding. Grass is the 
natural food of the horse. It is cooling and 
liealthful food. It keeps the howels open and 
sharpens the appetite. It promotes diyeslion 
and removes fever from the system. Therefore, 
by all means, let the horses nip grass fifteen or 
twenty minutes daily." 

Carrots for Horses. — Experiments have shown 
that the best way to feed carrots to horses, is in 
conjunction with oats. Alone, carrots are not 
as good as oats alone, but in conjunction, they 
are better than either fed separately. If you 
are in the habit of feeding four quarts of oals 
to a mess, give two of oats and two of sliced 
carrots, and the result will be more satisfactory ' 
than if each were fed separately. Carrots be- 
come, under many circumstances a medicine, as 
well as an article of diet. Their influence on 
the stomach is most favorable, conducing to 
the mast perfect digestion and assimilation. 

In the re|)ort of the Maine State Board of 
Agriculture we find a statement of a crop of 
carrots of eight hundred and thirty busbels, or 
over twenty tons to the acre, grown at a cost of 
nine and three-tenth cents per bushel, or about 
seventy-five dollars per acre. In the same re- 
port we also find that, taking the cost of raising 
and the value for feeding, the produce of an 
acre of carrots is equal to the same realized on 
ten and five-seventh aci-es of oats. Mr. Cur- 
wen, a distinguished English farmer, says an 
acre of carrots supplies a quantity of food for 
working horses equal to sixteen or twenty acres 
of oats. This, however, seems an extravagant 
estimate. 

Culling and Crushing Feed. — We learn from 
the American Agriculturist, that the London 
Omiiibus Company use six thousand horses; 
and a recent report says, that three thousiind 
of these fed daily on si.Nteen pounds of bruised 
oats, seven and a half pounds of cut hay, and 
two and a half pounds of cut straw, fi>r each 
horse, did as much work in as good condition 
as the other three thousand which were led on 
nineteen pounds of whole oats and thirteen 
pounds of uncut hay. Calling the two and a 
half pounds of straw equivalent to one and a 
half pounds of hay, and the saving is three 
pounds of oats, and four pounds of hay per 



day for each horse. Thus, then, the mere 
bruising of oats, and cutting of hay, effects a 
yearly saving, for each hor.se, of thirty-four 
bushels of oats, and fourteen hundred and sixty 
pounds of hay. These experiments, made up- 
on so large a number of horses, continued for a 
considerable length of time, are very conclusive, 
and forcibly indicate the advantage of what we 
have already urged— the grinding or crushing 
of all grain, and the cutting of all hay and 
other forage fed to horses. The same thing 
will be found partially true of other animals, 
though the ruminant — neat cattle and sheep^- 
inaslioate their food more in chewing the cud, 
and hence the bruising or steeping of oats, corn, 
and other food is not so important for them as 
for horses and swine. 

There is much American testimony confirm- 
ing the above statement. E. W. Heerendeen, 
of Macedon, New York, who uses a number of 
horses in his extensive nursery, writes: "I 
have tried cutting feed, by using a cylinder 
raw-hide machine, cutting the straw about an 
inch long. I keiit a teaLu on the oat straw 
(which was a fair crop) which grew on less 
than three acres of land, from last of August 
to first of Apiil, without using a pound of hay. 
It was mixed with about three quarts of corn 
meal and bran, in equal proportions, by weight, 
to each horse three times per day, feeding about 
a bushel of cut leed at night, and a little over 
half a bushel in the morning and noon. I am 
fully satisfied, from a careful record of the 
amount fed teams, that the expense of feeding 
a team of working horses on cut feed and corn 
meal and bran, mi.'ced as belbre mentioned, is 
less than two-thirds of the expense of keeping 
them on dry bay and whole grain. Corn meal 
alone, especially for Summer use, is not as 
good for the lieuUb of horses as when mixed 
with bran, or better still, with ground oats. 
Iloises subject to the heaves are either very 
much relieved, or entirely cured, while using 
the cut feed." 

An Equine Aristocrat. — The following will be 
interesting to lovers of horse flesh, as well as 
many others, as giving a brief I'esume of " Dex- 
ter's" daily life: At six every morning "Dex- 
ter" has all the water he wants, and two quarts 
of oals. .\fler eating, he is "walked" for 
half an hour or more, then cleaned off, and at 
nine has two more quarts of oats. If no drive 
is on the card for the afternoon, he is given a 
half to three-quarters of an hours gentle exer- 
cise. At one o'clock he has oats again, as be- 
fore limited to two quarts. From three to four 



HORSES — STABLES FOR — BREEDING COLTS. 



397 



lie is driven twelve to fifteen mile?, after wliicli 
lie is cleaned off and rubbed tliorouglily dry. 
He has a swallow of water on return from 
drive, but is alluwed free access to his only 
feed of hay, of whioli he consumes from five 
ti) six pounds. If the drive has been a particu- 
larly sharp one, he is treated as soon as he gets 
ill to a quart or two of oat-meal gruel; and 
wIk'u tlioroughly cooled, has half a pail of wa- 
ter and three quarts of oats, with two quarts of 
liraii, muisteuoil with hot water. Before any 
specially hard day's work or trial of speed, his 
allowance of water is .still more reduced. 

Horse Slables should be high, spacious, 
well-lighted, and well-ventilated. The conduct 
of the monster Caligula, in feeding his horse 
from a golden manger, and declaring him a 
Consul of Kome, was really creditable, con- 
trasted with the practice of leaving faithful 
horses confined in low, close, dark filthy dun- 
geons, at a sacrifice of comfort, health, and 
value. Many of the disea.ses to which horses 
are subject are traceable to this inhuman treat- 
ment in denying air and light when both are 
BO cheap. The details of constructing horse 
stables are loo well-known to recapitulate. 

Feeding 'Tube. — An arrangement for feeding 
hay to horses, now adopted in some of the best 
Btables, is illustrated in the accompanying cut. 




the sides of the manger not being shown. The 
hay is thrown down from above through a 
square board-tube, standing perpendicularly in 
one end of the manger. A semicircular open- 
ing, next to the manger, as shown in the figure, 
allows the horse to draw from the bottom all 
tlie bay he wants, without the inconvenience 
of having his eyes and mane filled with hay- 
seed, or of wasting hay, or of breathing on and 
rendering unpalatable the bay which he does 
eat, resulting from the use of racks. It nuay, 
also, save him from a fit of the heaves. These 
tubes may be about eighteen or twenty inches 
square, and should be as smooth as possible on 
the inside, the lower end being two or three 
inches larger than the upper, so that the liay 



will drop or settle freely, and not become fast- 
ened or lodged in it. Opening.', with doors 
opening outward, or with slides, may be placed 
at diflerent heights, for convenience in throw- 
ing down hay, as the height of the mow varies. 
A Cheap Feed Trouyh. — Solon Robin.son, 
does a good thing, when he records the follow- 
ing : " The farm of Josiah Macey, a West- 
chester farmer of the old school, is conducted 
by his grand.son, who has gained knowledge 
from books, and goes ahead with improve- 
ments — one of which is a new feed trough. It 
is simply an iron pot — just such a one as our 
dinner used to be boiled in before the age of 
cooking stoves. One of about four gallons is 
a good size, and it is set in a corner of the man- 
ger, in a casing of boards that enclose the rim, 
just up even with the top. It is superior to 
any wooden, iron, or stone feed-box we ever 
saw ; is not expensive, and barring accidents, 
it will last forever." 

Breakillj^ Colls. — The process of break- 
ing a cult should begin when it is two days old, 
instead of waiting, as many do, until it is two 
years old, and is wild and violent. When the 
foal first stands up and looks about intelligently, 
he should be l.andled, for during colthood he 
is more sagacious and tractable than other ani- 
mals. Teach him to be fond of yon, and give 
him good habits befine he is old enough to 
make resistance, and he will never forget. 

He should be handled daily, partially dressed, 
accustomed to tlie baiter, and to whatever will 
be likely to atract his intention when put in 
harness. He should learn that man is his 
friend ; rewards, not punishment should be the 
stimulus; and there is nothing for which a 
hired man should be more quickly discharged 
than for using any severity with growing ani- 
mals. Even while the foal is nursing, he 
should learn to have his feet lifted and gently 
tapped with a hammer; to be led to and fro 
by the forelock or baiter ; to permit the press- 
ure of the band upan the back; to wear a sur- 
cingle and headstall ; and he should receive 
cares.ses with bits of apple or slices of carrot 
when he has done what is required of him. 
The colt should never know that the whip ex- 
ists. When a year old, or perhaps before, the 
bits may be occasionally put in his mouth, and 
he may learn his paces and be taught to obey 
the rein. 

Never permit a colt to break away from you, 
or to resist successfully; and never require him 
to do too much. Ko colt should be worked be- 



398 



LIVE stock: 



fore he is three years old, and four is slill bet- 
ter, for the delay pays in the end — and always 
remember that his fnture usefulness is founded 
on implicit obedience resulting principally from 
attachment to and confidence in man. So shall 
the bugbear of "breaking" be abolished. .-V 
few theorists have an impression that "a colt 
that has been so much handled that at three 
years old he is ready to submit to sad<lle or 
harne.ss without any breaking, is almost sure to 
make a dull, lazy horse;" but such an opinion 
is more the result of speculation than of ex- 
perience, and is opposed to the instructions of 
all the best authorities on the horse. It is 
liigh time that the barbarous habit of harness- 
ing wild horses to heavy wheels and reducing 
them to sullen obedience by sheer exhaustion, 
was wholly superseded. 

Taming— The Rarcy Method.— 

Many horses, whose education has been neg- 
lected, or perverted by ignorant, or vicious 
keepers, grow up untamed and unmanageable. 
The art of subduing and instructing these has 
been practiced and taught with eminent suc- 
cess by JoHK S. Rarey, of Groveport, Ohio; 
and he has received the grateful acknowledge- 
ments of the civilized world for having Ijrouglit 
his humane system to such perfection. All 
previous methods were based, more or less, on 
cruelty, and were never entirely successful. 

Mr. Rarey received in England $120,000 
for his lessons and exhibitions. He tamed a 
zebra, an animal hitherto regarded as untame- 
able, so that he could ride it as he ple:ised. 
He tamed the savage slalliou Cruiser, so vi- 
cious that the life of his keeper was always In 
danger, and he had to be fed tluougli a barred 
helmet. 

Mr. Rarey started on the following princi- 
ples ; In teaching a horse obedience we nuLst 
overcome, 1, kis fear of man ; 2, hisanger, which 
makes him as resentful as is man himself; 3, 
his impatience of restraint. And we must eub- 
Elitute for these, 1, affection for his master; 2, 
a fear of chastisement and a conviction that 
obedience is the only way to escape It. The 
means which he adopted were: 

First. Familarity of the hor.se with man's 
presence, under circumstances that convince 
him of man's kind Intentions. 

Second. A demonstration that resistance is 
nsele^s, that man is superior and can overcome 
him physically. 

During the struggle the man must never show 
signs of fear, for the instinct of the horse will 



be quick to detect it ; nor must the horse be 
allowed even a temporary advantage, for entire 
success depends on his feeling the hopelessness 
of the combat. 

The R.4REY method consists in subduing the 
animal by depriving lilm of the use of his 
limbs, and making bim entirely powerless in 
the pretisence of the operator; and then in. ex- 
citing his gratitude by releasing him from the 
situation. 

The first step, to halter the animal, is some- 
times the most difficult part. Rarey's pupils 
sometimes rubbed a little of the oil of cummin 
on their hands, when the horse will permit 
himself to be approached without resisting. 
The enclosure where the struggle takes place 
should be on soft earth which is free from 
stones. 

Rarey never used a whip or any implement 
of coercion, or any violence; relying wholly 
on coaxing, to get the bridle on. He made it a 
rule never to frighten a horse, or chase him, or 
halloo at him, or speak except in a quiet tone. 
For biting horses he hail a wooden gag bit, 
made large enough to prevent the horse from 
shutting his teeth. 

When the strong bridle is on, the prepara- 
tions are quietly made to throw the horse upon 
his side. This Is done easily and harmlessly 
by the aid of a stout surcingle and two stout 
straps. The first of these has a buckle on one 
end, and Is to be slipped over tlie bent left fore 
leg, and drawn snugly about the fore-arm and 
fetlock. The second is looped over the right 
foot, below the fetlock, and the other end 
passed under the surcingle, as represented in 
the engraving: 




The Use of the Raret Straps. 
The adjustment of these may take some time 
and will not be boys' play, if the animal is 



HORSES — now TO KEEP THEM QUIET WHILE BEING SHOD. 



399 



violent; but only rubbing, liandliiig, and quiet 
talking, and other soothing means are to be 
used. If he incline.s to lear and plunge, give 
him the bridle; he will .'^oon learn that he is 
securely fastened. 

As soon as he becomes quiet, he is urged to 
move a little, when the strap is drawn suddenly 
through th'e surcingle, and tlie right leg is 
lifted and fastened firmly in tlie same position 
as the other. The horse comes down on his 
knees, when the operator takes another turn or 
two of the strap, fastening it to the surcingle. 
Now the struggle commences in earnest. If 
the horse be spirited, he will rear and plunge 
about the enclosure, requiring a good deal of 
skill, agility, and self-possession in the opera- 
tor, who merely keeps by his side to guide him 
until he tires out and is willing to lie down of 
liis own accord. 

If he try to jump up and resist a second 
time, the process is to be repeated, until the 
mibjugation is complete. It requires more 
judgment than strength in the operator, as 
boy.s, and even ladies, have successfully laid 
down and conquered large horses. Tlie snug- 
gle rarely continues more than ten mir.iites — 
fifteen being tike longest on record. 

When he is completely subdued, and on his 
side helpless, follow up the advantage, by ca- 
ressing and soothing him. Rab his neck, back, 
»nd legs; speak kindly to him; bring any ar- 
ticles that he may be inclined to fear and place 
upon him, such as the harness, buffalo robe, 
saddle, umbrella, etc. Sit upon him, all the 
while fondling and caressing him. Remove 
the straps, and handle his legs again, still com- 
pelling him to remain down. If he springs up 
before you wish, replace the straps and repeat 
the operation. Two or three lessons a day for 
a week, succeeded by rewards of a bit of sweet 
apple or any favorite food, for obedience, will 
reduce almost any horse to submission. Do 
not forget that the law of kindness is more 
potent than the law of violence. 

How to Keep Horses Quiet ^vhile 
bein^ SllOd. — The new French method of 
rendering a horse quiet while being shod is 
both simple and effective. The head of the 
animal being covered, so that he can not per- 
ceive what is going on around him, and an as- 
sistant having liold of the bridle, another per- 
son stands in front and orders the horse to lift 
his left hind foot In reply the horse probably 
begins to kick violently. A smart blow is then 
administered by the person who has spoken, on 



his cheeks with each hand — the hands, instead 
of being removed after the blows, being strongly 
pressed on the cheeks. A new order is given 
to lift the foot, and is again disobeyed, but less 
energetically than at first. The blows on the 
cheeks are repeated for the second time. At 
the third repetition the animal trembles all 
over; and resistance being at an end, he is shod 
as easily as the quietest horse. 

An officer in the United States Army re- 
cently subdued, in the following manner, a 
horse that was troublesome to those handling 
his feet to be shod: He took a cord about the 
size of a common bed cord, put it in the mouth 
of the horse like a bit, and tied it tightly on 
tlie lop of the animal's head, passing his left 
ear under the string, not painfully tight, but 
light enough to keep the ear down and the cord 
in its place. This done, he patted the horse 
gently on the side of his head, and commanded 
him to follow ; and instantly the horse obeyed, 
perfectly subdued, and as gentle and obedient 
as a well-trained dog; suffering his feet to be 
lifted with entire impunity, and acting in all 
respects like an old stager. That simple string 
thus tied nuide him at once as docile and obe- 
dient as any one could desire. The gentleman 
who furnislied this simple means of subduing a 
very dangerous propensity intimated tliat it is 
practiced in Mexico and South America, in the 
management of wild horses. 

Tiiniingr WiBd Horses. — Tlie last- 
mentioned process is akin to the method of 
taming the lassoed horses of the South .\meri- 
can pampas, as described by an eye-witness: 
" A post is firmly fixed in the ground to which 
a ring is attached. The horse is then brought 
to the post with a long halter, and made fa.st. 
The breaker takes his poncho — a large cloak 
worn by the South Americans — and ties it 
round the eyes of the horse so as to blindfold 
him. The animal is then left to himself, and 
shortly begins to tremble with fear at his un- 
wonted, helpless condition. A profuse perspi- 
ration breaks out upon him, and, if suffered to 
continue thus, he falls from the exliausti(m of 
the nervous system caused by his fright. Be- 
fore this takes place, a rude saddle is placeil on 
his back, heavily weighted at the stirrups, and 
to this he quietly submits. Presently, niion 
the animal is stupefied, the breaker goes up tu 
him, and, patting his neck and otherwise ca- 
ressing hira, in some respects soothes him. Thin 
goes on till the horse exhibits signs of reliance 
on the man. By and by, the poncho is removed 



400 



LIX-E STOCK: 



and the lesson wished to be imparted has been 
learned, namely, that of looking upon the one 
who has relieved him from the fearful poncho 
as his friend. We have seen tliis lesson so 
skilfully administered that the breaker has re- 
moved the weighted stirrups, and immediately 
mounted on the bare back of the horse, which 
behaved with perfect docility." 

IVever Use Blinders. — It is unnatural 
and cruel to blind a horse's sparkling eyes wilii 
"blinkers." They are obstructive; they make 
ahorse nervous; and they impair his beauty. 
Mr. Rarey says, in the London Times: "All 
my experience with and observation of horses, 
proves clearly to me that blinkers should not 
be used, and that the sight of the horse, for 
many reasons, should not be interfered with in 
any way. Horses are only fearful of objects 
which they do not understand or are not fa- 
miliar with, and the eye is one of the principal 
mediums by w-hich this understanding and this 
familiarity are brought about. I have not, in 
the last eight or ten years, constantly handling 
hor.ses both wild and nervous, ever put blinkers 
on any of them, and in no case have I ever had 
one that was afraid of the carriage he drew be- 
hind hira, or of those he passed in the streets. 
Horses can be broken in less time and better 
without blinkers; but horses that have always 
worn them will notice the sudden change, and 
must be treated carefully the .first drive. After 
that they will drive better without the blinkers 
than with." 

Brief Suggestions on Manage- 
ment, etc. — The conceited attempt to i-evise 
one of the noblest works of the Creator by dock- 
ing a horse's tail, has nearly passed away, and 
is now practiced only by the vulgarist jockeys. 
The check-rein is rapidly following ear and 
tall mutilation and the blinder into oblivion. 

A whimsical old rhyme, which will not do to 
" tie to," says of the horse : 
One white foot, buy him ; 
Two white feet, try him ; 
Three white feet, deny him ; 
Four white feet, anti one white nose, 
Strip off liis hide and give liim to the crows. 

The following is supposed to have been the 
petition of a .sensible horse to his driver: Up 
the hill, whip me not; down the hill, hurry 
me not ; on level road, spare nie not; loose in 
stable, forget me not ; of hay and oats, rob me 
not; of clean water, stint me not; with sponge 
and brush, neglect me not; of soft, dry bed, de- 
prive me not; tired and hot, wash me not ; if 



sick or cool, chill me not ; with bit and reins, 
oh ! jerk me not ; and when you are angry, 
trike me not. 

" A black liorse can not stand heat, nor a 
white one cold. If you want a gentle horse, 
get one with more or less white about the head, 
the more the better." 

Anything a horse can touch with his nose 
without being harmed, he does not fear. There- 
fore, the hand, the halter, girt, blanket, saddle, 
harness, umbrella, buffalo robe, or whatever is 
brought in proximily to him should be intro- 
duced to and touched by that delicate organ. 

Always /ee/ kindly toward a horse, no matter 
what he does to you, and consequently never 
sliow " temper." Remember the horse knows 
instinctively how you feel. 

When you mount a horse, teach him that the 
whip and spur are not to be used except in 
cases of emergency. Never mount or dismount 
without pas.sing your hand gently over the face 
of the animal ; and, by the way, ladies, the 
softer the liand that does that the better. 

There is not one farm horse in a hundred that 
is more than half groomed. 

See that the plowboy washes the breasts of 
the horses with cold water evgry niglit after 
work, and it is not a bad plan to slip off the 
collar at noon, and clean it, and, at the same 
time, wash the breast of the horse, remember- 
ing to rub it dry before putting on the collar 
again. 

Xever expect to have a good horse if you 
cram your colt ; it can not be done. The old 
adage in Vermont, " A ragged colt makes the 
best horse," means everything. Let it have 
milk and soft food, but avoid the feeding of 
grain until it is three years old, as you would 
avoid feeding brandy and water to your chil- 
dren when they are little. 

Do not let hor.ses stand long in the stable at 
any time of the year without exercising. 

When a hor.se has fallen from the slippery 
state of the ground, the readiest method of ena- 
bling him to rise is, to place a piece of old 
rug or carpet under his fore feet, and he will be 
able to get up at once. 

Whatever the color of the horse, the mane 
and tail should be darker than the hair of the 
body. Beware of that horse with dark hair 
and light mane and tail. 

Horses. were designed as beasts of burden to 
relieve mankind of fatiguing drudgery. It 
does not hurt them to work hard, if they are 
treated kindly. It does not injure a fast horse 
to go fast, more than it injures a slow horse to 



^/r^\ 



HORSES — DISEASES OF. 



401 



go slow. Hard service does not kill. horses or 
men. It is fretting, worrying, and abuse that 
do that. 

A kicking horse will sometimes be cured by 
fastening a short chain to the hind legs in such 
a way as to inflict punishment every time it 
kicks. But if you have a horse that kicks or 
bites persistently, you had better .sell him or 
kill him. 

To Start a Balky Horse, tie a rope to his tail, 
pass it between his leg.s, and pull on it from the 
front; or tie his ears together, and he will for- 
get his obstinacy ; or, try the following, more 
simple than either, from the Ohio Fanner : " Fill 
his mouth witli dirt or gravel from the road, 
and he '11 go. Now the philosophy of the thing 
is, it gives him something else to think about. 
AVe liave .seen it tried hundreds of times, and 
it has never failed." 

A Maine man gives his method of treating 
balky lior.se,s, as follows: " Let me inform hu- 
mane men and hostlers, and all who hold the 
rein, tliat the way to cure balky horses is to 
take them from the carriage, and whirl them 
rapidly round, till they are giddy. It requires 
two men to accomplish this, one at the horse's 
tail. Don't let him step out. Hold him to the 
smallest possible circle. One dose will often 
cure him; two doses are final with tlie worst 
horse tliat ever refused to stir." 

Diseases of the Oorse.— We have no 

room for an exhaustive treatise on Ihe numer- 
ous diseases of the horse, but shall refer to 
some of the commonest ailments and infirmi- 
ties. Those needifig more specific information, 
are referred to Stewart's American Horse 
Book, published by C. F. Vent & Co., of Cin- 
cinnati, which gives the ^HoP'^thic treatment; 
and to Herbert's Hints to Horse-Keepers, 
which gives the Homeopathic prescriptions. As 
a rule, any medicine, except an emetic, is good 
for a horse, that is good for the same coniplaint 
in the human system. But, an oi-dinary dose 
for a man should be multiplied nine or ten 
times for a common horse. Compared with 
man, the horse breathes only half as fast, and 
liis pulse beats, and his blood flows but half as 
fast. His diseases develop and abate more 
slowl.v. For some of these, we give several 
remedies, having selected those sanctioned by 
good authority : • 

Bots. — Herbert say,s : " Bots are the larvte 

of the gadfly. The eggs are deposited on the 

horse's hair, and after he licks them ofi" and 

Bwalluws them, tlie.v are hatched in the stomach, 

20 



where they adhere." This is the prevalent 
opinion ; it is generally believed, also, that the 
hot frequently cats through the walls of the 
stomach, until it kills the horse. Mayhew's 
English book says, that the cause is "turning 
out to grass," and there is no remedy but the 
action of nature. Stewart, and also the editor 
of The Field, Turf, and Farm, holds that the 
stomach of the horse is the natural residence 
of the insects; that the colt's stomach is full of 
them at birth ; that they are not related to the 
offspring of the gadfly, which the horse some- 
times swallows; that they hang by the tail to 
the coat of the stomach, and feed only on the 
chyme from the food; and that there is no evi- 
dence that they ever injure the horse's health. 
Stewart claims that, though the stomach of 
a dead horse is sometimes found "completely 
riddled by the bots," this is only evidence that 
they are trying to escape from a place no longer 
suited to their wants. This may be so, but the 
fact is, that horses do die in terrible distress, 
and that an immediate examination discloses 
swarms of bots, with their hooked beaks fa.st- 
ened in the coat of the stomach, great patches 
of which are already eaten away ; and it seems 
to us that the presence of unusual numbers of 
ravenous bols in the vicinity of the corrosions, 
raises a violent presumption against them. It 
is difficult to, believe that swarms of such de- 
vourers can inhabit the very vitals of a horse, 
without causing pain and disease. So we pro- 
nounce them guilty, and sentence them to either 
one of the following penalties: 

Pour down the horse a quarter of a pound of 
alum dis.solved in a pint of water (milk warm); 
in five or ten minutes after pour down him a 
pint of linseed oil or other mild active purga- 
tive;, in ten minutes the horse will rise and eat. 

A junk bottle full of strong sage le.a, made 
very sweet with molasses. Two or three doses 
is generally sufficient for a cure. 

Or feed the afllicted animal with ashes and 
tobacco once a week. 

Bruises, Sores, Sprains, ete.— -Shower with cold 
water two or three times a day, and when dry, 
wash with Eoman wormwood tea, salt and 
water, or beef brine. Never wrap up sores or 
.sprains. 

A good wash: Take one-quarter of a pound 
of saltpeter, half a pint of turpentine, and put 
them into a bottle; shake up well before using ; 
apply to the wound three times a day with a 
feather. 

Ointment. — Take a peck of the inside bark o." 
white oak, and two pails of water; boil until 



402 



LIVE stock: 



the strength h extracted ; then remove the 
bark, add half a pound of fresh butter, and 
simmer to tlie consistency of molasses, being 
careful not to burn it. 

. Catan-h — running at the nose — a remedy 
proposed by Mayhew is sleandng, by the fol- 
lowing process: Take a bag which will readily 
allow water to drain through it. Fix a bail 
strap at the mouth, like a feeding bag; put in 
the bottom a gallon of yellow or pitch-pine 
sawdust, or if that is not convenient, any other 
sawdust, with an ounce of spirits turpentine 
nii.^ed with it; thrust the horse's nose well into 
the bag and slip the strap over the ears to hold 
it there; then pour hot water from a tea-kettle 
through a hole in the bag some distance below 
the nose, on to the sawdust, and let him inhale 
the st«ara. Repeating tlie operation a few 
times will remove the difficulty. Powdered 
charcoal, say half a tea-cup at a time, will have 
a good effect — let it be mixed with a pint of 
water. 

Herbert, homeopathic, prescribes in the 
first stages, six drops or globules of aconite 
every three hours; in more advanced stages, 
six drops of arsenicum twice a day. 

Colic and Inflammation. — This is generally 
produced by hard water, or too much green 
food. Tbere are two kinds of colic, flatulent 
and spasmodic — the latter caused by a con- 
traction of the small intestines; the former 
by indigestion, and the inflation of the bowels 
by fermentation and the resulting gas. Quiet 
is indispensable. Never resort to running the 
poor animal. It is an absurd and cruel method. 
A dose consisting of a tea-cupful of fresh pul- 
verized charcoal, in a quart of cold water is 
generally a relief for indigestion. A drink of 
chloride of lime dissolved in water is also relied 
on for relief. In flatulent colic, great benefit is 
usually obtained from frequent injections, until 
the faeces efiect a passage. This may be of salt 
and water, or of strong soap-suds. If it does 
not effect a cure, the only infallible remedy i: 
to introduce the greased hand and arm into the 
rectum and carefully remove the obstructive 
balls, one by one. 

Mr. R. Howell, of Shiloh, New Jersey, 
gives the following "infallible remedy" for 
colic: "Take a piece of carpet, blanket, or any 
thick material, large enough to cover the horse 
from his fore to his hind legs, and from his 
spine to the floor as he lies ; wring it out of hot 
water, as hot as you can possibly handle it 
You need not fear scalding the animal. Apply 
this to the animal and cover it with a similar 



dry cloth. As soon as the heat diminishes 
much, dip the wet cloth again in hot water. 
This plan will within an hour cure the worst 
case of colic." 

The Ohio Valley Farmer, recommends the fol- 
owing: "As soon as it is ascertained that the 
sick horse has the colic, give him a dose of 
pure pine tar, by pulling, out his tongue and 
spreading it over with the tar. As soon a.s the 
animal begins to swallow the tar he will get 
relief." 

The homeopathic remedy is six drops of 
aconite and arsenicum alternately, every forty 
minutes, till relief. 

Distemper. — The dangerous disease which ia 
common in America as "horse distemper," ia 
the same as the English "strangles," and is a 
bronchial difficnity, involving acute inflamma- 
tion of the salivary glands and a painful absce.s3 
under the hinge of the jaw. Mayhew likens 
it to the measles, in that both are generally 
.sufl'ered in youth, both are eruptive and both 
are cast out at some expense to the system. 
Distemper is sometimes attended with tempo- 
rary blindness. It is very contagious, and nevet 
attacks a horse a second time. 

Ordinarily, the treatment of distemper is an 
affair of great simplicity. The nature of the 
Ccinstilutional disorder by which the local ab- 
scess is accompanied, is but little known, further 
than that it is best met by feeding the animal 
liberally on soft food — scalded oats, malt mash, 
linseed, or hay tea, etc., and putting him in a 
free-ventilated stall, and clothing him well. 
Bleeding and purgation must be avoided — ' 
there is a debility about the animal that 
strongly interdicts both. To promote suppu- 
ration, fomentation and poultices may be ad- 
vantageously employed; should the tumor man- 
ifest a sluggish disposition, wet the poultice 
tbree or four times daily with a mixture of 
equal parts alcohol and hot water. Do not be 
in a hurry to open it. The abscess will gen- 
enilly point and break .'!pon/(raeoiis/i/. This con- 
stitutes all that is required. Distemper is a 
specific fever, and, unless complications arise, 
is best left to run its natural course. Diuretics 
or any other medicines promoting absorption, 
or medicines to elicit discharge from the nose, 
are inadmissible, and calculated to be seriously 
injurious to animals having distemper. 

It is deemed, by some, advisable to wash the' 
swelling with a strong decoction of tobacco 
every day. 

nies. — To prevent the afiiiction of cattle and 
horses by flies in Summer time, "take two or 



HORSES — DISEASES OF. 



403 



ihree small li.indfiils of walnut leaves, upon 
which pour two or tliree quarts of cold water; 
let it infuse one night, and pour the whole next 
morning into a kettle and boil for a quarter 
of an hour; when cold it is fit for use. Moisten 
a sponge with it, and before the horse goes out 
of the .stable, let those parts wliieh are most 
irritable be smeared over with the liquor." 

The annoyance by flies is also said to be much 
mitigated by bathing with a mixture, one-third 
kerosene and two-thirds 1ard oil. 

Dr. DoDD mentions that "those oxen that 
have taken sulphur for a long period of time, 
are not infested by gadflies." 

Fistula. — This terrible affliction makes its 
appearance on the withers over the shoulder- 
blade, and is the result of neglected saddle 
galls, or a br^i^:e from a blow, or a bite. In 
the practice of a few years ago, arsenic was the 
specific mostly relied on. A gash was cut in 
the top of the tumor and the poison introduced. 
It was taken up by the blood, and gener.ally 
lesulted in a disgusting running s(n-e, often 
ending by eating all the flesh from the back- 
bone, and rendering the animal worthless. A 
more rational treatment is now practiced. Dr. 
Robert Stewart, veterinary surgeon, has had 
long experience in treating fistula, and the fol- 
lowing is bis prescription: At first apply cor- 
rosive liniment, ■•■ with a swab, every morning. 
If in ten days the swelling has not abated, a 
thin coating of the May linimentt should be 
spread over the tumor each morning, and be 
carefully washed ofT with soap-suds, and fol- 
lowed by grease at night. When the pus 
begins to ooze out freely, the liniment may be 
gradually increased in quantity. It must not 
be allowed to remain on too long. Alternate 
Bonietimes with the corrosive liniment. Bleed 
once or twice. Feed sulphur with green food. 

Some recommend potash, applied to the run- 
ning sore. A correspondent of the Germantown 
Telegraph says: "No matter how long the sore 
has been running, it can be cured in a brief 
time, and at a co.st not exceeding ten cents. 
First wash with cold water thoroughly, then 
drop eight or ten drops of muriatic acid in 



*ThP fnllowing are Stewart's dirpctions for niakins 
le corrosive liuimeut, whicli he recooimends lur big 
'itd and jaw, ereasp, tlirush, scratches, swelled legs, 
.•:)t-rut, foot-evil, corns, uUeiatiult ot fool, fistula, poH- 
■ 1, futinder, riiig-lx'iie, and spavin, in tlioir early stases : 
u, a pint of turpentine iu a good strong bottle ; grind 
""" ^ ' eublimate iu a diusgist* 



, po» 



f The Slay liniment referred to is simply a strong decoc- 
ion of Mav-apple roots, with an addition of one-fourth 
Kilt lard. 



twice a day till it has the appearance of a 
fresh wound ; then wash clean with soap-suds 
made of ca.stile soap, and leave it to heal, 
which it will speedily do if the acid has been 
used long enough." Fistula of the withers is 
easiest eradicated when the swelling is opened 
upon its first appearance. 

Quicklime is sometimes sprinkled in the 
wound made by the operator's knife, being oc- 
ca.sionally washed nut with castile soap. The 
following hydropathic method is better than 
all others, if it shall prove to be uniformly so 
effectual as in this instance: Mr. S. D. Ino- 
HAM, Kipley, Ohio, after tormenting his hor.se 
to madness with the various prescriptions of 
horse doctors for the cure of fistula, resorted 
to cold water, which was poured from a water- 
ing pot upon the sore, and a co.nplete cure 
was effected in five weeks from two daily appli- 
cations. 

Founder. — This is inflammation of the feet. 
It is generally caused by overdriving, and then 
allowing the horse to stand in a cold place, or 
drink enough cold water to get a chill. A cor- 
respondent of the Rural 'World gives the re- 
ceipt: "One table-spoonful of pulverized alum 
thrown well back in the hor.se's mouth just as 
soon as you find out he is foundered. Keep 
from water during the day. In every case that 
I have tried, it lias proved a sure cure." 

Mayhew ailvises the removal of a quart of 
blood from the neck vein in the earliest stage, 
and the substitution of a pint of water by in- 
jeclion into the orliice. "In a few minutes 
copious purgallou and perspiration will ensue, 
and the fever will be greatly abated." Clothe 
the horse warmly, and feed on thin gruel. 

Stewart recommends drenching with hot 
salt-and-water, and bathing the legs freely with 
it; afterward applying the corro.sive liniment. 

We give the following without being able to 
vouch for it: "Immediately on discovering 
that your horse is fotmdered, mix about a pint 
of the whole sunflower-seed in his feed, and it 
will give a perfect cure. The seed should be 
given as soon as it is discovered that the hovt^ 
is foundered." 

The following advice comes from high au- 
thority : Split open with a sharp knife the little 
point in the long hair at the b.ick of the fel- 
lock; It is said to aflbrd almost instantaneous 
relief. 

Homeopathic remedy ; Aconite, beyonia, 
and arsenicum, taken alternately, six drops 
every two hours. 

G/araders.— This is a disease of the glands of 



404 



LIVE STOCK: 



the eyes and nose, and is aceompanied by 
glanderous discliarges which ulcerate the lin- 
ing membranes. It is a terrible malady, more 
contagious than any other, and in its last stage 
incurable. Glanders may be produced by over- 
work, neglect, filth, want of ventilation, fever, 
bronchitis, a violent catarrh, anything that im- 
pairs the bones or membranes of the nose. 
There are three stages, only in the first, or per- 
haps .second, of which does it admit of a cure. 
The earliest symptom is an increased discharge 
of aqueous mucous from the nostril — almost 
ahv.ays the left nostril ; the .second stage shows 
the discharge of sticky, gluey matter, and a 
swelling of the glands; the third stage pjjows 
a large discharge of pus, tlie membrane will 
take a dark color and spots of ulceration ap- 
pear. 

Dr. Stewart announces a specific for the 
cure of glanders in the first and second stages, 
that rarely fails when properly u.sed, viz.: to- 
bacco. First, take three quarts of blooii from 
the neck vein ; then make a strong decoction of 
tobacco, and put a pint in a gill of warm water 
and pour this ml.'iture down the horse. It will 
make him very sick, hut is not dangerous. 
Swab out the nostril thoroughly with some of 
the decoction. Make a dose of four ounces of 
sulphur and two of resin, both pulverized, and 
get him to eat as much as possible each day. 
Use the swab for eight or ten days, and drench 
with the tobacco mixture every tliird day. Fu- 
migate the stables, and take care of the other 
animals, and beware of catching it yourself. 
Tills prescription is, perhaps, the best known 
remedy. In England the disease is regarded 
as incurable, and it is lawful fur any man to 
kill a glandered horse in Smitlifield market. 

Heaves (Bellows; Broken Wind). — Results 
from a rupture of the air-cells of the lungs, 
causing laborious breathing. It can never be 
entirely cured ; but its painful manifestations 
can be suspended by feeding roots and grain 
instead of hay. Jockeys liave a way of con- 
cealing its presence by feeding ori wet oats, 
with a weak solution of lime in the water he 
drinks. The horse should not be fed or wa- 
tered for an hour before going to work. By 
this course, the breathing may be relieved, and 
kept in disguise, but it will break out again on 
returning to a diet of dry feed. 

Another recommends : "Put a desert-spoon- 
ful of ground ginger into the food every day." 
Another: "Mix equal parts pulverized borax 
and saltpeter, and give the diseased horse a 
table-spoonful twice a day; and every other 



day, a spoonful of sulphur. Give also half a 
spoonful of copperas twice a week. Another: 
" Take one pint of fresh lard and a quart of 
fresh beef blood. Give it to him once a day 
for three days." The first remedy is, probably, 
as good as any. 

jNuiZ in the Foot. — Bruise peach leaves and 
apply to the wound, and the cure is magical. 
Both men and horses have frequently been 
relieved in this way, when they were on the 
point of having the l(tck-jaw. 

Poll-Evil (Bighead). — This is a fistula of the 
head, resulting in an abscess, generally caused 
by some bruise while the animal's vitality is 
weak. It should be treated with the liniments, 
precisely like the fistula of the withers. May- 
hew says, however, that, unlike fistula, poll- 
evil " must come to maturity before it can lie 
treated with any hope of success." 

This affliction has been successfully relieved 
as follows : " I tried powerful remedies," says 
a farmer in Kentucky, "but could make no 
permanent impression on the tumor, which 
kept enlarging. I took a quantity of master- 
wort or angelica root and pulverized it so as to 
form a layer two or three inches thick on the 
back part of the head, and saturated it with a 
solution of sugar of lead and litharge, say a 
drachm of each to a pint of good vinegar, and 
then bound it on. Kight and morning made a 
fresh application. In two or three days took 
off the old and put on a fresh quantity. After 
making two or three applications, not thinking 
it was going to etTect a cure, I left the poultice 
on for some days ; when, upon removing it, I 
found a very decided impression had been 
made upon the tumor, and that the swelling 
had subsided considerably. This induced me 
to renew the applications for a number of days. 
And lor the past three months, it appears to 
me that my horse is as well as when I first 
obtained him." A few shower-baths of cold 
water on the sore have been known to cure. 

Ring-Bone. — This is an enlargement and dis- 
tortion of the bones of the pastern, near the 
foot, resulting from a disease of the synovial 
oils. The superinducing cause is almost always 
overexertion. It admits of cure only in its 
early stages ; permanent club-foot being ring- 
bone in its worst form. Some good liniment, 
rubbed in with active and severe friction, is 
the best remedy. 

Mayhew recommends an ointment of an 
ounce of iodide of lead mixed with eight 
ounces of lard ; applied after the pain has 
been allayed with poultices of camphor and 



HORSES — DISEASES OF. 



405 



powdered opium, equal purts. Mercurial salve 
is also said to possess considerable merit as a 
remedy — rubbed and dried in. 

F. F. Cogswell gives tlie following oint- 
ment, which is considerably used: "Spanish 
flies, one ounce; camphor gum, one ounce; sal 
ammoniac, four drachms; spirits turpentine, 
half pint. Apply it four mornings; dry in with 
hot iron. Keep the horse from biting it after 
the application. Does not take the hair off." 

Scratches. — A thick, dry, scabby covering of 
the skin, coming in little patches on the heel, 
and spreading until they become one solid 
mass, accompanied by great itching. Keep 
the feet clean and oil occasionally and the 
scratches will never approach. 

To cure, use of sweet oil six ounces; borax, 
two ounces ; sugar of lead, two ounces ; mix 
thoroughly, and apply twice a day, having 
washed the feet with castile soap half an hour 
previously. 

The veterinary editor of Wilkes^ Spirit of the 
Times recommends the following: "Take sul- 
phate of zinc, one drachm ; glycerine, two 
ounces; apply every morning." Another rem- 
edy is : "Wash the legs with warm strong 
soap-suds, and then with beef-brine. Two ap- 
plications will cure the worst case." 

Spctvin. — Bone spavin is an osseous enlarge- 
ment, which appears on the inside of the hock, 
just below the joint, and is generally caused 
by a bruise or a sprain. Stewart prescribes 
corrosive liniment for this, as for most of the 
diseases of the feet and legs. 

Some of the best farriers change the lini- 
ment to a paste, compounded as follows: Cor- 
rosive sublimate, quicksilver, and iodine, each 
one ounce, mixed with lard to proper consist- 
ency. These should be rubbed together, the 
iodine and quicksilver being united first. 
Shave the hair ofl" the spavin, then grease all 
around it, to prevent the application spreading ; 
rub into the spavin as much of the paste as will 
lie upon a nickel cent, for three to five days, 
according to the character of the enlargement. 
After the spavin comes out, wash the hock 
thoroughly in soap-suds, and heal with some 
milil salve. This recipe has been sold for three 
hundred dollars, and the buyer was satisfied 
with its effectiveness. 

The following is given as a sure cure for 
blood spavin: "Common poke-root cut into 
slices and boiled in urine till it becomes quite 
strong. Bathe the parts two or three times 
a day until a cure is effected. It should not 
be used too strong, or it will take the skin oft." 



Staggers — Staggers is a term applied vaguely 
to half a dozen ailments of animals. In the 
Northern States of this Kepublic and in Eu- 
rope there are varieties of vertigo and apo- 
plexy, known as "staggers," descriptive of the 
giddiness which characterizes them. "Grass 
staggers " is an acute indigestion, occasioned 
by overloading the bowels with tough grass or 
loo much grain. This is remedied by a few 
doses of a purgative medicine, such as six 
drachms of aloes and a drachm of calomel, 
rubbed down together and given in a quart of 
thin, boiled gruel. 

But there is in our Southern States a variety 
of mad or blind staggers, more malignant and 
often fatal, than that existing in any other lo- 
cality. It is accompanied with fits and spasms, 
violent paroxysms and terrible sufterings, and 
about 1850 it made fearful ravages through the 
Southwestern States. 

Stewart devoted himself to a study of the 
disease, and found that horses seemed most 
exposed to its attacks when fed upon green 
corn grown upon new land ; that such corn was 
very liable to be badly eaten by a species of 
greenish-yellow worm, that left behind it a 
poisonous dust; and, finally, that the malady 
was caused by snuffing up this dust, where it can 
poison the glands, eyes, and brain. Assuming 
that this theory is correct, the means of pre- 
vention are obvious. 

Stewart's remedy, for use in the earlier 
stages, is as follows: 1, Bleed the hor.se in the 
neck vein as long as he can bear it; 2. give as 
a dose of physic, a half pound of Epsom salts 
in a pint of warm water, and add a gill of to- 
bacco juice; 3, give two ounces of laudanum 
in a little warm water ; 4, get a small stick, 
two feet long, with a swab on the end of it, 
and swab out the nostrils with warm weak to- 
bacco juice; 5, wet the skin on top of the head 
with corrosive liniment or turpentine, lay on a 
thick old cloth, and apply a hot smoothing-iron 
till a blister is drawn. 

Homeopathic remedy: Four drops of acon- 
ite every hjur until relieved ; then one or two 
drops an hour until cured. 

Swinney. — A correspondent treats it as fol- 
lows;-" I simmer together equal parts of hog's 
lard and spirits of turpentine, and, as hot as 
practicable, apply it to the shoulder, and bathe 
in thoroughly with a chafing iron. This should 
be applied every other morning for six days 
(be careful and not burn the horse, for this 
would cause inflammation), then apply some 
healing liniment until the horse is well." 



406 



LIVE STOCK. 



Warts. — A Nebraska man tells the EuralJ^ew 
Yorker how to cure warts on horses: "Mix 
equal quantities of spirits of turpentine and 
sulphuric; acid, stirring slowly in a tumbler, 
and afterward bottle the ingredients. Kub 
grease around the base of the wart, and then 
apply the medicine to the wart with a feather 
once or twice a day it will gradually eat it oiX." 

Mules.— The nation is indebted to George 
Washington for introducing mules into this 
country, improving their qualities and popu- 
larizing their use, especially in the Southern 
Stales. When he retired to private life at 
Mount Vernon, the King of Spain presented 
him with an admirable jack and two jennies; 
and Lafayette reinforced his stock still 
further. Wa.shington crossed his blooded 
mares with these jacks, and the result was a 
superior race of mules. 

The mule is a hybrid produce of an ass with 
a mare, having a large, clumsy liead, long erect 
ears, a short mane, and a thin tail. The hinny 
is the hybrid produce between the she ass and 
a stallion; the head is long and thin, the ears 
are like those of a horse, the mane is short, and 
the tail is well filled with hair. The hinny is 
much less common than the mule, because, 
being less hardy and useful, he is never culti- 
vated. 

Longevity. — "Who ever heard anybody say 
'dead mule?'" asks the droll Josn Billings. 
The longevity of this animal is remarkable. 
Some are recorded as having seen a hundred 
and fifty years; and many live to be si.xty to 
eighty. KoBlNSON thinks that "with proper 
usage, they would commonly attain to about 
forty years, and be serviceable to the last." 

Other Qualities. — The Farm Journal re- 
marked, in the day of low prices: "Another 
argument in favor of mules is, the comparative 
ease with which they can be reared. With 
such a soil and climate as Pennsylvania the 
cost of raising a nmie need not exceed that of 
a three-yei)r-old steer. The mule at that age, 
even though an ordinary one, will command 
one hundred dollars, and if a first-rate one, 
from one hundred and twenty to one hundred 
and fifty dollars; while nine-tenths of our 
horses at three years old, are not worth more 
tlian eighty dollars, although the cost of feed- 
ing and attention is nearly twice as great." 

The same journal insi.sts that mules, hu 
manely treated, are as obedient and good 
natured as horses. The Cincinnati Co)nniercud 
says they are equally tractable, cost less by 



thirty or forty per cent.; they consume forty pei 
cent, less food, are thirty-three per cent, more 
durable and move with a steady unyielding 
celerity that recommends them to all who have 
tested their merits. 

Mules are breachy ; their curiosity and en- 
terprise lead them over fences deemed insur- 
mountable; so that the owner may be by no 
means certain in wliat pasture or field he will 
find them in the morning. This is a freak 
which will not be generally admired; so that 
it seems most expedient to keep mules usually 
in harness or stable. But even with this draw- 
back, nearly every farmer of a liundred acres, 
in our warmer latitudes, can aflbrd to keep one 
pair of mules. 



SHEEP GROWING.— THE WOOL 
SUPPLY. 

The Demand for Wool. — The census 

shows that a eaiiilal of 808,000,000 is invested 
in the woolen manufactories of the United 
States; that this employs 30,142 hands; that 
nearly 17,000,000 pounds of wool are annu- 
ally con.sumed, and that the value of the entire 
product is $43,200,000. The supply of wool in 
the United States has been so much smaller 
than the demand for the last few years, that 
the importation of the article, which in 1845 
was 3,500,000 pounds, valued at §250,000, in 
1S50 was 18,000,000 pounds, valued at $1,681,- 
000, and in ISUS, 05,000,000 pounds, valued at 
$11,000,000. Jiistead of importing wool, we 
ought to supply Europe, for sheep can be grown 
more profitably here than in any other country! 
It is estimated that, under ordinary culture, the 
profits of raising sheep for wool are about 
eighteen per cent, on the capital; while the 
profit on the mutton should be at least twenty 
per ceni. luore. 

Profitableness of Sheep Hus- 
bandry. — The editor of tlie Wool Grower 
.says tliat sheep will, with proper care, pay 
more for the capital invested than any other 
animal, or any other system of farming. 
"Were it lor the first time now presented to 
us, we should consider the sheep one of the 
most wonderful animals nature has produced 
(or the use of man. There is no animal in 
which there is so little waste, or so little loss. 
For at least seven years of its life it will give 
an annual fleece to the value of the carcass, and 
the yearly increase will be nearly or quite equal 



SHEEP DIFFERENT BREEDS OF. 



407 



to tlie cost of keeping, giving, as a general 
tiling, a profit of cent per cent. 

"We as.sert that there is hardly a locality in 
the whole Union, where any kind of farm ani- 
mal can subsist, that sheep, if properly attended 
to, will not give a net profit on the investment 
of at least fifty per cent. The inducements to 
grow more wool are — a sure market, less fluc- 
tuating from the point of pftfitable productions 
than any farm product, and a larger interest of 
profit on the capital invested than any other 
business." 

Mutton for Farmers. — ''Tlie cheapest 
meat for farmers," says the St. Lonis Rural 
World, most truly, "is mutton. It may safely 
be said to cost nothing. The wool that is an- 
nually shorn from the body of every sheep 
richly pays for its keeping. In this climate, it 
costs less to keep sheep than at the North, on 
account of the shortness of our Winters. Then 
there is the increase — an item of great import- 
ance. The increase is .so much clear profit. 
From this increase the farmer can get all his 
meat for the year. Or, he may save some of 
the lambs, and use some of the older sheep in 
their places. The pelt of the sheep, if killed 
for mutton, is al.so saved and sold, which is 
worth nearly as much as the slieep would sell 
for. 

" It is also the most convenient meat to have 
on hand. In the warmest weather a farmer can 
take care of one sheep after being killed, with- 
out letting it spoil. With beef this is not so 
easy. One hand can kill and dre.ss a sheep in 
an hour. 

"We have said nothing about its being the 
healthiest food This is admitted. It is true 
that pork is the chief me.at of farmers; but it 
is the unhealtliiest of all, whether fresh or sat- 
urated with salt to preserve it sound. 

" Let every farmer keep sheep. They are 
the most profitable stock on a farm. The hog's 
back only yields bristles, while the slieep's 
yield downy wool. All that you feed to the 
hog is gone, unless you kill it; while the sheep 
will pay you for its keeping with its fleece 
yearly. Tlie hog is a filthy, voracious ani- 
mal — tlie sheep, gentle as a dove, and neat and 
cleanly." 

Cost of Keeping'. — Sheep men reckon 
that to keep ten sheep costs tlie same as to keep 
a cow. It is certain they will eat many tilings 
that a cow or another animal will not eat. 
They leave few plants ; they gather up every- 



thing to advantage. Briaia can not grow where 
sheep run, neither can the land sprout. From 
reported experiments, made by LiNN.«;us, with 
four hundred and eighty-five plants, he found 
that horned cattle would eat only two hundred 
and seventy-six, horses two hundred and sixty- 
two, swine seventy-two; but goats would eat 
four hundred and forty-nine, and sheep three 
hundred and eighty-seven. We do not under- 
stand that sheep do a young orchard much 
good. Ten sheep should be so well kept that 
tliey will produce fifty pounds of wool. 

DifTerent Breeds.— We shall refer 
briefly to some of the characteristics of the 
different breeds cultivated in America. 

Natives. — These are mainly of English ori- 
gin, the first sheep having been brought to Vir- 
ginia in 1609, and to New York and Massa- 
chusetts about 1625. They were long-legged, 
narrow-breasted, coarse-wooled, light-quartered 
animals; a fair aver:ige weight being about 
twelve pounds a quarter. The original natives 
have become so mixed with later importations 
that they are nearly extinct. American farm- 
ers are waking up to their own interests, and 
getting sheep of improved breeds. The old- 
fashioned long and coarse-wooled kinds ought 
to give place to such sorts as the South Down, 
Cotswold, or Merino. 

English Shei'p. — Lincolns, Cotswolds, Lei- 
cesters (or Bakewells), Dorsets, Oxfordshire 
Downs, Shropshire Downs, Hamp.shire Downs, 
and South Down.s, constitute the main bi-eeds 
of Englisli sheep. Each variety decreases in 
size and weight of wool, commencing with the 
Lincoln, down to the Forest sheep. Extra/ fed 
ones have run as high as follows, dressed meat 
and washed wool : Lincolns, carcass, 350 pounds, 
fleece 28 pounds; Cotswolds, 320 and 26; Lei- 
cesters, 250 and 22; Dorsets, 240 and, 20; Ox- 
ford Downs, 240 and 18; Shropshire Downs, 
220 and 16; Hampshire Downs, 200 and 12; 
Snuth Down.s, 160 and 10. Forest sheep aver- 
age about 70 and 3. 

21ie Leicester. — The New Leicester is of more 
note in the hi.>^tiiiy of sheep on account of tlie 
wonderful disposition to fatten created by Bake- 
well, and by the great quantity of fat existing 
in proportion to lean. It is also regarded by 
many as the most valuable of the long-wool 
sheep. "The principal recommendations of 
this breed," according to YouATT, "are its 
beauty and fullness of form, comprising in the 
same apparent dimensions, greater weight than 
any other sheep; an early maturity, and a pro- 



408 



LIVE STOCK ; 



pensity to fatten, equalled by no other breed; 
a diminution in the proportion of offal, and 
the return of most money for the quantity of 
food consumed." They are large and heavy, 
of good constitution, and hardiness and fecun- 
dity, but are poor nurses. They require rich 
pastures and feed. Mutton, rather too fat for 
the table. This breed is not a general favorite 
with American farmers. 

"Our long cold Winters," .says Dr. Henry S. 
Kandai,!., in his excellent work on Sheep Hus 
bandry in the South, "but more especially our 
dry, scorching Summers, when it is often so difli- 
cuUtoobtain tlie rich, green, tender feed in wbici 
the Leicester delights, robs it of its early matur- 
ity, and even of the ultimate size which it attains 
in England. Its mutton is too fat, and the fat 
and lean are too little intermixed, to suit Amer- 
ican taste. Its wool is not very .salable, from 
llie much to be regretted dearth of worsted 
manufactories in our country. Its early decay 
and loss of woo! con-titute an objection to it, 
in a country where it is often .so diflicult to ad- 
vantageously turn off sheep, particularly ewes. 
But, notwithstanding all these disadvantages, 
on rich lowland farms, in tlie vicinities of con- 
siderable markets, it will always probably make 
a profitable return." 

Cotm'oldn. — This breed is a cross of the Lin- 
coln and Leicester; the sheep are superior to 
tlie Leicesters in weight of wool, hardiness, and 
vitality. They are much more prolific, and are 
excellent nurses. They have good form and 
size, the rams often attaining a weight of tliree 
hundred pounds. Wool of moderate fineness, 
long, white, and strong, the fleeces averaging 
eight or nine pounds. Tliey make large early 
lambs. 

-Very valuable experiments were made in 
England, in the space from 1860 to 1853, by 
J. B. Lawes, as to the breed of sheep tliat 
would produce the most meat with the least 
amount of food. The sheep experimented up- 
on wereCotswold, Leicester, Su.s.sex, and Hamp- 
shire Downs, cross-bred wethers, and cross-bred 
ewes. Every particle of food was charged to 
each lot, and returns accurately kept. Without 
going into details, the grand result was that, in 
comparison to Downs, the Cotswolds consumed 
the least food to produce a given amount of 
increase, and yielded more than half as much 
again wool. In comparison with the whole the 
Cotswolds gave, by far, the greatest increase 
weekly, being nearly one-fourth more than 
Hampshires, which were second in order of 



increase, and half as much more than Leices- 
ter, Sussex Downs, and cross-bred wethei-s and 
ewes. The Cotswolds and Leicesters cut the 
heaviest fleeces, both per head and per hundred 
pounds of live weight of animal — Cotswolds 
taking the first rank, then Leicester, cross-bred 
Hampshire and Sussex. The Cotswolds had 
more tendency to increase and fatten for the 
food consumed thaiTany other. 

Another experiment was tried by Lord KlN- 
NAIBD, where Cotswolds were bred again.st Lei- 
cesters, the result being that from exactly the 
same quantity of food, the Cotswolds gained 
.seventeen shillings in value where the Leices- 
ters only gained eleven shillings eight pence 
farthing. 

The Prairie Farmer says: "The Cotswold 
sheep will shear from ten to sixteen pounds of 
combing wool to the fleece, that will not lose 
more than one-fourth in its preparation for the 
spindle, well adapted to the manufacture of all 
kinds of goods for which combing wool is used, 
and worth more per pound of late than any de- 
scription of carding wool. Tlie carcass of a 
Cotswold wether will weigh at two years old, 
two liundred pounds, and be worth more per 
pound by several cents in any market, than a 
sheep that will weigh from ninety to one hun- 
dred and twenty pounds. They cross well with 
either the Merino or South Down, adding 
greatly to both weight of fleece and carcass 
when crossed on the Merino; while the wool 
of a half-breed is worth more per pound in the 
fleece than the wool of a pure-blooded Merino, 
from the fact that the per cent, lost by cleansing 
is nothing like so much." 

South Down. — This breed of sheep is prized 
particularly for the superior quality of their 
mutton. In the Knglisli markets as well as in 
this country, the precedence is conceded to the 
South Down's meat. But where weight of car- 
cass is the desideratum they will fall short of 
some of the larger breeds. Tliey are early to 
mature and readily lay on flesh. Youatt says 
the South Down "has a patience of occasional 
short keep, and an endurance of hard stocking 
equal to any other sheep. Tlie ewes are prolific 
breeders and excellent nurses." The South 
Down buck is always profitably introduced into 
any flock, improving every breed upon which 
he is crossed. 

Of the Wool, Colonel Randall says: "The 
extremely low character of South Down wool 
for carding purposes may be regardeil as defi- 
nitely settled. But as it has deteriorated it has 



sin EP — DIFFERENT llREEDS OF. 



409 



increased in length of staple in England, ami 
to such an extent that impruvod machinery 
enables it to be used as a cojnbing wool — for 
the nianufacture of worsteds. Where this has 
taken place it is quite as profitable, in England, 
as when it was finer and shorter." It is defi- 
cient in felting qualities; makes a coarse hairv 
cloth, and is much used for flannels and baizes. 
There are the Oxford, Shropshire, and other 
impnived varieties of the Downs, resulting fr 
crosses on short- wool stock — but these are nol 
uuich known in this country. 

Clievoil. — This is a very tough, hearty, hardy 
breed, excellent for the grazier, with a fleece 
too coarse to furnish a good carding wool, and 
rather short for tile best combing wool ; not a 
very desirable sheep to propagate. There has, 
however, lately been much improveuienl. 

Merino. — Tliis Spanish variety is distin- 
guished as the fine-wool breed. There are 
many families, but they all retain to a remark- 
able degree their prominent peculiarities, which 
are fineness of wool, comparatively small size, 
short legs, hardiness and longevity, patience 
and docility. 

" Accurately conducted experiments have 
shown that the Merino consumes a little over 
two pounds of hay per diem, in Winter; the 
Leicester consumes from three and a half to 
four ; and the common-wooled American sheep 
would not probably fall short of three. The 
mutton of the Merino, in spite of the prejudice 
which exists on the subject, is short-grained 
and of good flavor, when killed at a proper age, 
and weighs from ten to fourteen pounds to the 
quarter." Many of our Merino flocks have 
been injured by ci'ossing wiih the overdelicate 
Saxon sheep. 

American Merinos. — Thesearean improvement 
on the Spanish and may be classed as the Jar- 
vis, the American Infantado, Atwood, and Pan- 
lar. They are of large size, short-necked, short- 
hipped, broad-shouldered, round and symmet- 
rical, skin Ioo.se and mellow, and of a deep rose 
color; wool short, very yolky, and of a quality, 
sty le, and evenness scarcely surpassed. Various 
breeders have produced a fleece from about six 
to ten pounds ; some of the heaviest ram fleeces 
weighing about thirty pounds. 

Sixty years ago there was not a pound of 
fine wool raised in the United States or En- 
gland ; all the Merinos being carefully kept by 
the crown and nobility of Spain. In 1S09, Mr. 
Jakvis, American consul at Lisbon, purchased 
some fourteen hundred head from the crown 



flocks, and sent them iKjme. These were the 
source of our immense flocks of fine-wool sheep. 

No better Merinos afe raised anvwhere in 
the world than in the LTnited States. Al 
the great international fair at Hamburg, the 
two first prizes were taken by twelve Me- 
rinoes, owned and exhibited by Geokge 
Campbell, of Vermont. European bleeders 
were astounded that a Yankee flock .'.hould 
bear away the prize, contested for by the 
choicest specimens from Prussia, Silesia, and 
Spain The prize sheep were immediately 
bought by a Silesian count to improve his 
breed. 

The reason for the superiority of our best 
flocks, a fact established by many comparisons, 
is distinctly explained by Joseph L. Budd,* 
as follows : "For years the European breeders 
had been engaged in a special system of over- 
improvement. Extra fineness and oiliness of 
staple has been sought after at the expense of 
the real stamina and vigor of their flocks. The 
original Spanish sheep imported to this country 
by Jakvis, and Humphreys, were probably 
about the same as those scattered through Eu- 
rope. The ideal standard of our breeders, 
though, was entirely diSerent. The problem 
given them to sol v6 was sometliing like this. 
Given a thin, active, fine, though short-wooled 
sheep, with good constitution, to establish a 
breed heavy in neck and body, symmetrical in 
form, full of vitiWity, and with compact, oily, 
lustrou.s, and evenly crimped fleeces, of a fine- 
ness and length, suitable for the best combing 
wool. How perfectly this has been solved, the 
best flocks of the East and West proudly show." 
Lookout for the bogus Merinos — "full-blood 
bucks'' — which are scattered throughout the 
West, and sold at extiavagant prices. Si^fl^ 
Mr. BuDD: "Through all the Eastern States 
they have had for years a class of Merino 
slieeji, resulting from a cross of the Siixony upon 
the original native flocks. These small-boned, 
fine-fibered and wooled Merinos have again 
been crossed with American Merino bucks, re- 
sulting, al'ter being properly blacked, in the soft, 
silky, slim-bodied "black-tops," which are 
scattered so profusely in every Western neigh- 
borhood. Within twenty miles of the place 
rom which I write are perhaps two hundred 
bucks of this kind, bought at prices ranging 
from fifteen to one hundred dollars." 

The Mauchamp Merino. — This is a new type 
of the Merino, originating some yeais ago on 



*Sce Iowa Agrii-ultural Report for 1S65.' 



410 



LIVE STOCK : 



the Mauclianip estate, in France, and perpetu- 
ated and improved by its enterprising farmer, 
M. Gkau. These sheep, as now bred, produce 
a straiglit, strong, smooth, silky wool, similar 
in i'orm to the long English wools, but very 
much softer and finer. 

John H. Klippakt, translates an essay* on 
this breed, of wliich we give a brief abstract. 
Tlie wool has some resemblance to the down of 
the Cashmere goat, and it is believed that Mau- 
champ rams can be profitably used to improve 
very greatly fleeces now much used in manu- 
factures. The early defects in form presented 
by tliese sheep, have been bred out by careful 
selection, until a new type has been established 
and "fixed," producing wonderfully silky 
wool, while ultimately presenting an accept- 
able meat-oH'ering at the shambles. 

The new breed is said to require the same 
food as the old breed; to attain the same aver- 
age weight, to produce a wool less in quantity 
but considerably better in quality — " the silky 
wool alw;iys selling twenty-five percent, higher 
than the Merino wool." It is used in France 
in the manufacture of Cashmere warps, "giv- 
ing them more strength without impairing th(ur 
brilliancy." 

The Most Piofitablc Breed.— Dr. 

Randall, sets forth and argues at some length 
that the pure Merino is the most profitable 
sheep for the South. We extract: 

"In instituting a comparison between breeds 
of sheep for wool-growing purposes, I will, in 
the outset, lay down the obviously incontrovert- 
ible proposition that the question is not what 
variety will shear the heaviest or even the most 
valu:ible fleeces, irrespective of the cost of pro- 
duction. Cost of feed and care, and every 
other expense, must be deducted, to fairly test 
the profits of an animal. If a large sheep con- 
sume twice as much food as a small one, and 
give but once and a half as much wool, it is 
obviously more profitable, other things being 
eqnal, to keep two of the smaller sheep. The 
true question then is, with the same expense in 
vtlicr parliculars, from wluit breed will the verdure 
of an acre of land produce the greatest value 
of wool? 

" Let us first proceed to a.scertain the com- 
parative amount of food consumed by tiie 
several breeds. There are no satisfactory ex- 
periments which show that breed, in itself con- 
sidered, has any particular influence on the 



•See Oliio Agricultural Kepurt for 1807. 



quantity of food consumed. It is found, with 
all varieties, that the consumption is in pro- 
portion to the live weight of the (grown) ani- 
mal. Of course, this rule is not invariaWe 
in its individual application, but its general 
soundness has been satisfactorily established. 
Spooner states that^rown sheep take up thre§ 
and a third per cent, of their weight in what is 
equivalent to dry hay per day, to keep in store 
condition. Veit places the consumption at two 
and a half per cent. My experience would 
incline me to place it about midway between 
the two. But whatever the precise amount of 
the consumption, if it is proportioned to the 
weight, it follows that if an acre is capable of 
sustaining three Merinos, weighing one hun- 
dred pounds each, it will sustain but two Lei- 
cesters weighing one hundred and fifty pounds 
each, and two and two-fifths South Downs 
weighing one hundred and twenty-five pounds 
each. Merinos of this iveighl often shear five 
jionnds per fleece, taking flocks through. The 
herbage of an acre, then, would give fifteen 
pounds of Merino wool, and but twelve pcjunds 
of Leicester, and but nine and three-fifths 
pounds of South Down (estimating the latter 
as high as four pounds to the fleece) ! Even 
the finest and lightest fleeced sheep, ordinarily 
known as Merinos, average about four pounds 
to tlie fleece, so that the feed of an acre would 
produce as much of the highest qualily of wool 
sold under (he name of Merino, as it would of 
New Leicester, and more than it would of 
South Down ! The former would be worth 
froui fifty to one hundred per cent, more per 
pound than either of the latter ! Nor does 
ihis indicate all the actual diflTerence, as I 
have, in the preceding estimate placed the 
live weight of the English breeds low, and 
that of the Merino high. The live weight of 
the foui--pijnnd fine-fleeced Merino does not 
exceed ninety pounds. It ranges fj-om eighty 
to ninety pounds, so that three hundred pounds 
of live weight would give a still greater pro- 
duct of wool to the acre. I consider it per- 
fectly safe to say that the herbage of an acre will 
uniformly give nearly double the value of Merino, 
that it will of any of the English Long or Mid- 
dle ivools^ 

In contrasting the Spanish and -Ameiican 
Merino wilh the fincr-woul Saxon Merino, Dr. 
Randall, says: "The four-pound, fine-fleeced 
Merino would be a far more profitable animal 
than the Saxon, other things being eqnal. Bnt 
other things are not equal. The former 13 



SHEEP — FEEDING RACKS FOR. 



411 



every way a hardier animal, and a better nuise. 
It is about twenty pounds heavier, and, tliere- 
fore consumes more feed; but I ctmsider this 
additional expense more than counterbaUinced 
by the additional care and risk attending the 
husbandry of the Saxon. If required to jjeep 
the number good, and give the proper atten- 
tion to the rearing of Iambs, I would sooner 
engage to keep, at the same price, one thousand 
such Merinos for a year, than to keep the same 
number of Saxons." 

The Doctor bears the following testimony to 
the value of a full-blood ram: "A grown ram 
may be made to serve from one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty ewes in a season. A good 
Merino ram will, speaking within bounds, add 
more than a pound of wool to the fleece of the 
dam, on every lamb got by it, from a common- 
wooled ewe. Here is one hundred or one 
liundred and fifty pounds of wool for the use 
of a ram for a single season ! And every lamb 
subsequently got by him adds a pound to this 
amount." 

EflTcct of Food on the >Vool.— It 

is a fact generally understood that well-fed slieep 
produce more and better wool than poorly-fed 
ones. But it is also a fact, equally confirmed 
by science and practical experiment, that one 
kind of food will produce more wool than 
another. 

No doctrine is more clearly recognized in 
Agricultural Chemistry, than that animal tis- 
sues derive their chemical components from 
the same components existing in their food.* 
The analyses of Liebig, Johnston, Scherer, 
Playfair, Boeckmann, Mulder, etc., show 
that the chemical composition of wool, hair, 
hoofs, nails, horns, feathers, lean meat, blood, 
cellular tissue, nerves, etc., are nearly identi- 
cal. The organic part of wool, according to 
JoHNsTON,t consists of carbon 50 65, hydrogen 
7.03, nitrogen 17.71, oxygen and sulphur 24.61. 
The inorganic con.stitueuts are small. When 
burned, it leaves but 2.0 per cent, of ash. The 
large quantity of nitrogen (17.71) contained in 
wool, shows that its production is increased by 
highly azotized food. This is fully verified by 
the experiments made on Saxon sheep, in Sile 
sia, by Keaumur, whose table we append. A 
striking correspondence will be found to exist 



between the amount of wool and th 
of nitrogen in the food : 







Feeding RsicKs. — When the ground is 
frozen, sheep will eat hay better from the ground 
than from any other lodge. When it is soft, or 
foul with manure, they will scarcely touch hay 
placed on the earth. One of the best feeding- 
troughs for sheep is shown in the annexed cut, 
Figure 1, from the AmiiuU Register. It com- 
bines more advantages than any other we have 
met with, and proves on trial, to answer an 
excellent purpose, both for feeding grain and 
chopped roots, and as a rack for hay. Troughs 



nfornijition on tliis whole subject, see LlEBlG'8 
mietry, Pint 1 aiij II. 

gricul. Chemistry-Lecture XVIIJ. 
Analyses of tlie liornv tissues, by Schkrer, will be found 
in the Appeudix to Liebig*s Animal Chemistry. 




412 



LIVE stock: 



similar to this have been made for many years 
with the exception of the double trough below, 
an improvement described by Geo. Geddes. 




Figure 2 exhibits a section across one of the 
ends, and shows the structure without any de- 
scription. A single board, as a. roof, will, if 
needed, preserve the fodder from the weather 
or rain. The space between the upper and 
lower troughs should be just sufficient tor the 
sheep to abstract the feed, and which will wholly 
prevent the chaff and seeds from entering the 
wood. 

Propag'atlon. — Many of the best " na- 
tives" — s(i called because lihey are acclimated 
hybrids, whose pedigree has been lost in cj'Oss- 
ing — are excellent to breed from ; but the ram 
should always be a thorougli-bred 6f some ap- 
proved stock. Julian Winne, an eminent 
stock-breeder of New York, said in a Prize Es- 
say published in the Cultivator: "If the flock is 
to be bred for mutton and wool only, it matters 
not much (for one cross, and one cross only) 
what the ewes are, provided they are not little 
Merinos ; as I have had lambs that were dropped 
by small inferior ewes by a thorough-bred Lei- 
cester ram, able to compete, as far as weight 
and wool were concerned, with those from thor- 
ough-bred mothers. I buy from various breeds, 
but always the best sheep. I have learned to ex- 
pect the best returns from sheep that are three- 
quarters or a half Leicester. When an animal 
is half or more Leicester, I have no trouble in 
making him drop, with good keep, one lunidred 
pounds mutton at twenty moutlis old." 

Mr. Winne is a thrifty farmer, living a few 
miles from Albany. For eight or ten years 
past he has beaten all his neighbors and equaled 
any man in New York in the art of making 
profit by buying Jean sheep and selling (hem 
fat. He makes more mutton than any other 
sheep-feeder in the State. We quote at some 
length from the excellent essay, which we find 
in the Cultivator, wherein he reveals the secret 
of his art : 

''Manag'eiuent in Breeding'.— The 

ewes should be in good feed for two or three 



weeks before putting the ram with them. Have 
the ram also in good thrifty order, feeding him 
for two or three weeks previously from one 
pint to one quart of oats, or oats and corn, or 
peas, per day. Tag the ewes, and do not leave 
the ram with them more than twelve hours out 
of the twenty-four. Keep both ram and ewes 
well through the Winter, by feeding not only 
hay, but al.so a few roots, and a little grain, if 
necessary, every day. 

"Shelter, etc. — Treatment of Colds. — Have 
good sheds, with small yards attached fur good 
weather, but do not allow them to get wet in 
cold weather, under any circumstances, as one 
wetting to the skin, when it is cold, will reduce 
them more than you can replace by good feed- 
ing in two weeks. Give them plenty of clean 
bedding at least once a week, and oflencr, if 
necessary. Let them have access to pure 
water at all times, and have it, by all means, 
right in their yard.s. There should al.so be a 
box, with salt in one end of it, and .salt and 
woo<l a.ihes in the other, in the yards, never Buf- 
fered to get empty. Feed occasionally a little 
browse, pine or hemlock; or, if this can not 
easily be obtained, add a little rosin or niter to 
their salt about once a Ibrtnight. Smear their 
noses with tar at least thiee times in Winter, 
and three times in Sinnmer — in Summer im- 
mediately after shearing, as that will help to 
prevent their taking cold; about the first of 
August, as at that time flies are very trouble- 
some, and the tar will keep them away; about 
the middle of October, which is about the time 
they should be tagged and the ram put with 
them. 

" Lambing Time. — Three or four weeks before 
lambing time increase your grain and decrease 
your roots, as the latter, in too large quantity, 
are apt to cause too large a flow of milk and 
injure the udder; while, with too little grain, 
the ewes are not strong enough at lambing. 
During the season of lambing they should be 
watched very closely, and assisted a little — 
very cari'l'nlly, howevei' — if necessary. Be 
sure that the lamb nurses a little after an hour 
or two; and if the ewe, as is frequently the 
case with young mothers, is not disposed to let 
her lamb suckle, hold her a few times while 
the lamb is nursing, and this will generally re- 
move all difficulty in the future. If lambs 
come in Winter, the ewes should be in a dry, 
warm place, with plenty of clean litter. 

"Spring and Summer Treatment. — When the 
lambs are about four weeks old they are to be 
docked, and castrated, if «he latter is to be 



SHEEP — CARE AND FEEDING OF. 



413 



Money Rkturn. 



, tir«l 



USING AND Fattening. 

iliont SI on 

lay 5 bushels oats .^> DO 

pounds at IM cents 1 k7 



v-l W lilt' I. I 

-rriii't W itii.r — 4 bushels oats 

leal 

•coiid Winter— say 200 pounds 



done at all, aa at this age I never knew them 1 mutton before they reach two years old. The 
to snfter in the least froiii the effects of it. result, at pre.sent prices, I compute as follows: 
Poor pasture and cold storms are ruinous to 
both sheep and lamb.s — therefore do not turn 
them out too early, and continue a little grain 
for ten or fifteen days after turning out, or until 
they have plenty of good pasturage. lu Suiu- 
mer they should have a field with plenty of 
running water, and :i few sliade trees, if possi- 
ble, and if it is a little hilly, so much the 
better. If the grass at any time scours either 
the sheep or lambs, tag them as soon as ihey 
are better of it, as such ones will sometimes 
get maggottv and die if neglected. About the 
middle of August, wean the lambs, removing 
them as far as possible from their motliers, as 
both will quiet down much sooner if they can 
not hear each other. The lambs should be 
put on the best feed attainable, and the ewes 
on the iioorest ; and, after a few days, examine 
the latter, and if their udders are hard or 
caked, luilk them out and rub with a little 
sturgeon oil or arnica, either of which will 
not only soften the udder, but also dry up the 
milk. .\s soon as the ewes are all right in 
this respect, put them on good feed again to 
recruit for Winter. 



"Wintering the Dambs— Year- 
ling WetUers. — Two or three wethers or 
dry ewes should be put with the lambs when 
they are weaned, to keep them tame; and, if 
the feed is not of first quality, give them daily 
a few oats, and the old ones will soon teach the 
lambs to eat the grain. About October 1st, 
separate the ram and ewe lambs, and keep 
them separate from that time until the next 
shearing, unless it is desired that the ewe lambs 
should breed, which I consider very bad policy, 
and never, under any circumstances, allow. 
Continue feeding a little grain to the lambs all 
througli the first Winter, and until aboiU shear- 
ing time, when it should be omitted altogether. 
After harvest, such yearlings as are to be fat- 
tened the first Winter may begin to receive a 
little grain; and I have found by experience 
that this is the most profitable time to prepare 
them for market, all things considered. When 
Winter sets in slowly increase the quantily 
until it reaches one quart per day for each 
sheep; and, with a good breed and good man- 
agement, yearling wethers can be made, aa I 
have repeatedly done, to weigh from one hun- 
dred and ninety to two hundred and forty 
pounds live weight, and dress from one hun- 
dred to one hundred and and forty pounds of 



Balance to credit of sheep $16 13 

" The Yards and Stables.— It is very 

bad policy to wait until snow comes, to get the 
yards and stables ready. By commencing early, 
and, if there is a saw-mill near ;it hand, by 
hauling into the yards and stables four or five 
inches of sawdust, the stable floors will not 
only be saved, hut the liquid manure from the 
slieep is also preserved, making a very valuable 
addition to the compost heap, especially for 
heavy land. As soon as the trees shed ihelr 
foliage, rake and haul in on top of the sawdust, 
leaves to a depth of five or six inches more, 
and the two will together make plenty of bed- 
ding for at least four weeks, by stirring up lite 
leaves a few times. With the present price of 
straw, a month's bedding saved is worth look- 
ing after, aside from the probability that all the 
straw may be needed before Spring, even after 
taking this precaution. 

"Before the sheep are brought in in the Fall, 
I put up three partitions on the upper floor, 
and three on tlie lower; this gives nie four pens 
above and four below, each eighteen by twenty 
feet. Into each of these pens go forty-five 
sheep; one hundred and eighty on the ujiper 
floor and one liundied and eighty below — three 
hundred and sixty under one roof. My ma- 
nure is very rich. I hope to make two blades 
of grass grow where one grew before by this 
system. I think I have three, and my neigh- 
bors say four extra blades. 

"The above preparation over with, the feed- 
ing boxes should be'taken outsat leisure, and 
cleansed by sprinkling the inside with slacked 
lime — thus removing that greasy smell whicli 
there would otherwise be about them. Put 
them where needed, upside down, and when 
the snow comes, there will he nothing to do 
but turn them over, straighten them up, put in 
the feed, and let the sheep come. 

" Properly Regulating the Feed," 

By feeding liberally with roots, and not too 



414 



LIVE stock: 



much grain, during the first week, at least, the 
change from green feed to dry, will be less apt 
to affect the sheep. In feeding, unless a per- 
son can do it himself, which is very seldom the 
case, the feeder should he instructed with great 
care, how much grain is to go to each yard or 
stable, according to the animals it contains. 
An overfeed at the commencement is almost 
sure to bring on the scours, and after they are 
over, it will take at least two weeks' good 
feeding to put the sheep back where they started 
from. My mode, to avoid mistakes, is to num- 
ber my yards and >tables, and count the sheep 
in each yard and stable — allowing to each sheep 
one-half pint of grain per day to start with, 
unless they have been fed grain previously, 
when I allow a little more. I then make out a 
schedule, thn.s: No. 1, sixty sheep, at one-half 
pint per day, is fifteen quarts which divided 
in two feeds is seven and a half quarts to a feed ; 
so I write on the schedule, 'No. 1, sixty sheep, 
must have seven and a half quarts at a feed, 
morning and night.' No. 2, at the same rate 
acconling to number, and so on until I gel 
them all. This paper is lacked up in the place 
where the feed is kept, and by going with the 
feeder a few times, to show liim and see that he 
makes no mistakes ; if he is a good man, lie 
can do it as well as tlie farmer himself. As 
soon as the feed is to be increased, a new sched- 
ule is made out accordingly, and so on, until 
the sheep are fed one quart each per di\y, when 
I consider them on full feed, especially if the 
feed is corn, beans, or oil meal, or a mixture of 
either. 

"Regularity In Feeding. — Eegu- 

larity of hours is very inipcirtanl. Slicep should 
not be fed one morning at five o'clock, the next 
at six, and the third at seven. The <Iay I write, 
owing to the illness of one of the boys, I have 
had an example in point; on going out at five, 
a board was found ofl'at the stable, and an end 
'out of one of the feeding boxes. To replace 
these, was a job of some time, and the grain 
only had been fed when tlie breakfast bell rang, 
leaving the sheep without their hay. I re- 
marked to my man that this mishap would cost 
us 'all the day's feed,' which I verily believe 
to be llie case. Our rule is this : 

"Grain and oil meal are fed at half-past five 
A. M. As soon as the grain is finished, hay is 
given — no more than the sheep will eat clean. 
The diflerent yards and stables are carefully 
fed each day, in the savie order, which is impor- 
tant to avoid confusion and mistakes — begin- 



ning with No. 1, and so on through the list 
After breakfast water is given, going around 
twice, to see that all are well supplied. The roots 
are next cut (rula bagas, which I consider best), 
and of these, to my present stock of about three 
hundred and fifty sheep, I am now feeding len 
bushels a day. At eleven o'clock, straw is fed. 
Twelve is the dinner hour, and immediately 
after dinner the roots are fed. The troughs 
and tubs are now all examined, and replenished 
with water, if necessary — also salt, salt and 
ashes, brow.se, litter and anything else that may 
be needed is supplied. The evening and next 
morning's feeds of grain and oil meal are pre- 
pared, and hay got ready for both night and 
morning. At 4 P. M., feeding the grain is 
again commenced, followed as before by hay, 
after which the water tubs and troughs are 
emptied and turned over, and the work is fin- 
ished for the night. 

"Illustrative Experiments.— It is 

very desirable to know with some precision what 
gain in weight should be counted upon in feed- 
ing. I find that with the amount of grain above 
mentioned, the average quantity of hay con- 
sumed is rather less than above.one and a half 
pounds per head per day. When sheep are fed 
three months, the total quantity of grain con- 
sumed I reckon equal to two and a half months, 
at one quart each per day — two months of the 
three being at this rate, and tlie first month, 
which is consumed in getting by degrees up 
to full feed, not averaging more than one pint 
each per day, 

" The following is the result of an experiment 
tried in 1860, with thirteen sheep, each accu- 
rately weighed at the dates specified: 



No. 1. 


¥,y 






'• 2. 


W 


'th. 


r 


" 3. 


Yearl 
Ewe... 




" 5. 
'• fi. 
" 7. 


ng c-wc 


■' HI. 


W 


ptiV. 


.■.•■.•;:::::: 


" 11. 








" U. 








'• 13. 




" 




Totnl... 







Weight .Ian- Weiglit Feb 



Average gain in 31 days, Hi pounds per 
head. 

" Quality and Care. — All the other sheep I 
was feeding were likewise weighed at both the 
above dates, and I subjoin the figures to show, 
among other points, that the larger the slieep, 
as a general rule, the greater the gain, and, in 



SHEEP — FEEDINO ROOTS, ETC. 



415 



the case of the last lot on the list, how much 
this gain is reduced by lack of proper shelter, 
a deficiency in accommodations obliging me to 
keep these sheep (No. 9 on the list) in a shed 
upon a large open lot. The system of feeding 
adopted was the same with all except that the 
large sheep may perhaps have had a trifle the 
most : 



Stable 

Open yard bud tiheU 



St;ible 

Close shed 

1 yiird aud shed 



^jhed and open field 



" Total number of sheep, 504 — average 
weight January 3, 143} pounds per head — Feb- 
ruary 3, 1-50} pounds — average gain per head 
on the whole, 7J^ pounds, nearly. As tlie best 
lot of thirteen gained in weight twice a.>! 
rapidly as the average of the whole, the im- 
portance is shown of selecting the very best sheep 
in purchasing for fattening. 

"Feeding Roots. — Tlie account current 
with one lot of tlie sheep I am feeding this 
Winter gives a considerably better average in- 
crease in weight than tbe above, and also forci- 
bly illustrates the value of ruta bagas in feed- 
ing. This lot of sheep consists of 300 head 
which reached my farm about November 20th ; 
market value, $10 07 per head. They were 
pastured a fortnight, when I began feeding. 
About the middle of December they were 
housed, and the feed slowly increased until 
January Ist, when it readied the full feed 
specified, of one quart per head per day. It 
consisted of half oats and half oil meal up to 
about this time (January 20th). I have now 
substituted Indian corn for the oats — about 2J 
husliels corn unground, mixed with 300 pounds 
oil meal, constituting the daily food of the 300, 
valued at : 

3IK1 tb«. oil meal, cost me S70 per ton $10 .W 

Z>* bushels coin, atil BO per bushel 4 75 

8 " roots- would sell f.ir 37;tc. per bushel, 

but this much exceeds cost of production 3 00 

1.*^ lb. per day hay to each, 4jO lbs 4 y.7 

Cost of feeding 300 slicp per dny .'. $23 2il 

Or an average per head of about 7H cents per daj . 

"The sheep are gaining unusually well — a 
a fact which I ascribe to the increased quantity 



of roots I am feeding them as compared with 
former years." 

" About the middle of Februaiy," adds the 
editor of the Cultivator in a note, we received 
from Mr. Winne, a statement of the results 
with the three hundred sheep referred to above, 
which we are obliged to present in condensed 
form : 



Total nmount of feed, exclusive of pjisturaire, 
is considered equal to 'in days' full feed 
at above rate to this t;nie— per head S 4 114 

Money vaiue, when feeding began 10 |17 

14 71 

Profit per head, exclusive of attendance, but with 
1 no allowance for manure &4 79 

I " This gain, it should be remembered, is after 
selling the hay to the sheep, at the barns, at 
822 per ton, the corn at SI 90 per bushel, and 
llie ruta bagas at 37J cents per bushel ; and, on 
tbe 300 sheep, considering the shortness of the 
investment, the profit is certainly a very pretty 
one." 

I Sheep Manure. — " As to the value of 
sheep manure," observes Mr. Wisne, in con- 
clusion, "and the eflects resulting from its lib- 
eral application, I have never kept much other 
stock, and I may be permitted to add that 
twenty -seven years .igo, when I came on to 
tbis farm, I cut from about GO acres of land 
the first year 25 tons of hay. Year before last 
I cut from precisely the same number of acres, 
100 Ions, and last year (a season of severe 
drouth) 90 tons. When I begun on the farm 
I had one barn 32 by 40 feet, which held alt the 
crops it produced. I now have one barn 44 by 
52 feet, 20 feet posts ; one shed 21 by 36, 18 
feet posts ; one 21 by 24, 16 feet posts; one 30 
by 72, 18 feet posts, and one barrack that will 
bold 17 tons of liay. Summer before la.st they 
were all fall. Two rules I laid down, never to 
lose sight of, when I commenced farming for 
myself: 1. To deal honorably with mother 
Earth — tliat is, to plow well, harrow well, give 
her all the manure I could, and never sell my 
straw, but keep it all for the land, and I assure 
you I could soon see an improvement. 2. 
Never to buy anything (except maiuire) I 
could possibly do without, until I had the 
money to pay for it — for manure, when it 
could be had, I was never afraid to run in 
debt. These two rules I have strictly adheied 
to, and must attribute much of my success to 
their benign influence." 

Corn for Sheep. — Lewis Clark, of 



416 



LIVE STOCK: 



Beloil, recommends the readers of the Wiscon- 
sin Farmer to grow and hirgely feed corn for 
sheep. He says : " Plant six acres of corn for 
each one hundred. Corn planted in rows, four 
feet each way, gives in round numbers 2,700 
hills to the acre. Six acres will give 16,200 
hills. In the five months, commencing Decem- 
ber 1st, and ending May 1st, there are 151 days. 
If you feed the one hundred sheep, 100 hills of 
corn, each of those days, you will have 1,100 
hills left. I generally reckon five and one-half 
acres, as the sheep will not usually need one 
hill ciich toward the last of April, and perhaps 
not quite that as soon as the first of December. 
Then again, I usually commence about the mid- 
dle of November to feed, and come on to the 
full feed gradually. If fiist of December is 
cold, tlicy will want their full feed, as it is 
eeononiy the wrong way to let sheep lose flesh 
in the beginning of Winter. Falling away then 
and subsequently increasing their fiesh will 
cause the shedding of wool. Who would have 
imagined that twenty-four acres of land would 
Winter four hundred sheep? Who does not 
believe that one hill of good corn is enough to 
keep one Spanish Merino sheep one day, if it 
is cut up before the frost comes, is well-cured, 
and fed to the sheep, stalks, leaves, husks, and 
corn ?" 

Summer Shelter. — Summer shelter for 
sheep, and indeed, for stock of all kinds greatly 
promotes their comfort, and therefore, their 
health and growth. We rather like the idea 
of Solomon Green, of Townsend, Massachu- 
setts, who says he has kept sheep tliirty years, 
and advises to have small buildings erected in 
sheep pastures, made dark, so that the sheep by 
going into them may avoid the flies. He says 
that the sheep will go in at eight o'clock in the 
forenoon, and remain till four o'clock in the 
afternoon. "The house," he says, "should be 
built on runners, so that it can be moved, and 
this will enrich the land. A house twelve feet 
square is sufficient to hold a dozen sheep and 
their lambs. Move it its length once in two or 
three weeks." 

This, it will be seen, accomplishes two objects. 
It protects the sheep, inducing them to keep 
quiet during the heat of the day, and it thor- 
oughly manures the pasture at a trifling ex- 
pense of time. In this way you may fertilize 
the top of gravelly knolls and sand bills. The 
lower places will take care of themselves from 
the wash of the higher. 



To Ascertain tile Age.— The age of 
the ram may be ascertained by the number of 
rings or knobs on his horns, but from the large 
number of hornless sheep, and many other 
reasons, it is safer and more satisfactory to de- 
termine the age by the teeth. The sheep has 
eight cutting teeth in the front of the lower 
jaw, and six molar or grinding teeth in each 
jaw — above and below. When the lamb is 
born it sometimes has no cutting teeth, but it 
generally has two, and before it becomes a 
month old, the full number, eight, appear in 
the lower jaw. When one year old, it sheds 
the two middle teetli, and within .six months 
from the time of shedding, their places are 
filled with two wider than the first. At two 
years, the next two are shed, and in six months 
their places are filled witli two wide teeth. At 
three years, the two third teeth from the center 
are shed, and their places are filled with two 
wide teeth, and at four years the corner teeth 
are .shed, and by the time the sheep are five 
years old, will have grown out even, and it will 
have a full mouth of teeth. After that, the 
teeth begin to grow round and long, and at nine 
or ten they begin to shed, and then is the time 
to fatten for the butcher, and let j'oung sheep 
take their place. 

Dog's and Sheep.— An Indiana sheep 
farmer says, that "a number of slieep, wearing 
bells, in any flock, will keep away dog.s — he 
would allow ten bell sheep to every hundred or 
hundred and fifty. When sheep are alarmed, 
they run together in a compact body, in which 
act all the bells are rung at once, which fright- 
ens the dog, or m.akes him think some one 
is on his track, so he leaves without making 
mutton." JIany sheep culturists in the land, 
however, know that bells are not an infallible 
preventive. 

Another says: "To cure a deg of sheep kill- 
ing, let him see the ,=heep he has killed ; in his 
presence take off the pelt, fasten it tightly 
around him, and make him wear it from one 
to three days." Or, second, fasten him between 
two stout rams, the three abreast, and let them 
race him about the field awhile. It will open 
his eyes to the character of sheep. Or, third, 
cut ofl" bis head. Neither of these remedies 
will be effectual unless you can catch the right 
dog. 

A Trap. — " I would recommend those having 
sheep killed to place them in a pile together, or 
to leave at least one of them where the dogs 



SHEEP — SHEARING AND illARKINa. 



417 



have left it; then put four or six lengths of B. Hickory stick seven feet long, two inches 



fence around the dead sheep, made of sawed 
6c;intling (a pen of straight rails will answer as 
well as scantling). Commence by placing the 
scanlling on the ground, and as you lay ihem 
up, draw your scantling in, the width of them 
every time around, and build the fence high 
enouf;h in this way that a dog can not jump it. 
Then lock the corners well, and you have a pen 
that dogs can go over into from the outside 
readily, and when once over, they can not get 
GUI again until they are helped out. In -this 
way, in a few nights, you will be quite likely to 
get the very saiue dogs that killed your sheep, 
as tliey will have the curiosity or desire to go 
over the ground the second time." 

Sheep kept with cows are not so apt to be 
killed by dogs as when alone. The cows fight 
for them. 

This is a most serious matter; as the govern- 
ment statistician reported in 1866 no less than 
eight hundred thousand sheep killed or muti- 
lated by dogs yearly; being a two per cent, tax 
on the total investment I 

Sliearlngr Apparatus.— .\n Ohio cor- 
respondent of the Country Gentleman furnishes 
that paper with the following: "Not havin< 
seen any notice of any improvement on the old 
fashioned mode of shearing sheep — no doubt as 
uncomfortable for the sheep as the shearer — I 
thought I would send you a sketch of one I 
have been using for the last three years, which 
I find to be just the thing. It was first made 
and used by a neighbor who has followed shear- 
ing many years. It has these advantages — the 
shearer stands up to his work, having both 
hands free; the sheep can not injure itself by 
struggling, even if heavy with lamb, and you 
can shear faster and easier. 



wide at the notched end, notches one and a half 
or two inches apart, for adapting it to the size 
of the sheep. 

C. Sliackles, made of two leathern straps, 
one inch wide, fastened to each end of a small 
iron ring, one and a half or two inches di.im- 
eter, and passing and fastened to anotlier rin,' 
two inches in diameter. 

D. Forward end of stick B. 

E. Wooden wedge, to fasten rings on the 
notched stick. 

Mode of Operation. — The sheep is caught, 
turned on its haunches, and the under part of 
neck and between the fore legs are sheared ; 
then lifted on the table or bench, the head 
placed under the rope, the leather shackles put 
on the feet, and stick inserted — as shown in the 
cut ; one side is sheared, and then the sheep is 
turned over and finished. Hoping this may 
benefit some of my brother farmers, I submit 
it to your consideration." 





Figure 1. 
Description. — A. Small rope, with iron ring 
in the end, passing through two holes in the 
table, and over the sheep's head. 



The editor endorses it, remarking that any 
assistancfe in performing the laborious and dis- 
agreeable work of shearing sheep will be espe- 
cially acceptable to the farmer. He suggests 
an improvement, shown in Figure 2, represent- 
ing two leathern loops at each end of a stick, 
through which the feet are inserted; and as the 
legs are extended these loops draw tight and 
hold the sheep fast. A sliding ring, with a pin 
and holes, accommodates it to the size of the 
sheep. Tw^leather straps (not shown), nailed 
to the table, and connected by a buckle in the 
middle, then receive the neck of the sheep, aa 
in the mode described by the correspondent. 

Marking Sheep.— Says the Western 
Fanner: "The advantages of having every 
sheep in the flock marked with plain figures, 
such as can be easily read even acro.ss a com- 
mon sheep-yard, are too obvious to every one 
to need any argument in its favor. The best 
materials for marking we have ever used aie 
red lead and pure Japan. This mixture will 
work equally well whether you use iron or 
wooden types. Many try Venetian red, which 
looks very well at first, but it soon rubs ofl' and 
the figures become obscure. 

The numbers and ages are shown by marks 
on the ear, and these should be made when the 



418 



LIVE STOCK : 



lambs are quite young, or a day or two old, 
when the dams are more readily Icnown than 
after the lapse of some weeks. The mode of 
numbering adopted by the celebrated Von 
Thaer has been generally adopted by which 
the numbers may be readily carried UD to 1 000 
or more. It is as follows : 




Figure 1 — One notch cut in the left ear at the 
top, is 1. One notch cut in the left ear, under 
side, 3. One notch cut in the right ear. at top, 
10. One notch cut in the right ear, under 
side, 30. 

A combination of these notches easily makes 
any number up to 99. 

Figure 2 — One notch cut in the left ear, at 
the end, is 100. One notch cut in the right 
ear, at the end, 200. 

Figure 3^- The point of the left ear cut 
straight off, is 400. The point of the right 
ear, cut straight ofT, 500. 

The figures furnish examples of these mark- 
ings, to which are added the holes punched 
through to show the age. As no owner would 
make a mistake of ten years in the age, these 
marks are much simpler: 

Figure 4 — One hole in the left ear is 1. One 
hole in the right ear, 3. 



In order to explain more fully these different 
marks, the following references to the figures 
are added : 

Figure 1 is 1, 3, 10, and 30=44. 

Figure 2 is 100 and 200=. 

Figure 3 is 400 and 500=900. 

Figure 4 giving the age, is 1 and 3=4 ; which 
means that the lamb came in 1854, or 1864, as 
the case may be — no hole indicating a year, as 
1850, or 1860 ; a mistake of ten years in the 
age not being possible. 

Figure 5 is an example showing a combina- 
tion of these marks as follows : 

1+30+30 + 100=161; and the lamb belong- 
ing to the year 1867. 

The numbers being marked every year, and 
the age marked besides, there is no possibility 
of making any niislake in a single individual. 
By a Ijoiik register, the number of the dam may 
be kept, the date or day of lainbing, the ram, 
and any additional remarks. 

The best marker is a saddler's spring punch, 
which may he used for cutting the notches by 
placing it at the edge of the ear; or for punct- 
uring the holes in the middle. The holes 
should be about a fifth of an inch in diameter. 
If too small they will grow np when the wound 
heals. 

Live and Deud Weight in Sheep. — The En- 
glish rule is lo weigh sheep when fatted, and 
divide the weight by seven and call it quarters. 
Thus, a sheep weighing one hundred and forty 
pounds would give twenty pounds a quarter as 
the dead weight. If the sheep are in good con- 
dition, this rule is sufficient for all purposes. 
Poor sheep will fall below the mark, and extra 
fat ones go over it. 

To Cure Sheep from Jumping. — A correspond- 
ent of the Ohio Farmer gives the following cu- 
rious account of the method adopted by him to 
prevent his sheep from jumping (he fences of 
his jjasture : "I want to tell you about my 
jumping sheep, and how I broke them. I got 
them in a pen .sufiiciently large to hold them. 
I then caught the ringleaders, one at a time, 
and made a small hole in each ear. I then 
took a cord or string, and run it through the 
holes in the ears together, close enough to keep 
them Irom working their ears; I then let tlieiii 
out, and they are as quiet as any sheep." 

Brief Facts and Sugrg^estions.— 

Keep sheep dry under foot with litter. This is 
even more necessary than roofing them. Never 
let them stand or lie in mud or snow. 
Count, every day. 



SHEET DISEASES OF. 



419 



Begin grnining with the greatest care, and 
use the smallest quantify at first. 

If a ewe loses l>er lamb, milk daily for a few 
days, and mix a little alum with her salt. 

Do not let the sheep heroine frightened. 
Never allow a stranger into the yards un- 
less accompanied by the feeder, or some one 
familiar with them. It sometimes puts them 
back two or three days. 

Separate all weak, or thin, or sick from those 
strong, in the Fall, and give them special care. 

If any sheep is hurt, catch it at once and 
wash the wound, and if it is fly-time, apply 
spirits of turpentine daily, and always wash 
with something healing. If a limb is broken, 
bind it with splinters, tightly, loosening as the 
limb swells. 

If one is lame, examine the foot, clean out 
between the hoofs, pare the hoof if nnsound, 
and apply tobacco, with blue vitriol, boiled in 
a little water. 

Shear at once any sheep commencing to shed 
its wool, jinless the weather is too severe, and 
save carefully the pelt of any sheep that dies. 

In Summer, sheep drink five or eix pounds 
of water every day, and when deprived of it, 
they eat less food and lose weight. 

John Johnston writes the American FarmeT 
that sheep fat more readily in October and No- 
feniber if they have first-rate pasture, than at 
any other season of the year. 

To insure successful Wintering for a flock, 
these things, are, first of all, indispensable, 
namely : Good shelter, food sufficient in quantity 
and variety, running water, and skillful attend- 
ance. 

No man who expects to make any improve- 
ment in his flock will allow a ram to "run with 
the ewes." Six or eight ewes in a day is as 
many as one ram onght to be allowed to serve 
when he has the very best of care; with a less 
number his gets would be much increased. 

Lambs from pure-bred rams will be worth 
one-half more than those from common rams. 

Much may be gained in Winter by changing 
from one variety of feed to another. A feed of 
well-cured corn fodder or straw will be relished 
three or four times a week. 

The same ram should not be kept with a 
flock more than a year; neither should he be 
Used in the flock that he w.as raised from. 

There is no part of the United States, if there 
is of the world, where sheep are not better for 
some degree of Winter shelter. In western 
Texas and in the Gulf States, perhaps they de- 
mand no more than a pole-shed or dense clump 



of trees to break the fury of the "northers;" 
north of latitude forty degrees to forty-two de- 
grees, close barns or stables, with abundant ven- 
tilation, are beginning to be preferred by care- 
ful and systematic breeders. Shelter is food 
saved ; strength kept, which would otherwise 
be lost ; and wool improved by the good eondi- * 
tion of the sheep, to say nothing about the most 
important points of all — the lambs which are 
to follow. A sufTering sheep will produce a 
weak lamb. 

Because of their omniverous habits, sheep 
are very valuable as scavengers on old farms, 
and as pioneers on new lands, in cleaning them 
of noxious weeds, bushes, briars, and burrs, 
almost all of which they will eat at some sea- 
son of the year, or in some stage of their ex- 
istence. But sheep general ly implj' good fences. 

Diseases of Sheep.— Under this head 
we shall give a]>proved remedies for a few of 
the common disease f»f sheep: 

Apoplexy. — Bleed moderately; then give two 
ounces of Epsom salts in a gill of water. 

Blackwater.—K.eep the bowels open with Ep- 
som salts; and give a tea-spoonful of elixir of 
vitrol, or sulphuric acid, diluted with scveu 
parts of water, in an infusion of oak bark. 

Blackmuzzle. — Mix an ounce of verdigris 
(acetate of copper), four ounces of honey, half 
a pint of vinegar; simmer them together over 
a fire for ten minutes in an earthen pipkin. 
Apply it to the month on a piece of rag. 

Colic (Diarrhea — Scours). — Prevent by using 
great care in changing dry for green feed. A 
feed of sulphur is also said to be a preventive. 
The following is an English remedy: "Ten 
dro|is of laudanum, ten drops essence of pepper- 
mint, one lea-spoonful of the spirits of turpen- 
tine, and one table-spoonful of sweet oil." 
YouATT modifies the prescription as follows : 
" Take of prepared chalk an ounce, powilered 
catechu half an ounce, powdered ginger two 
drachms, and powdered opium half a drachm; 
mix them with half a pint of peppermint- 
water. The dose for a lamb is from one to two 
tabk-ppoonfuls morning and night." 

Flief. — Certain flies sometimes deposit their 
eggs in the wool of sheep during the last weeks 
of Spring. The resulting maggots burrow un- 
der the skin, and often sadly torment the poor 
animals. Fly powder: Two pounds of black 
sulphur, half a pound of hellebore; mix tliein 
together, and sprinkle the sheep from the head 
to the tail with a dredging-box. Wash: The 
farmer will find this an excellent recipe: Half 



420 



LIVE STOCK : 



a pound of powdered white arsenic (arsenions ' 
acid), four pounds and a half of soft soap. 
Beat these for a quarter of an hour, or until the 
arsenic is dissolved, in five gallons of water. 
Add this to water sufficient to dip fifty sheep. 
The quantity of arsenic usually recommended 
is too large. 

Foot-Rot. — This is a formidable disease. AVe 
shall not discuss the question whether it is con- 
tagious; suffice it that it commonly appears 
among flocks kept in wet, filthy yards, or fed 
in rich moist pastures. It seems to be pro- 
duced by foreign substances finding their way 
through the cracks in the hoof, and inducing 
acute inflamation within the foot. The disease 
is often long in culminating; it progresses grad- 
ually, first causing limping; tlien the lifting of 
one foot; then severe lameness of botli fore 
feet; then going upon the knees, which brings 
the feet in contact witli the breast. Then the 
feet become masses of rottenness; maggots 
breed in them and work into tlie fiesli, and this 
corruption is communicated to the breast. 1 

The cure, says the American Agriculturist, is 
very simple and sure: "The well-cleaned 
hoofs, softened by soaking in dewy grass or on I 
a rainy day, or otherwise, are pared with cut- 
ting pliers and very sharp knives until evenj] 
particle of diseased matter is taken away, even j 
if it involves the removal of all the hoof; they 
are then washed witli warm water and soap, 
and smeared wilb some caustic paste, or fluid, 
or the sheep forced lo stand in a hot, saturated 
solution of blue vitrol for ten minutes." 

YoUATT recommends, after the decisive cut- 
ting away of all diseased matter, tlie washing 
in a weak solution of chloride of lime (a pound 
of the powder to a gallon of water), and then 
an application of muriite of antimony with a 
swab. Dress and pare anew every day. 

The American Stock Journal recommends, for 
the preparation, a pound of powdered sulphate 
of copper to four pounds of tar, smeared on 
with a brush afier paring. 

Phenic or carbolic acid, is mentioned as an 
effectual remedy in the early stages. 

Grub in the Head. — This is another form of 
the bots ; the fly, instead of depositing her eggs 
where they will be taken into the stomach, lays 
them upon the lining membrane of the nose, 
where the breath will soon hatch them, and 
whence thelarvse crawl up into the frontal cav- 
ities of the head. The great distress which 
sheep sufl'er from the attacks of this insect, can 
hardly be imagined by one who has not seen it. 
That death is occasioned by grub in the head 



is not probable, but when great numbers ex- 
i.st in the head of a slicep, the irritation they 
produce, especially when they take their de- 
parture in May and June, is great. 

But YoDATT argues that these grubs in the 
head, though they cause inconvenience and 
annoyance, do not cause any .serious dise'ase; 
that sheep never die from their depredations; 
that their presence in the head is possibly an 
actual benefit; and that it is doubtful if the 
worm ever eats a mouthful of anything — arriv- 
ing at these conclusions, however, rather by de- 
duction than induction. Hundreds of farmeis 
in America are certain that they have lost 
scores of sheep by this parasite ; and we ap- 
pend some remedies that have been proved. 

To prevent the fly from laying eggs in the 
nose: Daub whale oil up the nostril occasion- 
ally Willi a feather ; or bore shallow two-inch 
augur holes in the manger or in blocks, and fill 
with salt, smearing around the top with tar, so 
that it will stick to the nose. 

Spirits of turpentine and corrosive poisons 
are sometimes used to expel the grubs ; but 
they are dangerous and unreliable.' A writer 
in the Country Gentleman uses a wash of one 
pound of Scotch snufl' and some asafetida to 
one gallon of hot water. 

The New Enyland Farmer circumvents the 
intruders, and swindles them out of their habi- 
tation, by the following cute trick: "Take 
honey, diluted with a little warm water, a suffi- 
cient quantity, and inject into the nose freely 
with a four-ounce syringe. The worm will 
leave his retreat in search of a new article of 
food ; and when once in contact with the honey, 
becomes unable to return, and slides down tlie 
mucous membrane. Then (say two or three 
hours after using the honey) give the sheep a 
little snuff or cayenne, and the effort of sneez- 
ing will place the worm beyond the chance of 
doing harm." 

Lice and Ticks- — Sheep are infested by both 
lice and ticks — the latter far the more formida- 
ble. Tobacco juice, tar, mercurial ointment, 
are the usual remedies ; though a single fifteen 
minutes' bath in warm water will drive all 
the lice from Iambs. Hard-wood ashes, rub- 
bed in, is also a good exterminator of vermin. 
Thomas Jameson sends the following to the 
Western Fanner: "Take the sheep on a warm 
day and lay it on its side, then with a piece of 
chalk draw a line from just back of the ear, 
along the side to the roots of the tail. Sepa- 
rate the wool, beginning immediately back of 
the ear and lay it open to the skin along this 



421 



line and sprinkle in Scotch snuff, closing np the 
fleece as you go along to prevent the snuff from 
being scattered and lost. Serve both^ sides of 
the sheep in this manner and in just forty-eight 
hours thereafter you may look for live ticks 
in vain." 

Citrbolic acid in a crude form is very effect- 
ual in destroying vermin or curing scab in 
sheep. 

Poiioned Sheep. — Sheep will sometimes eat of 
poisonous shrubs. A certain remedy is found 
in blood-root and brandy — a strong extract — a 
table-spoonful to a sheep, and more to a calf. 
A decoction of strong black tea is said also to 
be an antidote. 

Rot. — YonATT estimates that " more than a 
million of sheep die every year from this dis- 
ease." It is inflammation of the liver, caused, 
or at least aggravated, by the presence of the 
fluke-worm. The result is hastened by pas- 
taring on ill-drained land, covered with de- 
composing grasses — salt-marshes e.^cepled. It 
is affirmed that sheep thai have free access to salt 
will never have the rot. ' 

Doyle recommends as a remedy: "Bleed 
freely and give glauber or Epsom salts." Bnt 
if the malady has made nnich progress give it 
the butcher's knife. Willich says that elder 
leaves will often eflect a cure. Youatt says 
that, after physicing, "two or three grains of 
caliimel may be given daily, but mi.xed with 
half the quantity of opium, in order to secure 
its beneficial results, and ward off its injurious 
efl'ects." Do not be sanguine of a cure in any 
but the first stage. 

Scuh. — You.A-TT s:iys it is not contagious, and 
recommends housing; shaving, wherever the 
skin feels hard; washing with soap-suds, and 
then, every other day, washing with lime water 
and a decoction of tobacco. A correspondent 
of the Country Gentleman has found salt and 
sulphur a sure cure for scab in sheep. He puts 
one-eighth or one-tenth part of sulphur with 
the salt and feeds as usual. Daniel Kelly, 
of Du Page cimnty, Illinois, contributed to the 
Prairie Farmer his remedy for this troublesome 
disease — which he thinks a sure cure: One 
pound mercurial ointment and three pounds 
of fresh lard, well-mixed together. Turn the 
sheep upon its back and anoint the bare spot 
under each leg, and also around each place 
where the "scab" has appeared. Keep the 
sheep from the weather a few days. 

Crude carbolic acid is death to the scab, and 
is nuich used in England. 
Sniffles. — William P. Hayden informs the 



Maine Farmer that equal parts of garget root, 
alum, and tobacco, slee|)ed together, will cure 
the sniffles In sheep. It should be forced up 
the nostrils with a syringe. 

Stretches. — Should any of the sheep get the 
stretches which they are apt to do when high 
fed, give a quid of tobacco half the size of a 
hen's egg, and if not relieved in twenty minutis 
give them a .second dose, but nine times in ten 
the fii.st dose cures. For stoppage in their 
water, give one tea-spoonful of spirits of niter, 
with the same quantity of spirits of turpentine, 
in half a gill of lukewarm water. 

Goats. — The goat was coeval with the ox 
and the sheep, in those regions of the East 
where civilization first dawned upon mankind. 
He was a part of the mythological systems of 
the ancient nations. In the Scriptures he is 
constantly referred to as forming the wealth of 
patriarchal families. By the laws of Moses 
his meat was allowed to be used as human food, 
and he is ordained to be einptoyed in remarka- 
ble icligious ceremonies. "Thou shall make 
curtains of goats' hair as a covering to the 
tabernacle," is a sacred injunction. The earli- 
est Grecian and Roman writers speak of him 
as yielding food and raiment, and superstition 
connected him with the attributes and services 
of the gods 

The fleece of the goat has furnished man 
with his richest, most durable, and gorgeous 
attire; its nutritious and wholesome milk and 
meat have yielded him food; its skin has sup- 
plied the materials for water-sacks or bottles, 
morocco, etc., while the animal itself may be 
said to have liveil on chips. But he doesn't 
live on chips if there is anything else he can 
bite. If milked regularly twice every day, 
one will yield a sufliciency for a small family. 
Goat's milk is very heallhfnl, very nourishing, 
and is often prescribed for tlie sick during con- 
valescence. The Irish have done more than 
any other |ieople to introduce the goat among 
us, and the hairy scavengers have yielded a 
good deal of inexpensive milk. 

HoEACE Greeley gave expression to the 
popular dislike of this quadruped, in the fol- 
lowing letter to the editor of the ArjrieuHurist : 
" Friend Juhd — II. G. T., in the Decem- 
ber Agriculturist, wonders what can be urs;ed 
against the keeping of goats. I answer — not 
much, if you are living on the stony hills of 
Palestine, or the desert of Sahara, or the 
plains of Colorado, or the parched, desolate 
valleys of Utah, where a tree is unknown and 



422 



LIVE STOCK: 



its production is barely a possibility. In fact, 
I think the goat destined to prove a great bless- 
ing to all that vast region lying westward of 
the banks of the Platte, and eastward of the 
Sierra Nevada In a shade-blest, fruitful coun- 
try like this, however, the goat is a nuisance 
and a terror. The utmost vigilance will not 
prevent the destruction of your rarest fruit and 
-liade-trees, if you keep Billy and Nanny on 
your premises. 

" 1 speak feelingly on the subject, for my ex- 
perience has been a sore one. My last trial 
with a she goat (bought for her milk for an 
infant) and threeyoung ones — all fine animals, 
but for their invincible propensity to eat any- 
thing that should not be eaten. I am not cer- 
tain that either of them would have barked a 
crowbar, unless very hungry ; but I would not 
like to insure the dry, cork-like rind of the big 
trees of California (from a foot to eighteen 
inches through) against the teeth of any goat 
I ever harbored. If you nmst have goats keep 
them, for their millc is the best food that can be 
had for young children; but tie them fast in 
some lot where nothing grows that you want to 
survive, or shut them up in a barn, and be 
sure they never have a chance of liberty. A 
goat at large on a Yankee farm will do more 
damage in a single week than can be repaired 
in ten years." 

Goats emit at all times a strong and disa- 
greeable odoi-, named hircine, which, however, 
is not without its use, for if one of these ani- 
mals be kept in a stable, it is affirmed that it 
will be an effectual preventive of the staggers, 
a nervous disorder which is often very fatal to 
horses. Goats yield, on an average, two quarts 
of milk a day ; some of the Maltese and Assy- 
rian varieties give a gallon. Take him all in 
all, the common goat of the municipal gutter is 
rather an unprofitable citizen. 

The Cashnei-e and Angora Goals. — The 
"shawl-bearing animal," which reaches such 
perfection in Cashmere, Angora, and other 
parts of Western Asia, is the only animal that 
produces a fabric worth its weight in gold. 
The supply of fleeces and goats is limited and 
precarious. Access to them is difficult and 
dangerous, owing to the jealousy of the gov- 
ernments and the barbarous bigotry of the 
people. 

Dr. James B. Davis, of South Carolina, 
and RiCHAKD Peters, of Georgia, were 
among the earliest and most successful im- 
porters and propagators of the Cashmere goat, 



and thousands of the best breeds are now 
owned in different States. 

The .\ngora goat is a more recent arrival. 
The acclimatization of these goats in this coun- 
try is an established fact. For several years, in 
different parts of the Union, the Cashmere and 
Angora goat have been bred, both pure and 
crossed with our native goat. Far from dete- 
riorating by the transfer, as had been predicted, 
it is found that in some parts of the country 
even the unmi.xed breed of the imported goats 
has shown evident signs of improvement re- 
sulting from the change. This branch of pas- 
toral industry has begun to assume very consid- 
erable prominence. 

The Angora goat is the best variety of the 
wool-bearing animal, producing the finest and 
most lustrous mohair and fur used either in 
Europe or the East, for the most lu.xurious and 
expensive fabrics. He is a native of Angora, 
the ancient Capadocia, in central Asia Minor, 
situated on or about the fortieth parallel north 
latitude, a mountainous and sterile region. 
His coat is a brilliant, long silky hair, dazzling 
white, lustrous as silk, or burnished metal, 
hanging down in long spiral curls, with an 
undergrowth of pure white down or fur. 
Weight of fleece four to nine pounds. The 
curls are regarded as evidence of tlie purity of 
the blood. Extravagant stories about the value 
of this fleece — fiveorsi.x dollars a pound — must 
not he credited. It is wortli more in London 
than any wool, bringing generally from sixty 
cents to a dollar a pound in gold, a little more 
being paid for exceptional parcels of great 
beauty, for fancy manufacture. 

The Angora goat crosses admirably with the 
best common goat, "while," says the importer, 
I. S. Deihl, " the progeny will be as beautiful 
as the full-bloods. The grades by the fourth 
generation can not be distinguislied from pure 
breeds, except by experts, while his meat is 
superior to the best mutton, and the animal 
himself can be fed cheaper than the sheep." 
\ correspondent says that in this country these 
animals have improved in size, weight, and 
quality of the fleece. The three-fourths blood 
yield a fleece softer and finer than the imported 
animal, but not so long. This is more than 
England can boast of. France lias been more 
successful, but not as successful as our breed- 
ers in the acclimation of this goat. 

After clironicling everything that can be said 
in favor of the Cashmere and Angora, we warn 
our readers against investing in these goats at 



423 



fancy prices, until they are sure it will pay. 
We have no doubt of the value of these ani- 
mals to cross with our best common goats, and 
their introduction may be productive of ;is great 
a benefit to agriculture as the impoi'tation of 
Merinos; but we have had enough of the moras 
midticaulis and the " wine plant." Let there be 
no panic in the shawl business. 

A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer says 
the Cashmere goats grade as well as thorough- 
breds, are valuable additions to a Hock of 
sheep, with which they associate on intimate 
terms, and the sheep soon learn to follow the 
lead of the goats, as these do not like exposure 
to storms, they run to the slielter and are fol- 
lowed by the sheep, much to the advantage of 
their health — particularly the variety tliatgrow 
more in hair than wool, and cost much more 
than some others of much greater value. The 
goats also lead the flock home at night, as they 
will never sleep away from their accustomed 
resting place, if able to reach it wiihout ob- 
structions. The goats also figlit dogs or prairie 
wolves with great cour.ige, and the timid sheep 
soon learn to look upon their companions as 
their natural protectors. 

"These goats are hardy; they live and fatten 
on coarse Ibod. They will Winter on good 
straw alone, and come out in fair condition in 
the Spring. The common ewe goat has from 
two to five lambs at a birth — the Cashmere but 
one. They can be graded up very fast, but it ii. 
nece-ssary to use the thorough-bred male, or as 
high a grade as possible, to cross with the com- 
mon goat. A good common ewe goat will raise 
two to three one-half blood lambs well. The 
eight months' ewe will drop and raise one or 
two lambs. This is much faster than you can 
can grade up sheep. 

" In choosing common goats, get the shortest- 
legged, and best-formed, you can find. There is 
much difl'erence even in the common goats, and 
the form of the dam has much to do with the 
form of the future grade offspring. Parlies 
desiring to grade up a flock should procure 
good, common ewe goats, in time to have the 
kids come in April or May. The kids are 
much stronger and hardier than Merino lambs. 
■\Ve hardly ever lose a kid unless by unavoida- 
ble accident. A well-fatted one-half blood 
wether goat is superior to any venison. 

" It is probable that the day is not far distant 
when flocks of profitable wool-bearing goat,«, 
will be seen on many of the stock farms of the 
United States." 



HOGS— THEIR BREEDS, HABITS, 
AND USES. 

The hog has been in disrepute for a long time, 
at least ever since he began to play his part 
in the ancient religion. It is fashionable to 
denounce and deride him. In one of our rural 
cities not long since, the story goes, a stately 
doctor was upset by a sow while trying to drive 
her and her litter out of his lawn. He retired 
to his office, covered with mud and mortifica- 
tion, and broke into the following not very 
flattering tirade: 

"If there be anything I do most heartily de- 
test above all the beast.s of the field and fowls 
of the air, it is that filthy brute — the hog. lie 
was doubtless one of the curses sent after the 
fall of Adam to punish us for our many sins; 
but our Creator, in kindness to us, afterward 
pronounced him unclean, and not only unfit to 
be eaten, but that he should be abhorred and 
driven out of the sight of all human beings. 
Jews, Mahomedans, and a few Pagan sects de- 
test him; but we Christians, with a higher and 
purer faith, cherish him as we would a charmed 
serpent, even in our bosoms. Faugh ! The foul, 
hated, unclean beast he is; and the dire author 
of !;.df of the most disgusting diseases which 
afllict humanity 1 What breeds leprosy ? Tlie 
hog! What breeds cancer? The hog ! What 
breeds scrofula? The hog! What originated 
other horrid diseases, the names of which I dare 
not mention? Ag.dn, I say the hog! 'Tis to 
this abominable quadruped we owe all our cu- 
taneous diseases, consumption, small-pox, mea- 
sles, and collateral maladies, too numerous to 
mention ; and (or this reason, an All-wi,se 
Creator, under the Mosaic law, forbade man to 
eat his flesh. Delicate-cured ham, pork boiled, 
baked or fried, roast pig, and sausages, I hate 
and thoroughly detest ye, one and all, as unfit 
to be eaten." 

Yet the hog outlives all hostility, and laughs, 
so to speak, at the sneers of his slande/ers. 
Still is the succulent roast pig the sacrifice on 
many a dinner table, and still is the ceiling 
festooned with the savory sausage, and the 
smoke-house fragrant with ham. We deal with 
facts ; not with sentiment. 

The hog is a true cosmopolite — a citizen of 
the world. He increases and multiplies ami 
inherits every part of the habitable globe. lie 
is as ubiquitous as the herring. He docs not 
rank high as a gentleman, but is very acomii- 
modating in his habits, thriving contentedly in 
the .stye of the rich or the kitchen of the indi- 



424 



LIVE STOCK: 



gent. He wallows sometimes; but naturalists 
tell us that he does this for the sake of cleanli- 
ness — to destroy the vermin — lor the same rea- 
son that Pacific islanders grease themselves. 
By instinct he is less filthy than many other 
animals, for he will not foul his bed if he can 
help it. Among other jieculiarities, are his 
grunt of satisfaction, and his squeal of remon- 
strance and reproach — but this last is only the 
eclio of abuse. Another trait is that he carries 
straw in his mouth when it is about to rain — 
serving as the poor man's barometer. 

HoMEK, in his Odyssey, honored the swine- 
kecper with the confidence of Ulysses — and 
why not? The hog, called stupid, is really 
one of the most sagacious of animals. The 
gamekeeper of Sir Henry Mildmay' actually 
broke a black sow to find game in the woods 
to run in the hunt with wonderful succe.s: 
She would track game, back and stand, and 
point partridges, pheasants, snipe, and rabbit." 
as skilHully as a bred pointer. She has some- 
times stood a jock snipe when all the pointers 
have passed it. She would promptly answer a 
call, and was as much excited as a dog on being 
shown a gun." 

The Babylonian Talmud says, "Cursed be he 
that breedeth hogs;" and the history of the 
Maccabees tells us that the scribe Eleazer 
walked straight to the tortures of persecution 
rather than eat a slice of spare-rib — heroically 
preferring tlie martyr's stake to the pork steak. 
This animal has been under the ban of many 
religions; the Easterns learned from the Egyp- 
tians to hate him because he perversely de- 
clined to "chew his cud;" but he still manages 
to masticate and digest considerable pottage in 
the course of a year. 

The hog is the product of Nature's most eco- 
nomical thought. There is no part that can 
not be utilized. His flesh, fat, bristles, hair, 
hoofs, and bones are all turned to account. The 
divisions of his unctuous body are as familiar 
as the divisions of the earth. His ears and 
feet go to souse; his brains are a clioice dish 
for the epicure. His tail has for ages been 
claimed by successive generations of children 
as tlieir ))eculiar property. Tradition points 
out how to appropriate it — roast on the coals, 
take it in the fingers, and eat without salt. 
Spare-ribs and chine! are there any more ap- 
petizing syllables? 

The hog is the staff of life — the arch enemy 
of famine. He is the poor man's most precious 
boon. Moreover, in his earliest days, he is 
strikingly handsome, playful, and graceful — a 



rival of the human infant, for the admiration 
of the discerning spectator. In adult pighood 
he is omniverous and self-reliant; and he 
breeds faster, grows faster, and keeps cheaper 
than any other domestic animal. So it comes 
to pass, that, in spite of his snout, his will- 
fulness, his droll humor, his uncouth manners, 
his bristles, and his grunt, he is, and will long 
remain, a power in this land. 

America Is pre-eminently the home of the 
hog — he is a logical deduction from Indian 
corn. We read that he was introduced from 
Spain into the West Indies by Columbus, in 
1494; into Florida by De Soto, in 15.38; into 
Nova Scotia and New Foundland in 1553 ; into 
Canada in 1608, and into Virginia in 1609. It 
is related that here they multiplied .so rapidly 
(hat the colonists were compelled to palisade 
Jamestown — high to keep out the Indians — 
close to keep out the hogs. 

Mrs. Hog produces eight to twelve, and even 
more little ones at a birth ; and c^n perform this 
feat twice a year. So the supply may be in- 
creased almost without limit. Some, man of 
figures has estimated the descendants of a single 
sow, with only six young at a litter, te be, in ten 
generations, about six million five hundred 
thousand. According to the census there is 
one hog and one additional ham for every hu- 
man being in America — Indians and all. A 
hundred and fifty million dollars worth of hogsl 
In 1863, more than fimr million hogs were cut 
and packed in the West for transportation, and 
more than six hundred thousand of these were 
packed in Cincinnati. 

The average weight of hogs and yield of 
lard, lor some seasons, in the Cincinnati pack- 
ing, were as Ibllows: 



field of laid. 
_:iS pounds. 



It would seem by this tahle, contrary to the 
general opinion, that the weight of the hog and 
the weiglit of the lard correspond to each other. 
The averijge prices of hogs, for fourteen years, 
in the market of Cincinnati, were as follows: 





Per luo pounds. 


I8H1 

isfiii 

1863 

18115 
18t^rt 
1867 


Per lOOpouodh. 


1854 










6 U') 

fi '-'4 





















HOGS — BREEDS OF, ETC. 



425 



As examples of extraordinary weight, the 
following aggregate and averages of several 
lots of hogs cut in Cincinnati, were furnished 
to the press in 1867 : 



No.' of lot. 


No. of hi.gs. 


Net wciglit. 


Average w 


eight. 




3 
6 
7 

22 
11 
20 
M 
3;-, 
35 


2,031 
.•!,2II0 
5,040 
8,S66 
6,732 
l.'>,tS2 
l.'i,l«0 
l.'i,7S.i 
15,712 


710 

640 

720 
403 
612 
772 
fAlt, 
4.'.1 
410 









































These lots, for extraordinary weight, taking 
quantity into account, have probably never 
been equalled, and the lot of twenty, raised and 
fed for market in Hamilton county, has cer- 
tainly no parallel in the wide world, none of 
the hogs exceeding nineteen months in age, 
and generally running from fifteen to sixteen 
months old. The farmers of the West know 
that hogs are the best sacks they can send their 
corn to market in. 

Ilree<1s. — There are, in America, at least 
seven tolerably distinct breeds : Yorkshire, 
Chester County or Chester Wliite, E.ssex, Suf- 
folk, Berkshire, Lincolnshire, and Chinese. 
The Essex and Suffolk are favorites with gen- 
tleman who feed few, but the large Berkshire 
Lincolnshire, or Chester County (a branch of 
the Bedfordshire), are preferable for the grass 
feeding of the West. YoUATT ("On the Hog," 



will average one pound gain per day until they 
are from three to five hundred days old. But 
the majority of Berkshires are a little too 
round and close built ; they have not belly 
enough, are too active and restless. With a 
little care these defects might be bred out." 

The Magee hog is a variety much esteemed 
in some parts of Ohio and tlie West. A. G. 
Nye, of Jefl'erson county, Iowa, thus refers to 
it in the Iowa Agricultural Report for 180.5 : 
"The Magee hog was first brought to this 
county by Mr. Duke Green about ten years 
ago. The hog brought to this county by Mr. 
Gkeen was, in color, white and black .spotted, 
with very large bone, large ears, and altogether, 
a very coarse hog, but of enormous size, fre- 
quently at three years old and well-fattened, 
weighing from seven to nine hundred pounds. 
They were hard to fatten, however, when 
young, and consequently were not popular; 
but, through the efibrts of Mr. Magee, the 
first breeder of this hog, and others in Ohio, 
and Mr. Joseph Roberts, Mr. David Svvit- 
zer, and others of this county who have bred 
the Magee hog successfully, and especially 
with the view of making a finer hog, we have 
now a hog of the same color and name, but 
with smaller bone, smaller ears, and altogether 
a much finer hog; that will fatten at any age, 
and, if properly managed, can be made to 
weigh from three to four hundred pounds at 
from fifteen to twenty months old; and this Is 
the best age to market hogs for Iowa farmers, 



p. 91), vouches for a Berkshire pig, killed in 

Cheshire, England, in 1774, that weighed, when 'and I think the Magee hog the best for our 

alive, fourteen hundred and ten pounds, when purpose. Other breeds may suit better for 



dressed, twelve hundred and fifteen pounds 
avoirdupois. The present breed of Berkshires 
has diminished in size in fifty years, but has 
improved in quality. 

The Illinois State /Vgricultural Report for 
1864, publishes an Essay on Swine from H. C. 
Smith, of Vermilion county, from which we 
quote: "The improved Berkshire — that pos- 
ses.sed of a dash of the Neapolitan and Chinese 
varieties — -comes, perhaps, nearer the desired 
standard than any other pure breed, but I think 
it is decidedly improved by a cro.ss of tlie Suf- 



some regions — such as a dairy region, where 
hogs must be marketed at from six to ten 
months old ; but for any corn-growing region, 
irke southern Iowa, the Magee hog is superior 
to any that I have seen." 

Points and management or a 

Breeding Sow.— She should be large for 
the breed, square built, with short nose, ears 
and legs, thick and rather short in the neck, 
plump and compact in the carcass, broad in 
the breast, substance in the fore-arm, and a 



folk. The Berkshire sow is perhaps the be.st , hereditary tendency to fatten well and early, 
breeder and the best nurse known. This breed Never let her raise pigs until she is a year old, 
will stand more neglect and hard u.sage than ! and never but one litter the first year. Then 



any other; they stand long drives on foot and 
shipping by railroad remarkably well; they 
are more compact and weigh more to their 
looks than any other hog; their skin stands 
exposure to the prairie mud exceedingly well, 
and with reasonable care and feed a lot of them 



if she proves a good milker let her raise two 
litters per year. 

It is about as important that a sow should 
coiu^ of a family of good milkers, as it is for 
a cow. S. Lewis says in the Michigan Farmer: 
"I find that hasty pudding and milk for the 



426 



LIVE STOCK : 



Bupper and breakfast, and corn for dinner, con- 
stitute a very good diet for a breeding sow. A 
great many farmers have fallen into an error 
in not allowing plenty of straw for a bed. 
Many build a warm pen in order to avoid giv- 
ing lier much straw. Let her run to a straw 
stack and she will "build" a nest to suit her- 
self." Let her food be moderately salted, and 
feed charcoal, and a trifle of sulphur occasion- 
ally. Every hog should have a little charcoal 
occasionally. 

During the first week in the age of the pigs, 
the mother should be disturbed as little as 
possible. Especially strangers should not ap- 
proach her. Give her nothing to eat for two 
or three days, except a little thin warm gruel, 
not exceeding half a pint of meal a day. Give 
her a pail or two of warm water each day. If 
she is doing well and is quiet, and takes care 
of her young, "let well enough alone." After 
three days time you can feed more, and when 
the pigs begin to come to the trough and eat, 
you will have ami)le space to dispose of all the 
spare meal and buttermilk your place will 
afloi'd. Young pigs will fatten faster on pure 
skim-milk than anything else. 

The plan or custom of breedmg in and in 
from close relations is a most injudicious 
course, and seems to bring on degeneracy in 
the offspring. In selecting both sows and 
boars, a due regard must be paid to the object 
for which the progeny are designed. Small 
bone is desirable in stock reseived for breed- 
ing, as this description produces the least ofial. 

Ho^v many Pounds or Pork ivill 
a Busitael of Corn Make I— This ques- 
tion, much discussed, can never be answered, 
because it depends on dili'erent conditions — on 
the breed of hog, on the kind of corn, and still 
more on the temperature of the pen. The last 
consideration is too important to be overlooked. 

We have already set forth the unprofitable- 
ness of leaving neat cattle exposed to cold, and 
keeping them warm with expensive food in- 
stead of with snug quarters. Swine are subject 
to the same conditions. A correspondent of 
the Ohio Farmer, writing from Duncan's Falls, 
gives an account of an experiment made with 
one hundred hogs, averaging two hundred 
pounds each, and placed in nine large covered 
pens, with plank floors and troughs. The re- 
sult is detailed as follows: 

"The corn was ground up, cob and all, in one 
of the 'Little Giant' steam mills; steamed and J 
fed at 6 and 9 A. M., 12 M., 3 and 6 P. M., ! 



or five times a day, all they could eat, and in 
exactly one week they were weighed again, the 
corn they had eaten having been weighed also, 
and calling seventy pounds a bushel, and pork 
as before — four cents gross — it was equal to 
eighty cents per bushel for corn. The weather 
was quite warm here for the season of the year. 
The first week in November I tried the same 
experiment on the same lot of hogs, and the 
corn only brought sixty-two cents per bushel, 
the weather being colder. The third week, 
same month, with same lot of hogs, corn 
brought forty cents, and the weather still get- 
ting colder. The fourth week same as above, 
corn brought twenty-six cents; weather still 
colder." 

This lot of hogs were sold off the last of No- 
vember, and another lot of hogs put up, which 
had been fed in the field on corn in the cob. 

"This lot was weighed and fed as above, the 
five weeks of December, and the corn fed aver- 
aged twenty-six cents a bushel, the weather 
being about the same as the last. This lot was 
tried again in the middle of January, the corn 
fed for that week averaging only five cenis per 
bushel ; at that time the thermometer stood at 
zero. This'Same lot was tried again and just 
held their own, the thermometer being below 
zero, sometimes as low as ten degrees." 

From these facts the writer comes to the con- 
clusion that " it will not pay, as a general thing, 
to feed corn to hogs after the middle of Novem- 
ber," unless the price is very low. The ex- 
perimenter is certainly correct in deciding that 
it will not generally pay to use corn for !uel to 
keep hogs warm in Winter; but the coirplusion 
that it will not pay to feed corn at all in Win- 
ter seems not necessarily to follow. Let him 
keep them warm with a thorough shelter, and his 
corn will make pork as rapidly as in Summer. 

Experiments. — If the farmer can get as much 
for his corn by first making it into pork, as by 
a .sale of the grain itself, it is best to convert it 
to flesh, provided the manure is worth more 
for his land, than the labor of feeding. Hunt's 
Merchant's Magazine gives several experiments, 
showing the cost of pork making. In one, 100 
hogs were fed 100 days, by S. B. Anduew, of 
Ohio, with as much corn as they could eat, and 
each bushel of corn gave an increase of 10} 
pounds of animal, or 8 2-5 pounds of dressed 
pork; or, in other words, 1 pound of pork re- 
quired 5^' pounds of corn. In another experi- 
ment with 58 hogs, 1 pound of pork required 
6} pounds of corn. The corn was -fed in 
the ear. 



HOGS — COOKED FOOD FOR. 



427 



According to these experiments, three cents 
per pound ibr pork is the same as twentv-five 
cents per bushel for corn ; four cents per pound 
is thirty-three cents for cjrn; fife cents per 
pound is forty-two cents per busliel ; and six 
cents per pound is fifty cents for corn. This 
would not pay in many places, without fatten- 
ing hogs mainly on apples, which many farmers 
do at a great profit. 

A smaller experiment made with cooked meal, 
by Hon. H. L. TJllswouth, required a little 
le.ss than four pounds for a pound of pork. 
DifTerent breeds might give quite difl'erent 
results. 

According to another experiment, si.x hogs 
were shut up to fatten the first day of Autumn; 
they were fed one month on 29 bushels of corn, 
(58 bushels — ears), and increased 386 pounds, 
or 12| i>ounds gross weight, for each bushel of 
corn. The next month they were fed 68 bush- 
els, and gained 336 pounds, or 10 pounds per 
bushel. The last month they consumed 56 
busliels and increased 272 pounds, or nearly 10 
pounds per bu.shel. This result was quite sim- 
ilar to the first-mentioned above, and this may 
be taken as about the average results of judi- 
cious feeding in the ear in the early Autumn. 

Another experimenter, J. D. Lawes, ob- 
tained one hundred pounds of pork from seven 
bushels of corn, or one pound of pork from 
four and a half pounds of corn ; the grain was 
ground and moistened with water before feed- 
ing. Nathan G. Morgan, of Union Springs, 
by wetting his meal with five times its weight 
of hot water, and letting it stand twelve to 
eighteen hours before feeding, obtained one 
pound of pork from two and a half pounds 
of corn. 

A Kentucky farmer reports through the Ohin 
Cultimtor, that a bushel of dry corn fed to hogs 
made five pounds of pork ; a bushel of ground 
corn boiled, in one instance, made sixteen 
pounds and seven ounces, and in another 
nearly eighteen pounds of pork. 

A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer, says 
with reference to the quantity of pork from a 
bushel of corn, that a series of carefully con- 
ducted experiments have e.'<tablished the fol- 
lowing facts: A bushel of good, raw, unground 
dry corn, fed to a middling good breed, in com- 
fortable quarters, without much sun, and not 
allowed to root, and before cold weather, will 
produce ten pounds of pork, and if the breed 
is very good, fifteen. The same amount of 
fermented corn meal will produce one-half 
more; and, if cooked also, about three- fourths 



more than in its raw state, hence it is easy to 
find liiiw much pork should bring to correspond 
with the price of corn. Take, for instance, 
raw corn, the most common way it is fed; pork 
at five cents per pound is equal to corn at fifty 
cents per bushel, and so on, above or below, in 
the same ratio. The good of our farms and 
pockets demand that we sell our oats and corn 
in beef, mutton, pork, butter, cheese and wool. 

The Utica New York, Herald, an excellent 
authority, says: "Upon an average of several 
careful experiments, two bushels of corn in the 
ear, or one of shelled corn, make nine and 
seven-twelfths pounds of pork. The same 
amoimt of corn ground into meal, and mixed 
with water, produces eleven and one-eighth 
pounds of pork." 

The New York Independent says, from care- 
fully conducted experiments by difTerent per- 
sons, it has been ascertained that one bushel of 
corn will make a little over ten and a half 
pounds of ^rk, gross. Taking the result as a. 
basis, the following deductions are made : 

When corn sells for 12i cents per bushel, 
pork costs IJ cents per pound. 

When corn costs 17 cents per bushel, pork 
costs 2 cents per pound. 

When corn costs 25 cents per bushel, pork 
costs 3 cents per pound. 

When corn costs 36 cents per bushel, pork 
costs 4 cents [ler pound. 

When corn costs 50 cents per bushel, pork 
costs 5 cents per pound. 

The manure will more than pay for the 
labor of feeding and killing the hogs. 

Cooked Food for Hogs.— A Wayne 
county, Pennsylvania, farmer has accurately 
tested the results of cooking feed for swine, and 
presents the following figures: 

The experiment was conducted with two pens 
of hogs, which were carefully weighed, the 
gains noted, and the food in each ca.se also 
weighed or measured. The hogs selected for 
the experiiuent were all grade Chesters, and, 
with one exception, nearly of the same age, 
weight, condition, etc. Pen No. 1 contained 
three hogs, whose live weight was nearly one 
thousand pounds. They were fed all the corn 
they would eat up clean — the three consuming 
forty-five pounds of corn daily. After being 
fed seven days, they were again weighed, when 
it was found they had gained ten pounds each. 
By calculation we find that during the seven 
days this pen of hogs consumed five bushels 
and eight quarts of corn, costing $6 66. The 



428 



LIVE STOCK: 



gain being thirty pounds, we see that thirty 
pounds of pork cost $6 66, and would liave 
sold at the time for S2 65. Pen No. 2 con- 
tained two hogs, one of whicli weiglied alive 
si.x hundred pounds, and the other nearly four 
liuiulred founds. They were fed all the cooked 
meal they would eat — the two consuming 
twenty-five pounds of meal per day. The re- 
spective gains of each were five and seven 
pounds, the smaller hog gaining five |)0unds 
per d:iy and the larger seven pounds. By cal- 
cuhaion we find that the pork made from whole 
corn cost a trifle over twenty-two cents per 
pound, while that made from cooked meal cost 
four and a half cents per pound. 

Thomas J. Edge, of Chester county, Penn- 
sylvania — one of the hest farmers of that ex- 
cellent farming district — in answer to the 
inquiries of the editor of the Practical Farmer, 
gives that paper a report of his experiments, 
which can not fail to be read with interest by 
all engaged in making pork : 

"My first experiment was with old corn, in 
three forms, viz.: shelled and fed whole; 
ground and made into slop with cold water ; 
and gripund and thoroughly cooked. The pigs, 
five iu number, were from the same litter, and 
were tlie produce of a good common sow 
crossed with a Berkshire boar. 

"In each case the food was given tliera as 
fast as consumed, and all possible care taken lo 
avoid any waste or irregularity of feeding; in 
every case of a change of food three days ws 
allowed before the weighing for the experimtiit, 
in order that the eflect of a sudden and entire 
change of diet might not aflect the result. 

" I found that five bushels of whole corn 
made 47j pounds of pork. Five bushels (less 
miller's toll) of corn, ground and made into 
thick slop, with cold water, made 54] pounds 
of pork. The same amount of meal, well 
boiled and fed cold, made SSJ pounds of 
pork. 

" With the whole corn the pigs had the slops 
from the kitchen (no milk), and for drink wiih 
the boiled mush, one or two quarts were thinned 
with cold water, or slop from the house; iu 
each case the house slop was used in some form 
or other, but all the milk was reserved for 
small pigs- The fifteen bushels of corn cost 
SI 30 per bushel; and thee will notice, that 
while the pork made from the whole corn 
barely paid for tlie corn, that from the same 
amount of ground corn cooked, paid the whole 
cost of the corn and a little more than one 
dollar per bushel over, and that the economy of 



grinding and making into slop will fully war- 
rant the extra trouble and expense. IIow 
could it be otherwise, when the whole economy 
of profitable feeding consists in bursting or 
breaking the indigestible hull which encloses 
the minute particles of the food? 

" In the above experiment the data are based 
upon pork at $14 per cwt., and corn at $1 30 
per bushel; but it will apply as well to other 
prices. 

"The second experiment was exclusively 
with new corn, in two forms, viz.: on the ear, 
and shelled and ground before boiling; and all 
iu each case was what we know as 'nubbins' or 
soft corn. The best of this class of corn was 
reserved for the pigs and the worst fed to the 
cattle. Ten bushels on the cob made 29J 
pounds of pork, fed in the usual w.ay, on the 
ground. The same amount shelled, ground by 
horse-power, and well boiled, made sixly-four 
pounds of pork. Of course, a portion of that 
fed on the ear was wasted ; but it is the com- 
mon plau, and forms but a fair test of the com- 
parative merits of cooked food. I have made 
no experiment with sound new corn, but may 
have ii favorable opportunity before the season 
is past; hut would suppose that my expex'i- 
ment willi old corn would form a good criterion 
to judge by. 

"Thee asks for any indirect points which 
may have been noticed during the experiments. 
I have fouud that there is economy in allowing 
the food to become thoroughly cold before it is 
fed; that iu this stale a larger amount will be 
eaten, with more apparent good appetite; that, 
while scalding is beneticial, thorough and pro- 
longed cooking under pressure is more economi- 
cal. In more thau one case I fastened the lids 
of the barrels down until the pressure was as 
high as five pounds jjcr square inch in the 
barrel and steamer, and an examination into 
the conditrou of the food convinced me that its 
globules were thoroughly bursted, and it was 
all, oi- nearly all, rendered available. During a 
given time the same pigs will consume rather 
more corn cooked than uncooked. 

"Having eaten various pintions of one of the 
above pigs fed almost entirely on cooked food 
I fed cold), and having assisted in killing all of 
them, I must say that the prevalent idea that 
the meat of such pigs is not as firm as if fed 
upon uncooked food, has proven, in my case, 
to he erroneous — -tiiough I am not prepared to 
say what the result would have been had the 
food been used while warm or hot." 

Another correspondent of the same paper, 



-BRIEF HINTS FOR FEEDING. 



429 



ill speaking of the v.ihie of potatoes when 
cooked for hogs, says : 

" I h.ive deraonstraleil to my own satisfaction, 
with the use of a Prindle steamer and careful 
weighing, tliat while five busliels of boiled 
mush (hasty pudding) will make eighty-four 
pounds of pork, three bushels of meal and five 
of potatoes will make seventy-two and one-half 
pounds of pork. I do not wish to be under- 
sloiid that the five bushels of potatoes made 
the extra twenty-two and one-half pounds, but 
merely to state that under similar circum- 
stances the two combined produced the above 
result." 

A correspondent of the Indiana Farmer tlius 
narrntes liis experience: " My piggery is one 
hundred feet long, with a cook room attached 
to one end in which is situated a tubular boiler 
for generating steam. E.xtending through the 
center is an alley way six feet wide; on each 
side are the pens, eight feet wide by seven deep, 
from which- there is a door leading to the out- 
side yards, which are of the same size. There 
are sixteen pens of the size I have described, 
in each of which are si.x hogs. My mode of 
cooking is with two large tanks, each of which 
holds four hundred gallons; steam is carried 
into these tanks by iron pipes direct from the 
boiler, and valves are so arranged as to boil 
one or both tanks at once. Into these tanks is 
pumped about one hundred gallons of water, 
which is boiled in about twenty minutes by 
opening the steam valves; the tank is then 
filled up with garbage from the cily (which, 
by the way, contains everything used in the 
kitchen for cooking), and closed up tight; 
Bteara is kept up for one hour. By this time 
every particle of this matter is thoroughly 
cooked. The tanks are then opened, and if 
near the time of slaughtering, a bushel of corn 
meal well mixed in, the steam shut off, closed 
up and allowed to stand until the following day 
to cool before feeding, when it is at just the 
i-ight teniperdture to make the most fat. One 
of these tanks will give my hogs a good feed ; 
the other is ready for evening. I am fully con- 
vinced that hogs can be kept and fattened at 
one-third less expense by cooked food than by 
raw ; in fact my experience satisfies me that 
cooked food is indispensable, especially during 
the Winter months, and I would recommend 
eteam as the most effectual and economical. I 
am sure that farmers who keep from six to 
twenty-five hogs would find a steam apparatus 
a good investment." 

At a lecent meeting of a Farmers' Club, the 



breeding and feeding of pigs being under con- 
sideration, the leading speaker submitted the 
following .suggestions : " You will require dry 
floors, fresh air, and cleanliness. Foul air en- 
courages disease; cold air consumes food in 
making heat, that ought to make fat. It would 
not be practicable to put in a growing store to 
take fat, nor would it be judicious to put in a 
coarse dwarf to make a good bacon hog. You 
must have a full-grown, fair-conditioned ani- 
mal. There should not be more than six kept 
in one sty. The farmer has five principal in- 
gredients for this purpose, viz.: Grain, potatoes, 
Swedes, mangel wurzel, and cabbage. The roots 
well-boiled and well-bruised, the grain also 
well-boiled — take equal parts of Indian and 
oat meal, and any of the grains mentioned you 
may have, as crushed beans, peas, vetches, rye, 
or barley, with a little pollard and salt, made 
in thick gruel, added to the roots, and always 
given in a lukewarm state at regular hours 
three times a day. The less excitement or 
annoyance the belter, and a desire for sloth and 
sleep encouraged by watching his comforts, and 
the words made applicable that are sometimes 
used with some easy-going and quiet dispo- 
sitions : 

" To eat and drink and sleep ; what then ? 
To eat and diiuk and sleep again." 

Brief Hints for Feeding.— Most 

farmers will say: "Go to grass with your 
small-talk about hogs; haint I raised 'em these 
forty year?" Hold on, friend ! — let us ofl'er a 
few suggestions for those who are not so wise 
as you. 

A hog 'is unique in character; he will sleep 
himself into fat, but nobody ever knew one to 
squeal himself into fat. His Winter bed should 
be as dry and warm as his owner's. Pie should 
have some square yards of fresh earth, for he 
never feels quite happy unless he spend a por- 
tion of his lime in rooting. In Summer give 
him a faithful washing once in twenty days. 
The growth will richly repay the labor ex- 
pended. 

Mr. Lawes, of England, a gentleman of large 
leisure, fortune, and experience, made three 
series of experiments in pig feeding, a few years 
ago, that are entitled to much consideration. In 
both the first and second series, thirty-six pigs, 
from nine to ten months old, and weighing 
about one hundred and forty pounds each, were 
divided equally into twelve pens, weighed once 
a fortnight for eight weeks, and fed with ditfer- 
ent food. Bran, beans, or peas, corn, barley, and 



430 



LIVE stock: 



boiled codfish were used separate!)' and to- 
getlier, both in limited and unlimited quanti- 
ties, and the gains of each carefully noted. 
The result was that bran was found a very 
poor food, that a variety of food was found 
more fattening and profitable than any one 
kind alone, that Indian meal was found the 
most lattening in proportion to its weight, that 
barley meal, fed without limit, produced more 
flesh than Indian meal, that five hundred and 
sixty-five pounds of barley meal and four liun- 
dred and nine:y-one pounds of Ind.ian meal 
were equivalent in increasing the weight of the 
animals one hundred pounds, and that as ani- 
mals fatten, they consume less food, and in- 
crease less. A bushel of corn made no more 
pork on a fat hog than a lean one. The lean 
hogs eat more and grow more, the fat ones 
eat less and grow less. 

It has been often proved by actual experi- 
ment, that corn when ground and cooked, is 
thirty per cent, more economical fur fattening 
pork than when fed in the usual way. 

Mr. Kendall s»ys in the American Slock 
Jmirnal: "A good many intelligent fiirmers in 
the Stales of New York and Vermont are be- 
ginning to f;>ll into the Canadian pea practice — 
fectling slock on peas and vines, and fattening 
pork on peas — finding a saving of thirty to fifty 
per cent, in doing so, besides a quick and easy 
method of maintaining a maximum condition 
of fertility in their land, without expending! 
half their income for expensive mercantile fer- 
tilizers." I 

A correspondent of the Richmond, Virginia, 
Farmer, also testifies : " My honest opinion is, 
that two bushels of peas are far superior to 
three bushels of corn, and worth more to fatten 
hogs, or to increase the milk of cows." 

Sugar beets and parsnips are regarded as 
among the best food for hogs. Parsnips are 
preferred, but they shouhl be fed raw, as boil- 
ing makes the pork flabby. Parsnips appear 
to be nearly the only root good for swine in an 
uncooked state. Turn a herd of swine into a 
field containing field beets, ruta bngas, carrots, 
and parsnips, and the question will very soon 
be settled which they like best, and which, 
consequently, is best for them — the parsnips 
being wholly devoured before the others are 
touched. 

Boiled turnips mashed with coarse shorts and 
salted, make a very eiTective dish. Also boiled 
potatoes and boiled pumpkins — though the 
seeds should first be removed from the latter. 
A correspondent of the Ohio Fanner insists 



that sorghum, thrown to the pigs whole, is 
equal to Indian corn, and presents some facts 
corroborative. 

W^hy Sows Destroy tbelr Youn?. 

\ writer in the American Slnck Journal thinks 
that costivencss and its accompanying evils are 
the main causes of sows destroying their young, 
and proper food the preventive and cure. He 
says he has " never known a sow to eat her 
pigs in Autumn, when running at large with 
plenty of green food; but, with hardly any 
exception, sows littering early in the Spring are 
troubled with costiveness, which is frequently 
so severe as to be accompanied with inflamed 
eyes, and followed by frenzy." Potatoes, tur- 
nips, beets, carrots, or parsnips, or any vege- 
table that will have a tendency to open the 
bowels, are recommended. 

Feeding Standing Corn.— In some 
portions of the West, farmers let their fatting 
swine harvest the corn, turning them into tlie 
ripening field in early Autumn — say Augu.st or 
September — restraining them to one part of the 
field at a time by a movable fence, which en- 
closes about enough to last them for two or 
three days. Corn can sometimes be fed advan- 
tageously in this maimer, wherj? the stock is 
large and the price of labor high. 

But there is no reasonable doubt that corn is 
generally fed most economically by grinding 
and steaming, especially when it is done on a 
large scale — the grinding and steaming being 
both performed with one engine, at the farmer's 
own barn. 

To Prevent Swine from Root- 
ing. — Shave off with a razor, or sharp knife, 
the gristle on the top of the noses or snouts of 
young pigs. The place soon heals over, and 
the pigs are thus rendered incapable of rooting. 

Spaying Sows. — A correspondent, who 
has "successfully tried it," recommends the fol- 
lowing method of spaying sows, as "much less 
painful than when done with a knife: " Inject 
with a small syringe, up the uterus, about a 
wine-glassful of sulphuric acid. This destroys, 
on the part of the sow, all desire to take the 
boar." 

Diseases of S-tvine.— We shall refer 
briefly to the most prevalent of these, and give 
approved methods of treatment. During the 
last ten or fifteen years, the swine of mo.st of 



HOGS — DISEASES OF. 



431 



the States west of tlie Alleglianies have been 
seriously afflicted with a disease, or combina- 
tion of diseases, commonly called 

Hog Cholera. — Ii appeared in Indiana in 
1856, and soon attacked tlie adjacent States. It 
spread through the West and South, in nearly 
every State assuming, at some period, the char- 
acter of a wide-spread and fatal epidemic. Its 
victims have been numbered l.y millions. It 
prevails somewliat in Pennsylvania, New York, 
and a little in New England, though generally, 
in swine brought from the AVest. 

According to the United States Agricultural 
Report for 1866, in some of the counties of 
Virginia, three-fourths of the hogs died ; in the 
Carolinas and Louisiana, almost as many; in 
Georgia, hog raising was abandoned on account 
of the disease ; in Alabama, a man with a herd 
of one hundred and .seventy-four, lost all but 
eighteen ; in Union count}', Tennessee, seven 
hundred died; in Kenton county, Kentucky, 
from four to five thousand — the lo.ss ranging 
from three to forty-five percent, throughout the 
State; in some counties in Illinois and Mis- 
souri, the loss is given at fifty per cent., and, in 
Indiana, a fifth of all the hogs produced for 
five years are said to have perished by this in- 
sidious disease. 

Hog cholera i.s a general disease of the whole 
gy.s^fm, resulting from some poisoning nf the blood; 
and the pleurisy, the inflammation of the lung>-, 
the ulceration of the intestines, the superficial 
ulcers and swellings, and other ailments are 
only the local effects or results of the general 
disease. 

The symptoms are a refusal of food ; an in- 
tense thirst; difficult breathing; the animal 
staggers and falls; in most cases there is diar- 
rhea, with copious fluid discharges of offensive 
matter; in some cases there is vomiiing; the 
legs are swelled ; purple spots appear first on 
the nose and head, and, as these multiply and 
become ulcers, the animal dies. From investi- 
gations by Doctors George Sdtton, of Indi- 
ana, and G. L. Collins, of Rhode Island, the 
disease would seem to be a sort of pleuro-pneu- 
nioni.a. 

Dr. Edwin M. Snow,* of Rhode Island, de- 
nies that the disease is contagious, as it is 
tliought to be by Dr. Sutton, and adds: "The 
following, as I understand the subject, are the 
causes, not only of this disease among swine, 
but also of the disease referred to among cattle, 
as well as of epidemics in the human race, viz.: 



"1. An epidemic nlmospherical poison . 
" 3. The local conditions or circumstanres adapted 
to receive and propagate the poison existing in the 



' Eseny in V. S. Agricultur;il Roi-urt for l^r.: 



Of the.se causes, says Dr. Snow, very little 
else is known ; we do not know what are the 
chemical or electrical changes in the air by 
which the poisons are generated, nor very much 
about the local conditions adapted to their 
propagation. Of this last, however, we know 
that some of the conditions favorable to the 
spread of the disease are low ground ; impure 
air arising from filthy pens; overcrowding; 
the use of improper and unwholesome food; 
and the want of pure water. The mention nf 
these stimulants of the disease, suggests the 
preventive conditimis-:— and every farmer shou'd 
remember that the disea.se is malignant, and in 
prevention is the only safety. 

Treatment : Remove to a clean, dry pen ; 
stimulants and tonics of some description, with 
plenty of pure air, pure water, and suitable 
nourishment must be given. A correspondent 
of the Prairie Farmer says; "I have resided 
in Illinois one year, and I have had sixty head 
of hogs on hand during that time. They have 
had the cholera, but I have not lost one from 
it. I feed three parts wood-ashes, two parts 
salt, one and a half parts copperas, one and 
a half parts sulphur, pulverized. Mix all with 
wheat bran. I feed once a week. Do not feed 
musty corn, and your hogs will not be so apt to 
take the cholera." 

The Western Bural states that hog cholera is 
caused by eating more than the animal can 
well digest, and salt and charcoal or stone coal 
are recommended as proper remedies and pre- 
ventives to be kept at all times within reach 
of the swine. This theory and tre:\tnient are 
now generally adopted throughout the West, 
with quite uniform success. 

Kidney Worms. — Hickory ashes in the food, 
or corn soaked in very strong lye, are said to 
be infallible remedies for kidney worms. Salt, 
brimstone, and charcoal fed occasionally, seem 
to be a preventive. A correspondent of the 
Cultivator, says: " I have often known copperas 
given to hogs with this disease, and never knew 
it fail to cure them in a few days, even after 
the hog was unable to get about by dragging 
the hind legs. The copperas may he given to 
them in portions of about half a spoonful daily, 
in dough, or anything else that they will cat." 

Mange. — Chamber lye is a certain cure for 
the mange; pour it on the hog, and rub well 
with the hands at the time. If a verv bad case 



432 



LIVE stock: 



give a good dose of rea-pepper tea; afterward 
sulphur, a common dose. Feed warm disli- 
watcr and oat-meal mush. Antimony with 
sulphur and hog's lard is Youatt's mange- 
ointment. 

3Ieasks. — This is a disease resulting generally 
from confinement. Keep the sties clean, and 
give a half tea-spoonful of powdered antimony. 
If they are affected with sore throat turn 
them into an open pasture where there is fresh 
feed and ground to root. Pounded charcoal 
mixed with their food is good where pasture 
can not be had. 

Staggers. — The Western Farmer says: "For 
staggers in swine we would recommend cutting 
a notch iu ihe roof of the mouth till the animal 
bleeds freely, then rubbing it with salt, giving 



it a little urine to drink. Pigs have openings 
on tlie inside of the fore legs below the knee 
from which, when in health, a small discharge 
is kept iip. The stoppage of these little orifices 
is supposed to be the origin of the staggers, and 
rubbing them with a corn cob, or other rough 
material, will usually efi'ect a cure." 'Another 
authority applies the same remedy by intro- 
ducing the salt in a slit cut in the forehead — ■ 
the head being first fastened with a rope noosed 
around the upper jaw. 

Thumps. — One table-spoonful of copperas at 
a feed to every ten shoats, given three or four 
times a week, will both prevent and cure this 
disease. The copperas should be dissolved in 
a small quantity of warm water and then mixed 
with the slop or feed. 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE. 



Mi^HODs OF Management and Conditions of Success. 



Poultry. — Poultry and eggs are held in 
liifflicr estimation by the French than by any 
other people. According to a national statis- 
tician, the French eat more tlian seven tliou- 
sand niillion eggs a year, wliioh is .something 
like one hundred and fifty eggs annually lor each 
man, woman, and child! England consumes 
seventy-five thousand tons of eggs a year ! 
The New York Evening Post estimated the 
value of poultry and eggs in the United Slates, 
in 1861, at the enormous sum of two hundred 
and sixty-five millions of dollars — more than 
lialf of which represented eggs. Tlie recent 
shipment of eggs from a single county in Ohio, 
eastward, in one month, was officially reported 
to be one hundred and fifteen thou.sand two 
hundred dozen, and one merchant in Marion 
county shipped one thousand seven hundred 
barrels in a season. The eggs eaten in tliis 
country every year, blown and strung, would 
form a necklace that would encircle the earth 
five times! 

Tlie Ovarium.. — It has been ascertained 
that the ovarium of a fowl is composed of 600 
ovulas or eggs, therefore a hen during the 
the whole of her life can not possibly Lay more 
eggs than 600, which in a n,alural course are 
distributed over nine years in the following pro- 
portion — varied in some breeds : 

First year after birth 1.5 to 2ii 

!ic-COIld " " 100 to 120 

Thiril " " 120 to !.■» 

Fourth " " 100 to US 

Fifth " •' e.0 to 80 

J^ixth ** " .tO to 00 

Seventh " " 33 to 40 

Eighth " " ..„ 1.5 to 20 

Ninth '• " 1 to 10 

It follows that it would not be profitable to 
28 



keep hens after their fourth year, as their pro- 
duce would not pay for their keep, exo.pt when 
they are of a valuable or scarce breed. 

Varieties.* — The common dunghill fowls 
of this country are in great exce.ss of numbers 
over the distinct breeds which have been intro- 
duced from abroad. Some of our native mon- 
grels are excellent fowls and worthy of reten- 
tion; but as a rule they are inferior to the best 
imported breeds, and their owners ought to 
supersede them or seek to anuliorale their 
quality by crossing them immediately with 
some pure-blood. 

That the mixing of ihis foreign blood with 
that of our own native races of domestic birds 
has already proved of great advantage, no one 
who has bred poultry extensively in the last 
fifteen or twenty years will deny; and whether 
we consider the item of increase in s!ze and 
weight, at a given age, attainable with certainty 
through this crossing of stronger foreign blood 
upon our native breed.s, or that of the well-de- 
cided advantage thus obtained in the enlarge- 
ment and' increase of weight and numbers of 
eggs oblained from the product of this crossing, 
the general gain by the process is clearly in our 
favor. 

Shanghai. — We begin with this disagreeable 
and abominable bird, because he is the largest 
of the genus gallus, and we can not omit liim, 
because with some demoralized breeders he is 
still a favorite. A farmer writes from Fond da 
Lac that "the Shanghai is the sumum bonum in 
the chicken line. If he means some bone, he is 



*Thelte8t popular representation of the different varie- 
ties of fow Is known in America, is aporgeous chromo-lith- 
ograph by L. Prano & Co., of Boston. The poitniits of 
the breeds are very accurate, antl the sheet makes a hand- 
some picture for the dining rouni. 



(433) 



434 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE : 



quite correct. Look at the ungainly gawky I 
" Behold him iir all his glory I" 




Saya the sarcastic artist : " Here he is in his 
naked deformity ! neck like the leaning tower 
of Pisa; ruff like a Connecticut umbrella; 
tongue like a weaver's shuttle; fenthers rally- 
ing here and there, in a vain attempt at wings 
and tail ; legs like two California pines — con- 
venient for stepping over stake-and-rider 
fences; spurs like an old-fashioned well-sweep; 
feet a reproduction of the pedal extremities of 
some antediluvian monster!" The Wisconsin 
i^armer exclaims : "We don't see any particu- 
lar advantage in breeding our hens to eat on 
the top of a barrel, and mere size is not to be 
sought at the expense of quality. The pure 
Shanghai is coarse in flesh, an immense con- 
sumer, a small layer, and a miserably clumsy, 
though very willing sitter. In a state of purity 
they are perfect abominations, eating about as 
much as a Chester county hog, while any child 
can count their eggs. For our part, we would 
as soon have a drove of swine or of mules 



wading through our crops or hanging around 
our doors as a flock of such burlesques." 

Srahmas and Cochins. —These, as their names 
imply, are Asiatics and cousins of the Shang- 
hai, though they are so improved, that the re- 
lationship is suggested only by the large size. 
"These fowls," says C. N. Bement, one of our 
best poultry authorities, "are noted for being 
early and abundant layers. Eggs of good 
quality, averaging about two ounces each — 
rather small in proportion to the size of the 
breed — good mothers; chickens strong, grow 
rapidly with good feeding, fit for the table at 
four months old. As has often been said, they 
are early and excellent layers, and arrive at ma- 
turity earlier than any other large breed. By 
the term 'maturity' is meant the age at which 
a pullet will commence laying, and thus perpet- 
uate its race." 

As Winter layers they excel all other fowls; 
and they are so hardy that they CiUi be hatched 
and reared in almost any weather. Frost does 
not seem to affect the eggs. The Scottish Far- 
mer says : " If any one wishes a nice looking, 
useful hen, we have seen nothing that we can 
recommend so well as a cross between a Brah- 
ma cock and a common barn-door fowl." Both 
the Cochins and Brahmas bear confinement to 
a limited space better than most fowls — a four- 
foot fence will hold them. They are, however, 
hirge feeders, and have rather coarse-grained, 
oily flesh. 

W hereji? supply of new-laid eggs is required 
in Winter, irrespective of temperature, Cochins, 
buff, white, or partridge — or Brahmas are the 
the most to be depended on, as when they have 
attained an age of seven or eight months, the 
pullets of these breeds lay quite irrespective of 
season, of course supposing they are well fed. 

A fancier of these large fowls says: "The 
Brahma fowls are the best the hen fever ever 
introduced into this country, for laying in all 
seasons of the year. Taking all things together, 
we believe they will meet the most common 
wants, satisfy the most common requirements, 
and adapt themselves to the most common cir- 
cumstances of those who desire to raise fowls 
for amusement, for eggs, or for market." 

Dorking. — For chickens for the table, there is 
nothing like the Dorkings. The varieties are, 
while, gray, silver gray, and speckled, and they 
are preferred for the table in ^lie order named. 
They are handsome; are moderate, layers of 
large and well-flavored eggs ; restive not calcu- 
lated for confinemfent ; sit steady and are excel 



rOULTRT — VARIETIES OF. 



435 



lent mothers, nither delicate in constitution, 
chickens nut easy to rear. They are to be 
ranked among the large fowls, and are esteemed 
the best in qnality of flesh. 

The Horticulturist says: "The Dorking has 
for years had our preference as a bird for all 
jnirposes of laying, breeding, etc., and all pub- 
lished works agree with us. All who experi- 
ment carefully, and weigh well the subject, we 
believe, will join us in saying, that for one 
breed alone, the pure Dorking has the most 
good qualities. A cross of a Dorking cock 
with Brahma hens, gives, perhaps, the largest 
and best chickens for early eating; but if the 
breeds are not kept pure — in other words, if 
the first cross be bred from, the succession will 
be unworthy the attention of any breeder, and 
therefore we find it best to confine ourselves to 
the Dorking alone." 

It has a large, plump, square body, with a 
remarkably full breast; short, stout, white legs 
and skin, and usually five toes upon each foot. 
There are both white and colored birds, the 
colored generally being considered the more 
hardy and a little the heavier. Their weight 
is from five to eight, and sometimes nine pounds. 
Dorkings feiither early, mature young, fatten 
easily, have a white, fine-grained and tender 
flesh, which is excelled in flavor only by the 
game fowl. 

Hamburg. — For number of eggs, there is noth- 
ing like the Ilamburgs, but they never sit if 
they can help it. They are distinguished as 
"everl.asting layers," of middling-sized, but 
rich eggs, and like all great layers, they are 
poor incubators. They lay eleven months in 
tlie year, but seem to think that an egg has no 
possible destiny except to he eaten. They are 
very handsome birds; bear confinement tolera- 
bly well; are highly attractive on lawns. There 
are five principal subvarieties, the black, gold- 
en-spangled, silver-spangled, golden-penciled, 
and silver-penciled ( Bolton Grays). Hamburgs 
generally have rose combs and blue legs, except 
the black ; the cock will weigh from three to 
four pounds, and the hen from three to three 
and a half pounds ; flesh not first-rate for the 
table. They are considered small eaters, and 
are great favorites of those who require an 
abundance of eggs rather than frequent broods 
of chickens. 

Polands. — This breed seems to be allied to the 
Hamburg. The varieties are white, black with 
white top-knot, and golden and silver-spangled. 
They are remarkably handsome birds; great 
layers, but poor sitters ; unfit for confinement ; 



not good for the table ; chickens are rather del- 
icate, and difficult to rear. The Polands all 
have combs alike — a small comb in front of top 
with two points. Yellow-legged Polands are 
said to be hardier, and excellent for the table. 
Poland hens have been known to lay two hun- 
dred to two hundred and fifty eggs a year. 

The London Field, speaking of the Plamburg 
and the Polands, says : " If the mere weight 
and number of eggs is taken into consideration, 
we believe that no fowls will give so good a 
return for their food as gold and silver-span- 
gled. The pullets of these breeds will, if well 
fed, and with a free range, commence laying at 
about six months of age, and will continue to 
lay ten or eleven eggs a fortnight until n-^xt 
moulting season, .\fler the second sea.son they 
still lay admirably, but not quite so freely. We 
are certain that no fowls will give so many eggs 
for their food as these beautiful birds; and for 
choice as layers, we would .select the silvers. 
There is no doubt that five pullets of this breed 
may be depended on for supplying over one 
thousand eggs in twelve months. But they 
have their drawbacks— they are innocent of all 
knowledge of. bounds, and fly like wild fowl, as 
might be inferred from their laying proj^en- 
sities, do not sit, and their eggs are slightly be- 
low the average size ofthose of the larger fowls." 

Black Spanish. — For size of egg there is noth- 
ing equal to the Spanish; but they are capri- 
cious layers. They are very handsome birds — 
the aristocracy of poultry. Lay larger eggs 
than any other breed, and in great numbers ; 
poor table fowls; thrive in any locality, how- 
ever confined ; do not sit ; their color suited for 
any atmosphere. They are notorious for laying 
eggs that weigh from two and a half to three 
ounces each. They require warm housing and 
good care. As a rule, they yield fewer eggs 
than the Spangles, and mature a little later; 
but if eggs of large size are required, and the 
fowls have to be kept in or near large town.s, 
none answer better than Spanish. 

Bantams. — Useful to those who are fond of 
birds, and are deterred from keeping them by 
lack of accomniodiition ; to those who have only 
a very limited space at command, the diflierent 
varieties of Bantams will prove satisfactory. 
The principal kinds are golden and silver-laced 
Sebrights, game, black and white, and .Ia|ian- 
ese. They are excellent for Winter laying. 

Oame — The Game fowls are good layers of 
rather undersized, delicious eggs ; first class 
sitters and mothers; flesh fine-grained and sec- 
ond to none for the table. They are hardy and 



436 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



great foragers, and can not bear restraint. Tliey 
are excellent fowl« in all respects except their 
pugnacity, and by some are preferred to all 
other breeds. 

Leghorn. — J. C. Cox, of Osborne, Ohio, says : 
" My e.xperience is that the Leghorn fowl has 
no superior wliatever — a new variety called 
Sicilian, I think, nearly equals in number and 
size of eggs, either Brahmas or Spanish. The 
Leghorn will lay two-firths more than Brahmas, 
and one-third more than Spanish. Another 
farmer thinks that "the best fowl for general 
and all purposes combined, is a cross of the 
yellow-legged white Leghorn and Brahma, 
using a cock of the former with hens of the 
latter. The result will be a medium-.sized fowl, 
pure white, yellow leg.s ; superior layers ; not 
all sitting, nor total abstinence from incubation ; 
excellent meat and flesh ; no real objections in 
any respect." 

French. — The prominent French breeds, the 
Crevecceur, La Fleche and lloudan, are little 
known in this country, but the first-named has 
a European reputation of standing at the head 
of all breeds as a table fowl. Their eggs ai'e 
also very large; and the fowl ranks among the 
heaviest, as well as the choicest. A writer says : 
" The Crevecceur has a very bulky appearance, 
and is strongly developed ; crest, whiskers, and 
beard in both hens and cocks. The comb of 
the cock is very prominent and projects like 
two horns; with the hen it is the same, but 
much smaller. The whole plumage is perfectly 
black, legs black, claws four in number, strong 
and long. Tliis breed is suiierior in all respects, 
and justly esteemed as the must precocious and 
finest in the world. There is nothing that 
equals them as a table fowl. The chickens are 
in fine table condition at three months. Last 
year I myself had chickens of this breed, that 
at six months weighed seven and three-quarter 
pounds. Eggs very nmch resemble the Span- 
ish, being fully as large." 

Dominique. — This is the best fowl of common 
stock that we have, and is the only common 
fowl in the country that has^enough distinct 
characteristics to entitle it to a name. These 
fowls are full medium in size, being but little less 
in weight than the Dorking, have full breasts, 
roundish plump bodies, double or single coiubs, 
and yellow legs. Their main plumage has a 
light gray ground color, while each feather is 
barred crosswise with a darker shade. They 
are frequently known by the name of "hawk- 
colored fowls." They are good sitters and 
mothers, are hardy, easily raised, retain their 



peculiarities with great tenacity, have yellow 
skins, a color preferred by many ibr a market 
fowl ; and taking the.se fowls all in all, they are 

: one of the best varieties for common use. 

! Hon. John Wentwohth and Col. IIow- 
LAND, President and Vice-President of the 
Northwestern Poultry Association, have each 
expressed very high opinions of this fowl, the 
former, we believe, breeding them almost ex- 
clusively, at least giving them the preference 
over all other breeds. At a late exhibition of 
this association, the Dominique certainly com- 
pared very favorably with any other variety 
shown. 

Interbreeding'- — Many object to cross- 
ing the pure breeds of the so-called ornamental 
fowls, lest the new strain result in degeneracy; 
but it is not evident why .special qualities may 
not be bred in, and why the whole law of selec- 
tion will not apply to this, as well as to any 
other department. It is believed, on the con- 
trary, that there is every opportunity in this 
country lor those who keep poultry to gain 
whatever shape, size, or characteristic they 
fancy, by carefully breeding to combine and 
perpetuate the superior points of difl'erent 
breeds. See what breeding has done; it is 
thought by naturalists that the eggs of our do- 
mestic hens are, on an average, a third larger 
and heavier than those dropped by the hens of 
the ancients — and analogy would indicate that 
the hens themselves are also larger than their 
feathered progenitor.?. Some of the best poul- 
try-men in this country are advocates of careful 
and persevering experiments to improve on the 
present " pure breeds." 

Concerning' Eggs.- -Eggs, even from 
the same hen, sometimes differ a good deal in 
weight, but retain their general characteristics, 
so that the observing housewife can soon learn 
to pick out those laid by each fowl. 

Barley is said to increase the proportion of 
the yolk of the egg, and rye is said to favor the 
development of the white. 

Loss in Weight. — Eggs lose a slight portion 
of their weight when left to themselves; the 
contents becoming dried up gradually and re- 
duced, so that there is left a solid residuum 
withdrawn toward the s'oall end of the egg, 
the opposite end being filled with air. Eggs 
which weighed two and a half ounces when 
fresh, weighed but a small fraction over an 
ounce at the end of two years. During incuba- 
tion the diminution of weight is pretty rapid. 



POULTRY — CONCEKNING EGGS OF. 



437 



Material for Shelh. — The poultry-breeder 
should furnish his hens with material for 
strong egg-shells. Thi.s enables him to trans- 
port tliem without loss. He sliould know, also, 
that the embryo chick depends on the envelop- 
ing shell for material for its bonea. This it 
witlidraws and appropriates from time to time, 
BO tliat tlie weakened walls often crush in before 
hatching. Sand or gravel will not make sliells. 
Hens should be fed with the ground bones of 
animals, bits of old lime, broken egg-shells, or 
the shells of clams or oysters in a pulverizeil 
form. They must have free access to such ma- 
terials to fortu the shells of their eggs, and to 
grit or gravel to grind the food in their giz- 
zards. Mrs. J. Van Bcren, of Clarksville, 
Georgia, is facetious over lier success in feeding 
bone meal, and in this mood advises: "Don't 
feed your laying hens too much bone, meal, for 
the unusual amount of cackling they will have 
to do may bring on broncliitisl" 

Moidenint) the Eijys. — For seven or eight days 
before hatcl.ing, sprinkle the egg.s with cold 
water while the hen is off. Colonel Hassard, 
in an address before the Canada Poultry Asso- 
ciation, said : " I prefer in cold weather to lift 
the hen otT, wet the eggs, and put her on again. 
There is less risk of a chill. Many complaints 
are made of eggs not hatching, though there are 
birds in them. This is entirely caused by their 
being too dry. Unless moistened, the inner 
membrane of the egg becomes so hard and dry 
that the chick can not break through." 

How to Make Hem Lay. — That excellent au- 
thority, C. P. Bement, says: "Many per.sons 
feed hens too much for laying. To keep twenty 
hens through the Winter, three pints of cojn 
and two quarts of oats or buckwheat per day; 
also, about twice a week, give them shorts or 
bran wet with warm .sour milk, of which they 
seem very lond ; make it quite wet, and put in 
a hirge spoonful of ground black pepper. Give 
theiii all the green stuH' that can be had, such 
;is cabbage leaves, parings of apples, cores and 
all, etc. So fed, with comfortable quarters, 
they will lay all Winter. Keep only early 
Spring pullets. Change cocks every spring. 

" Animal food of some sort is essential lor 
poultry, especially in Winter, when they can not 
get the worms and insects which they pick up 
in Summer. Onions are an admirable food, or 
rather, an adjunct to their ordinary food. If 
given regularly, it is said that they will prevent 
the attacks of the more ordinary disease of 
fowls." 

It is not generally understood, even by those 



who profess to be most deeply versed in tha 
mysteries of henology, that the hen being om- 
niveruus, requires, to insure fecundity, a very 
libeial allowance of meat! It is, however, an 
undoubted fact, that feeding hens too freely on 
meat imparts a strong, unpleasant animal odor 
to the eggs. 

A correspondent of the Massachusetts Plan-- 
man, recommends the following feed for hens, 
as agood preparation to make them lay: "Take 
one quart of corn and boil it in clear water, to 
which add, while boiling, a table-spoonful of 
black pepper, or half the quantity of cayenne; 
this quantity to be allowed to every nine hens 
daily, then the water to be drained ofTfor them 
to drink when sufficiently cuol, or to be mixed 
with one-third lime water." 

Feed regularly. Give a variety of food, and 
give it sparingly each time. In noticing the 
habits of poultry, it will be seen that the pro- 
cess of picking up their food, grain by grain, 
is a very slow one; but it gives them exercise, 
and if they have to snatch for it, all the better, 
as tins assists digestion greatly. 

Saunders' Domestic Poultry has the follow- 
ing excellent rules: "Never overfeed. Never 
allow any food to lie about. Never feed from 
trough, pan, basin, or any vessel. Feed only 
when the birds will run after the feed, and not 
at all if they seem careless about it. Give 
adult fowls their liberty at daybreak." 

Eggs in Winter. — Dame Partington's in- 
quiry is a common one: "Why do hens refuse 
to la} when eggs are dear, and always begin as 
soon as they get cheap?" The fact is, if poul- 
try keepers knew liow to manage their broods, 
tliey could easily have eggs all Winter. The 
simple conditions, which will produce this re- 
sult nine times out of ten, are: 

1. Get the right kind of hens; either some 
hardy common hens, or else the Brahma, Co- 
chin, or Hamburg, or Bolton Gray. 

2. The nearer the temperature of their Win- 
ter house can be made to that of Spring, the 
belter they will lay. It .should face the south, 
with windows to let in the sun. A tolerable 
warmth is indispensable. 

3. The}' must be young; no hen over two 
years old will lay much in Winter. 

4. They must have warm feed; a little meat 
and chopped vegetables now and then; some 
old plastering and gravel on the floor, half a 
barrel of ashes to roll in, and fresh water 
every day. 

A correspondent of the California Farmer 
kept a dozen young hens, a cross between the 



438 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



Cliittagong and Dorking, with a strain of Bol- 
ton Gray, and says: "From tliis source my 
larder lias been supplied with two dozen eggs, 
on an average, through the coklest weeks of 
the Winter, while they were commanding in 
the market five cents a piece. In return for 
this outlay of the biddies, they have been sat- 
isfied with an outlay of their owner of about 
one quart and a half of shelled corn daily, 
washed down with a dish of sour milk, with 
occasionally crumbs from tlie master's table. 
They have been, moreover, confined in a snug 
hen-house, well lighted by one large window 
on the south side, and provided with a box of 
air-slaked lime for tliem to pick materials from 
for their egg-shells, another bo.x of gravel, and 
anotlier of wood ashes, for them to wallow in 
at pleasure. Now and then a bone has been 
thrown in for them, to pick, and a cliunk of 
refuse meat, besides all the egg-shells from the 
kitchen. The time spent in their service has 
averaged fifteen minutes daily. Besides the 
fresh eggs, their other droppings have already 
amounted to two barrels of manure, equivalent 
to guano, with an unfailing supply in prospect." 

J. L. Peabody, of Macoupin, Illinois, tells 
what he learned of a Kansas man about making 
hens lay in Winter. He .says: "He told me 
if I would let my hens huddle together in some 
warm corner, and not let them roost, I should 
get plenty of egg.s. I had about twenty hens; 
my hen-hou,se was a rough shed, eight feet 
square, with a small window and door on the 
east. I took down all the roosting poles, leav- 
ing the nest-boxes only. With a few boards I 
made a small shed, about four feet square, on 
tlie south side of the larger one, and covered 
it with corn fodder. Straw is better. 1 made 
a hole for the hens to pass from the large house 
inio the small one. The result was, my hens 
continued to lay all through the cold weather. 
You will have to drive them in a few limes at 
first ; they will soon learn to go in themselves." 

The South Carolinian states that hog's lard is 
the best thing to mi.x with the dnugh given to 
hens. It says that one cut of this fat as large 
as a walnut, will set a hen to laying immedi- 
ately after she has been broken up from sitting, 
and that, by feeding them with the fat occa- 
sionally, hens continue laying through the 
whole Winter. 

Two most important conditions precedent of 
January eggs are, a warm, clean, and well- 
ventilated hennery, and cooked food given 
warm in the morning. Corn should generally 
be crushed or ground before feeding. Potatoes 



boiled and mixed with meal while warm, are a 
great encouragement to hens. Buckwheat is 
also excellent in the rotation. A frequent feed 
of buckwheat, with a few boiled potatoes, tur- 
nips, mangel wurzel, or other succulent food, 
will generally be paid for four-fold by the eggs 
'laid during the Winter and the Spring. Hens 
starved in Winter will not furnish many eggs 
the coming Spring; yet they may be kept so 
fat as not to lay at all. If kept warm, in a 
roomy, well-lighted hennery, and fed due pro- 
portions of proper food, with other auxiliaries 
above mentioned, they will delight your ears 
all Winter long with the music of the signifi- 
cant cackle, and your palate with savory eggs. 

2^est Eggs. — To have a supply of the.se, in- 
destructible by heat or cold, just empty some 
eggs, as you need them, through as small an 
aperture as possible, mix up with water to the 
consistency of cream, some pulverized plaster, 
and fill the shells brimming full; when they 
have hardened, if you choose to peel them you 
will find them perfect; and if you think your 
Brahmas will be fastidious about color, a little 
annetto mixed in will render the illusion per- 
fect. These are cheaper than the earthen nest 
eggs purchased at the crockery store. 

To Cure Hens of Sitting. — A correspondent 
of the Farmer's Advocate says he cured liis hens 
of persistent sitting, by shutting them in a tub 
having an inch or two of water on the bottom. 
He keeps them there during the day, and puts 
them on the roost at night. If not cured the 
first day, he gives them another "water-cure" 
treatment, when they will be glad to stand on 
their feet. It will ak^o generally cure hens of 
sitting to place them under some up-turned 
box or barrel, without tbod for twenty-four 
hours. Ducking is also much in vogue as a 
penalty. 

RaLslngr for Market. — Poultry to fat- 
ten r^iiidly iijusi be, like hogs, restricted to a 
limited space. Freedom and fat are incorapat- 
able. Fattening fowls should never have food 
lying by them, for they are just as liable to 
overeat as any other stock. By cramming 
themselves, as they often do, they impair di- 
gestion and become dyspeptic; yet, not losing 
an appetite for food, they continue to eat and 
thus make the trouble wor-se. When they be- 
come crop bound, although they .still eat, they 
grow poor and sometimes die as of starvation. 
They luxuriate on grass or clover, which are a 
necessity fdrthem; in Winter they like man- 
gels or Swedes. They must have access to 



POULTRT — RAISING FOR MARKET. 



439 



plenty of pure water. Cooked food is the most 
iiuti'itious, most easily digested, .and altogether 
best for rapid fattening. Quietness is especi- 
ally desirahle, and every pen of fattening fowls, 
should be partially darkened. 

Generally speaking. Spring chickens are the 
most desirable, and near cities they should be 
hatched in February or March and got ready 
fur market by May or June. They require 
great care, but they return an ample profit. 
The most usual time in which hens manifest a 
desii-e to incubate, extends from March to May 
or June, and at this season chickens may be 
reared without any e.\traordinary precautions. 

How and What to Feed. — The Massachusetts 
Ptoicman gives good advice, thus : "It is of no 
use to put up a skeleton and expect to make a 
fine, fat, tender-meated fowl of it by feeding in 
confinement. Fattening is ailding fat to lean. 
You must have the lean laid on while the bird 
is running at liberty. No amount of feeding 
will make a hard, old fowl tender. If a hen is 
over ten months she may as well be ten years. 
She has passed the age for the table. She is 
old at ten months and ought not to be palmed 
off as a chicken. 

" Four months, or at most five months, is old 
enough to take chickeris for the table, and if 
you take" them at that age, in good fleshy con- 
dition, three or four weeks of confinement 
ought to bring them into first-rate condition for 
the table. If they are going to market tliey 
may be crowded to advantage, but for home 
consumption it is not needed. If you make a 
coop big enough for fifteen or twenty fowls and 
put four or live into it they will not readily 
fatten. They have too much room. To fatten 
rapidly they nuist not have room to move about 
freely, but simply enough to stand and shift 
their position. They ought to be fed three 
limes a day. Indian meal or dough is one of 
the best articles of food to lay on fat. Oat 
meal mixed with milk is also firsl-rale. Either 
subtance should be fresh mixed each time, and 
no more ought to be given than will be eaten 
up at the time. If you give too much the bird 
will overfeed, or become cloj-ed, that is, the ap- 
petite is destroyed, and the food gets sour, and 
if the fowl does not take a decided distaste to 
it, it will not thrive upon it. 

"Feed fattening fowls at day-break in the 
morning. Cover them up warm at night and 
protect them from cold during the day. Feed 
regularly, never on stale food. Never subject 
them to draughts of air. Never place them 
where they can see other fowls running about. 



In these circumstances they will fatten beauti- 
fully in three weeks, and there is no known 
process by which they can be kept healthy after 
they are well fattened. Begin then three weeks 
before you want to kill. Calculate the number 
the coop will hold, and fill it so full that the 
fowls can do but little more than stand com- 
fortably. You can't expect to do more than 
put on flesh while fowls are running at large. 
You can't fatten. If you want to get the liigh- 
est price in market, you must coop and feed 
three weeks in the manner indicated." 

Charcoal has been tried in fattening fowls, 
with marked advantage; the difference in 
weight produced, amounting to fifteen or 
twenty per cent., besides a decided advant.age 
in tenderness and flavor. Tlie charcoal was 
pulverized and mixed with the food, about a gill 
daily to one turkey, and also left free on the 
ground. 

The London Field says : " In the course of 
about a fortnight to three weeks, at the utmost, 
a fowl will have attained, under this system of 
feeding, the highest degree of fatness of which 
it is capable, and it must then be killed; for if 
the attempt be made to keep it any longer in 
that slate, it becomes diseased, from an inflam- 
matory aclion being established which renders 
the flesh liard and even unwholesome. When 
the fowls have arrived at a state fit for killing, 
they should be kept for twelve or fifteen hours 
without food or water, in order that the intes- 
tines may be as empty as possible, otherwise 
the bird turns green and useless in a short 
time." 

GKYEl.rK's "Poultry Breeding" recommends 
seasoning food with salt, and adds: 

" Experiments liave proved that the season-i 
ing poultry food with bay salt produces the fol- 
lowing advantages: 

"1. To render the fattening of shorter dura- 
tion. 

"2. To produce, with the same quantity of 
food, more flesh and fat. 

"3. To give the flesh greater firmness and 
flavor, and to the fat more compactness and a, 
finer grain." 

Boiled Grain. — C. N. BEirENT says: "There 
is no saving by boiling oats or buckwheat to 
feed to poultry. Corn, on the other hand, is 
more profitable when boiled than when given 
raw, for the fowls, which would have consumed 
two quarts of uncooked or raw corn, consumed 
only three quarts of the boiled grain, whicli 
are not equivalent to three pints of raw. Even 
calculating that they were to consume three 



440 



POGLTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



quarts a d:iy of the boiled grain, there would be 
a saving of one-fourth. In very cold weather, 
it should be fed to the fowls hot, and the water 
in which it was boiled may be given them to 
drink. 

Barley is also much more economical when 
boiled than raw, for fowls which would have 
eaten two quarts of raw a day, ate three quarts 
of boiled grain, showing a saving of two-fifths 
by giving boiled instead of raw barley. 

How Many Pounds of Chicken will a Bushel of 
Com .l/((/.f.'— According to the WeMern Rurul, 
one bushel of corn — fed raw in the grain— will 
produce nine pounds of poultry. J. C. Thomp- 
son, of New York, says that the same grain 
ground and scalded, will produce twenly 
pounds of poultry. The French never feed 
whole grain; they can not afford it. 

How to Kill and Dress Poultry. — Geyelin 
deprecates the common barbarous methods of 
killing, and says: "Open the beak of the fowl, 
then with a pointed and narrow knife make an 
incision at the back of the roof, which will di- 
vide the vertebra: and cau.se immediate death; 
after which hang the fowl up by the legs till 
the bleeding cea.ses; then rinse the beak out 
with vinegar and water. Fowls killed in this 
manner keep longer and do not present the 
unsightly external marks as those killed by the 
ordinary system of wringing the neck. When 
the entrails are drawn immediately after death 
and the fowl stutied, as they do in France, with 
paper shavings or cocoa-nut fibers, to presei've 
their shape, they will keep much longer fresh. 
8ume breeders cram their poultry before kill- 
ing, to make them appear heavy; this is a 
most injudicious plan, as the undigested food 
soon enters into fermentation, and putrefaction 
takes place, as is evidenced by the quantity of 
greenish, putrid-looking fowls that are seen in 
the markets." 

A housewife adds: "Dip the body in boiling 
water, then pick quick ; when through douse 
the fowl in hot water again, then throw it into 
a tub of cold water; let it remain three or four 
minutes, this will make it swell out plump, and 
will keep twenty-four hours longer than if it 
was not thrown in the cold water." 

How they Fatten Fowls in France. — In France 
the chickens are fattened for table use in the 
following ways: They are confined separately 
in small coops, and are not allowed to see each 
other or other fowls. They are crammed either 
with a liquid, consisting of barley meal and 
milk, poured down the throat of the fowl 
through a funnel three times a day, or they are 



crammed twice a day with pellets made of meal 
of barley and buckwheat mixed into a paste 
with milk. One meal nuist be digested before 
another is crammed down. It generallj' takes 
from two to three weeks to fatten a fowl. 

Peat as a Deodorizer. — The employment of 
peat, or dry muck, as the means of deodorizing 
poultry houses, appears to be worthy of more 
attention than it has hitherto received. The 
fact that from four hundred to five hundred 
fowls can, by its aid, be kept in one building 
for months together, with less smell than is to 
be found in any ordinary fowl-house capable 
of accommodating a dozen chickens, is very 
conclusive as to its efficacy. In the building of 
the National Poultry Company, where this fact 
lias been ascertained, .seven or eight fowls are 
kept in each compartment, twelve feet by three 
feet, and yet there is no smell or trace of 
moisture. 

To this we m;iy add that peat is one of the 
best compounds for hen manure, absorbing and 
retaining all its richness and making of it a 
most powerful guano. Have this regularly 
swe|)t up every Saturday, packed away in bar- 
rels, and sprinkled over with plaster. Dana, 
with force and truth, says: "The strongest of 
all manures is found in the droppings of the 
poultry." Next year each barrel of it will 
manure half an acre of land; save it, then, and 
add to the productive energies of your soil. 

To get rid of Epicurean Cattsi. — 

When a cat is seen to catch a chicken tie it 
round her neck, and make her wear it for 
two or three days. Fasten it securely, for she 
will make great eflbrts to get rid of it. Be 
firm for the time, and the cat will be cured. 
She will never again desire to touch a bird. 

To g'et rid of Intrusive Hens. — 

If your neighbor's hens visit you too often, feed 
them some gruel, and coax them to lay their 
eggs on your side of the fence. Then, in your 
most amiable mood, show your neighbor how 
much your egg-harvest has increased, and beg 
him not to restrain his poultiy of their free- 
dom. You probably will not be troubled long, 
and this means of defense is perfectly just. 

A few Stray Grains. — Pigeons are 
hatched in eighteen days; chickens in twenty- 
one; turkeys in twenty -six ; ducks and geese 
in thirty — all sometimes varying a day or two. 

It is a good hen that will lay one hundred 
and fifty eggs the first year; one hundred and 



POULTRY — EGGS, ETC. 



441 



tliirty the second; ami one hundred the third ; 
aflor wliich she ought to "go to pot." 

Try eggs by putting tliem in cold water. 
Those that sink the soonest are fre.shest ; those 
tliat are stale or addled will float. There is no 
infallible test, but this is a."! good as any. 

I'lilverized charcoal given occasionally is a 
prtveiitire of putrid aflections, to which fowls 
an- very subject. 

Pulverized challc administered with soft feed 
will cure diarrhea. This disorder is caused by 
want of variety in the food, or by too much 
green food. 

Fowls expofied to dampness are apt to be 
troubled with catarrh, which will run to croup, 
if not attended to. Ked pepper mixed with 
soft feed, fed several times a week, will relieve 
the cold. 

To prevent hens from eating their eggs: 
Neatly break a hole in the end of a soft-boiled 
egg. llemove tlie contents and mix with a tea- 
epoonful of mustard ; then relill the shell. 
Set this in the way of tlie egg-eating jenny. 
One mouthful usually effects a cure. 

To color eggs: Fowls, to which a portion of 
chalk is given with their food, lay eggs re- 
markable for their whiteness. By substituting 
for chalk a calcarous earth, rich in oxide of 
iron, the color of the egg-shells will be of an 
orange red. 

Never permit the hens to roost more than 
four or live feet high, for they frequently hurt 
themselves in coming down. By changing 
roosts from eight or ten to four feet, hens will 
remain healthy, lay no more soft-shelled eggs, 
and alight without injury. 

Many lose their young chickens from neglect 
to scald the meal, and wonder what the matter 
was. 

In selecting fowls for breeding, we should 
bear in mind that in male birds full maturity is 
seldom attained till the third year, while the 
pullet in her second year generally assumes the 
matronly appearance of her motlier. We 
would advise the dismissal of the cock after his 
fifth year, and the breeding hen after her 
^fourth. 

In France artificial egg-hatching machines 
are considerably used; but in this country 
Iiunjan labor is too expensive, as compared 
with hen labor, to justify their adoption. 

The Patent " Perpetual, Hen-Feeders " will 
not do either ; they save a little human labor, 
at the expense of much "hen fruit." It is 
found that when hens can supply themselves I 



indefinitely from one of these automatic ma- 
chines, they get fat, forget to deposit their usual 
installment of eggs, and at last, very likely, die 
of liver complaint. 

It is unprofitable to keep a large number of 
hens together. If many must be kept, put 
them in separate apartments, holding not more 
than ten each. 

Transporting eggs by rail generally destroys 
their vitality. 

Eggs ought to be sold by weight instead of 
by count; average eggs weigh eight to the 
pound, while of small ones it takes from ten to 
fifteen to make a pound. 

Hovj Many Eggs jcill a Hen Lay Annually f — 
A correspondent of the Country Gentleman said 
that his hens — native.* — averaged only thirty- 
five or forty eggs a year. This brought out 
numerous rejoinders that lie before us, showing 
a much larger general average. C. N. Bejient 
thought that a dozen good hens, well-kept, 
would furnish ten or twelve hundred eggs a 
year. 

F. Ckook .says : " In 1864 I kept forty-four 
hens, and had fresh eggs laid every day in the 
year; in January, 112; February, 258 ; March, 
.549; April, 775; May, 712; June, 579; July, 
.557; August, 579; September, 439; October, 
247 ; November, 238 ; December, 112. Total, 
5,158 ; average per hen, 117 each." 

James E. Quinlan has gathered 2,910 egg? 
from twenty-seven hens in seven months. J. 
S. Watkins writes: " In 1864 I kept eighteen 
hens, and they laid 2,793 eggs, and raised one 
hundred chickens; average, 155 eggs each hen. 
In 1SG5 I kept twenty-five hens, and they laid 
3,326 eggs, and raised one hundred chickens; 
average, 133 eggs each hen. The account for 
seven months in 186G is thus: Thirty-two 
hens have laid 2,915 eggs, and raised seventy 
chickens; average, 91 eggs each. Our fowls 
are of the Black Spanish and White Leghorn 
breeds." 

Another says: " Last year I raised ten pul- 
lets of the White Leghorn variety ; they were 
hatched the first of May, and commenced lay- 
ing the first of September. From that time 
until the first of July this year, they have 
layed 1,510 eggs, at a cost of fifteen cents per 
week for keep, which amounts to S24 95. 
The eggs I have sold average fifty cents per 
dozen which amounts to $62 95, leaving a net 
profit of 538. This year I have raised about 
two hundred chickens." 

The.se are high figures ; but there is no doubt 



442 



rOULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



that any good breed of liens, properly kept, 
can be made to average, by the thousand, a 
hundred eggs each, annually. 

Diseases of Poultry-— Generally, 
if a hen gets sick, it will cost more to cure her 
than she is worth. But there are a few com- 
mon diseases that may treated. A good pre- 
ventive of disease among poultry is sulphur. 

Gapes. — The gapes, an ailment of young 
chickens, results from a collection in the throat 
of numerous small red worms, which distress 
the cliick, catising it to open and shut its 
mouth. Tlie origin is tliought to be the drink- 
ing of rain water or impure water; Indian meal 
is also believed by some to develop and aggra- 
vate the disease. Camphor is said to be a cer- 
tain preventive, and a lump as large as a pea- 
nut, dissolved in a vessel fniui whicli they 
drink, will keep the gapes from the cliickens. 
A thimbleful of powdered sulphur mixed in the 
feed once a week, is also said to be a prevent- 
ive. Salt, mixed in tlie food of the chicks, is 
confidently recommen<led by some. 

Perliaps the surest cure in the earliest stage, 
is the introduction of a small feather or a 
looped horse-hair into the windpipe, and the 
withdrawal of the worms. This is much prac- 
ticed, but needs skill and a steady hand. Af- 
ter taking out the worms, give the chick a tea- 
Bpoonful of strong, black pepper water, and let 
it go with the mother. The worms may some- 
times be dislodged and the disease cured by 
compelling the chicks to inhale tobacco smoke 
until tliey become insensible. Some put snuff 
in the niduth. 

J. H. Mabbett writes: "Take a four or 
eight ounce vial and till it with large grains of 
wheat; then fill the vial with turpentine and 
let it stand, corked tightly. When you see any 
of your chicks begin to droop and gasp, catch 
thera and give each one grain of the wheat. 
If in the morning, give another at night. If 
in the afternoon, give one the next morning. 
I have never found this to fail in my family." 

Lice. — A correspondent of the New England 
Homestead says, vermin luay be driven from hen 
houses by the following plan: 1, Give the hen 
house a thorough white-washing, nests, boxes, 
roosts, and everything about the premises; 2, 
sprinkle sulphur in the nest-boxes three or 
four times during the year; 3, keep the floor 
constantly covered with ashes, loam, and gravel, 
and clean out at least once a montli ; 4, rub 
lard under the wings of the mothers. 

Lice may be kepi from fowls by applying a 



drop or two of turpentine or kerosene oil upon 
the head and under the wings. By putting 
sycamore leaves, tobacco leaves, or fresh pine 
shavings in a nest, vermin may be banished 
from the vicinity. 

Diptheria. — The American Stock Journal says : 
"This disease may be cured easily by the fol- 
lowing method : Take a small wooden paddle 
ind remove the yellow matter irom the tongue, 
ind then apply lard and black pepper to the 
diseased parts. A single application is gener- 
ally sufficient." 

'ips. — Charles L. Thayer says : " Give 
one tea-spoonful of the best pepper-sauce every 
other day, and every other day give one tea- 
poonfnl of pepper-sauce and one of castor-oil 
mixed, until the fowl is better. I have just 
cured a rooster that had the pip so bad that his 
comb turned very black before I knew what 
ailed him. I cured him with the above re- 
ceipt." Browne, in his "Poultry Yard" ad- 
vises to " feed on a low vegetable diet." 

Scouring, or diarrhea is caused by the too 
abundant use of relaxing food. Cayenne pep- 
per, or chalk, or both, mixed with meal or 
boiled rice, check the complaint. 

Apoplexy. — S. M. Saunders, in an essay on 
diseases of poultry, says: "Apoplexy with 
fowls, as in human beings, is difficult to cure. 
It is genei-ally the result of high feeding, and 
is mo.st common among laying hens, which are 
sometimes found dead on the nest — the expul- 
sive efforts required in haying being the imme- 
diate cause of the attack. The only hope for 
cure consists in an instant and copious bleed- 
ing, by opening a vein with a sharp-pointed 
pen-knife or lancet. The largest of the vein.s 
seen on the under side of the wing should be 
selected, and opened in a longitudinal direc- 
tion, not cut across, and so long as the tliumb 
is pressed on the vein at any point between the 
opening and the body, the blood will be found 
to flow freely. Light food and rest should be 
given the bird after the operation." 

Hen Cholera. — "This disease, so much dreaded 
by poultry raisers, may be checked and abso- 
lutely cured by giving the chickens, in one gal- 
lon of fresh, clean water, one tea-spoonful of 
chloride of lime, once a day for three or four 
days, and, after a few days' interval, repeating, 
and so on for a few weeks." 

Another says: "The symptoms are lassitude 
and emaciation, and, in very severe cases, the 
voiding of white matter, streaked with yellow. 
This appears like the yolk of an egg when 
stale, and clings to the feathers near the vent. 



POULTRY — TURKEYS — DUCKS. 



443 



Treatment — take white clialk, two parts ; rice 
flour, three parts, aiui flour of sulphur one part, 
nuiistened with alum, to a paste. Give this 
twice a <lay till relieved. For drink, give one 
tea-ripjunful of tincture of iron to three parts 
of water. 

Turkeys. — The domestic turkey is exclu- 
sively a native of Americ;i,* and it is said that 
plain Ben. Franklin wished to make it our 
national emblem instead of the eaji;le. This 
useful bird, graced with cranberry-sauce, has 
been a prominent auxiliary in the celebration 
of the American thanksgiving; and in 1864, 
there were no less than six hundred tons of tur- 
Xci/s sent to the soldiers of the Federal army in 
the field. 

" The finest and strongest turkeys,'' says 
Browne's Poultry Yard, "are those of a 
bronzed black, resembling, as closely as pos- 
sible, the original stock. These are not only 
reared the most easily, but are generally the 
largest and fatten the most rapidly." The 
norlicuUu7-ist says: "They do not roam so 
much as the common turkey; they are double, 
treble, and sometimes quadruple the size of the 
common, and are also more tender in flesh, 
besides being a much finer-flavored bird for 
the table." The editor adds that he has seen 
those that weighed upward of forty pounds, 
and known of several that weighed fifty pounds. 

Halching.—lhe Poultry Yard siiys : "The 
turkey-hen is a steady sitter, and in this respect 
resembles the wild bird — nothing will induce 
her to leave the nest; indeed, she often requires 
to be removed to her food, so overpowering is 
her instinctive affection; she must be well su|)- 
plied with water within her reach. Should she 
lay any eggs after she has commenced incuba- 
tion, these should be removed— it is proper, 
therefore, to mark those which were given to 
her to sit upon. The hen should on no account 
be rashly disturbed ; no one except the person 
to whom she is accustomed, and from whom 
she receives her food, should be allowed to go 
near her, and the eggs, unless circumstaiues 
imperatively require it, should not be meddled 
with. On or about the thirty-first day, the 
chicks leave the eggs." 

Rearing the Young. — J. LuTRON says in the 
Prairie Farmer: "Young turkeys are apt to die 
before they attain the age of three weeks. I 
came to the conclusion that the fatality among 
them was caused by vermin, heavy feed, and 



tulk.-y is il.rivfd In.ni the wild turkuy of 
ica, aud ivt Iroiu that of the United StateB, 



cold, damp weather. My method, this season, 
has been this: Take the eggs of the first laying 
and put under hens; the .second laying let the 
turkeys hutch. Two or three days before hatch- 
ing, sprinkle the nest and the fowls themselves 
with sulphur. When the young were hatched, 
I took a little sulphur, gunpowder, and lard, 
mixed, and greased their heads and neck.s, to 
keep off the vermin while the young brooded. 
If it does not remain on, in eight or ten days 
put on another coat. I took equal quantities 
of wheat bran and Indian meal, and wet with 
sour milk, or loppered milk, with a good lot of 
fine cut chives, once in two or three days in it, 
and fed them until a month or six weeks old, 
then lessen the bran. Feed early in the morn- 
ing to keep them from rambling in the dew. 
Such has been my method of management, and 
I have lost only two out of forty hatched." 

A correspondent of the Germuntown Telegraph 
thinks corn meal hurts young turkeys, and the 
Country Gentleman says: "Do not hasten the 
newly-hatched turkeys from the nest. Let them 
remain from twelve to twenty-four hours under 
the mother, to gain strength. When removed, 
feed hard-boiled eggs, finely chopped, sweet- 
milk curds, or eggs and milk custard cooked 
hard. For three or four days feed very often, 
every two hours at least, and keep from dews 
and rain. Give no uncooked Indian meal, and 
no food of too soft or watery a nature. Give 
plenty of pure, fresh water, sour-milk curds, 
cracked corn and barley, wheat and rye, and 
plenty of onions, root and top, chop|icd into 
their feed." 

Turkeys are generally a very profitable 
"crop;" averaging, in many parts of New 
England, nearly a hundred per cent, net upon 
their cost. Every farmer can aflbrd to keep 
some; for they need little care except in wet 
and cold weather, when they should be housed. 
Turkeys caponized (castrated) fatten faster, and 
with less expense, and make sweeter flesh. 

DucUs. — The duck in its wild state is found 
throughout Europe, Asia, and America. He 
is a magnificent fellow, and it is hard to un- 
derstand how the symmetry of his shape should 
have so entirely departed, and his gray coat — 
green and violet and orange and brown — should 
have faded to such a draggle-tail dinginess as 
marks the domestic duck of the modern poultry 
market. Naturalists count nearly a hundred 
species of the duck genus scattered over all 
parts of the world ; and there is little doubt 
that the intending keeper of this profitable 



444 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE : 



bird may take his choice from at least twenty 
difTeient sorts. Liglit-colored duc^s are gener- 
ally of milder flavor and less gamy tlian their 
darker brethren ; and those that are reared 
exclusively on vegetable diet will have whiter 
and more delicate flesh than those allowed to 
feast on animal ofTal. 

All ducks are good layers if they are care- 
fully fed and tended. Ducks generally lay in 
the night or early in the morning. While a 
duck is in perfect health she will do this; and 
one of the surest signs of indisposition is irreg- 
ularity in laying. The eggs laid will invaria- 
bly nearly approach the color of the layer — 
light-colored ducks laying white eggs, and dark 
ducks greenish-blue eggs ; dark-colored lay the 
largest eggs. The simple way to fatten ducks 
is to let them have as much substantial food as 
they will eat. They will require no cramming; 
as they will cram themselves to the verge of 
suflbcalion ; they should at the same time be 
allowed plenty of exercise and clean water. 
The Aylesbury duck is a favorite in Great Krit- 
ain for its large size. Its snowy plumage and 
comfortable comportment makes it a credit to 
the poultry yard, while its broad and deep 
breast, and its ample back, convey the assur- 
ance that your satisfaction will not cease at its 
death. 

Ducks, which are the most industrious and 
voracious devourers of insects, have this ad- 
vantage over their feathered congeners, that 
they can not scratch, and have very limited 
powers of flight over fences and other barriers 
into forbidden precincts. A correspondent sets 
forth that ducks fatten twice as rapidly as 
chickens, some of them putting on fat at the 
rate of two pounds a month. 

The Guinea Fo«'l. — The Guinea fowl 
has advantages; it is hardy, and very pro- 
lific of small nutritious eggs, with hard shells, 
capable of being transported any distance. 
When young, it is delicate eating, the flesh be- 
ing little inferior to our partridge, and in season 
when chickens and prairie hens are scarce — in 
March. 

And it has disadvantages; a song like a 
handsaw, but good to scare away thieves and 
hen-hawks; they mate in pairs, necessitating 
as many males as females ; they are not good 
sitters, but the hen that hatches their eggs must 
be, for the term of incubation is longer than 
that of chicks. The terrible and incessant 
clatter of the Guinea hen — "buckwheat!"— has 
prevented her from becoming a favorite any- 



where One is inclined to address her as 
O'CoNNELL did the noisy fellow who was in- 
terrupting his .speech; "I wi.sh you had a hot 
potato in your mouth." 

Geese. — The goose is an historical Jbird, 
but it dates so far back that its origin, and even 
its precise ornithological classification, is un- 
known. The varieties of the tame goose are 
numerous. They are a great nuisance when 
permitted to go at large. 

The white China and Bremen geese are larger 
and better than our common breeds, being far 
more prolific, and good sitters and mothers; 
their feathers are more plentiful, and sell at 
a higher price, and they are more profitable in 
every way. The China geese are all specifi- 
cally, if not generically, distinct from our com- 
mon geese. Tliey are distinguished by a large 
knob or excrescence on the top of the bill next 
the head, that increases with age; beak strong 
and high-ridged; their altitudes graceful and 
swan-like on the water, but stifl' and usually 
quite erect on land ; voices, harsh, loud, and 
frequent ; while their wings and tails are sliqrt, 
rendering it difficult for them to fly. Time of 
incubation, thirty-three to thirty-five days. 
There is generally great dissimilarity in size, 
the ganders being much larger than their 
mates. 

A correspondent of the Ohio Fanner gives 
his method of hatching: "I make a deep nest 
of horse dung, cover with a little straw or 
leaves; wet the eggs about twice a week with 
salt water; the eggs usually hatch well, and 
the goslings are strong and 'healthy. I have 
had them come off before the snow was gone. 
Then for feed, I cut a handful of hay quite fine 
several times a day, and give them a little corn 
dough and salt it as for myself; have salt and 
fresh water for Ihem to drink. I always take 
them from the hen, when they are old enough 
to run, let them have a yard, and take them in 
nights. Most people feed their goslings too 
much." 



THE HONEY-BEE. 

The culture of the honey-bee has not re- 
ceived, in America, that intelligent attention 
which it deserves. Out of a hundred bee-keep- 
ing farmers, not (en even tuy to learn the habits 
or requirements of the ingenious creatures 
which they expect will furnish them with de- 
licious fo'/d. The old barbarous methods are 



nONEY-BEK. 



445 



still largely in vogue; liives remain a prey lo 
mice and moths, accident and famine, overrun 
with weeds, and left to decay. Formerly it 
was an inhuman practice to suffocate and de- 
stroy the bees, thereby uniting murder with 
robbery; but good managers have, for many 
years past, preserved them, and fed them dur- 
ing the Winter, by which plan five hives, on 
one pound each, have, in ten years, yielded a 
profit of one thousand two hundred and eighty 
pounds. To destroy the swarm for the sake of 
the honey is like cutting down fruit trees to get 
the fruit. 

One thing may properly be said here: Bees 
will not thrive under the indili'erence with which 
most farmers regard tliem, and a man had better 
let them alone, or, at least, not keep them as an 
item of profit, unless he is willing to read and 
follow some reliable treatise on bee-culture, like 
"L.\>'GSTROTH on the Honey-Bee," or Quin- 
sy's "Bee-Keeping Explained," and then give 
a few minutes every day to ascertain the condi- 
tion and needs of his busy colonies."* 

Natural historians celebrate the industry, wis- 
dom, economy, and foresight of these little crea- 
tures, and their sagacity, approaching to reason. 
They are divided into three cla.sses, queens, 
drones, and workers — these three orders forming 
a strong, harmonious, centralized government. 
It can, perhaps, hardly be called a republic, as it 
fosters an order of aristocracy in the drones, and 
the queen rules supremely, coquetting with her 
large and burdensome class of noWlity, until 
the days get shorter, when they are slain by an 
insurrection of workers — the old protest of the 
commonwealth against indolence. The three 
classes in every bee-hive are : 

First, the queen — the only perfect female. 
The queen is considerably larger tlian a drone 
or worker, and so different as to be readily dis- 
tinguished. She is sometimes a glossy black 
with orange underneath the bod}-, sometimes a 
ring of orange where the body and abdomen 
meet. Her antenuie turn down, 
vjaiiio- ,tr ^""^ ''^'' "'"S'^i frcui the length 
'^J^^^' of her body, seem shorter than 
* wV those of drone or worker. She 
possesses her weapon of defen.se, 
in common with the worker, but 
is said never to use it except 
Fie, 1— Qdeen. „pon a royal rival. She enjoys 
longer life than her subjects, and feeling the 
perpetuation of her species to rest upon her, 
she goes forth but once to fit her for maternity, 




tou, Uistiict of Columbia. 



Ill is published at Washing- 



and then remains in the bo.sora of her faithful 
subjects, assiduously restoring the ravages time 
makes in her peojjle. 

She is the only mother of the hive, and de- 
posits a fabulous number of eggs, sometimes 
75,000 or 100,000 per annum. The eggs be- 
come males, or drones, females and neuters, or 
workers. When the hive becomes too full for 
thrift or comfort, the queen leads forth a mixed 
colony of young and old, and recommences her 
procreatal duties. Her fertility decreases with 
age, and expert apiarians give young queens to 
their stocks at pleasure. If she die, the work- 
ers raise a new monarch from a neuter egg, by 
transferring it to a royal cell, feeding it on 
royal ambrosia, and subjecting it to their mys- 
terious alchemy. 

Second — the drone, or male. These lazy and 
helpless aristocrats of our little insect mon- 
archies have been the subject of lively dispute, 
but American naturalists have at last concluded 
that, as Nature has furnished them neither 
with means of self-preservation nor defense, 
they exist solely for the continuation of their 
species. Drones are pro- 
duced fi-om the same kind 
of eggs as workers, fed on 
a more liberal allowance 
of different food. Their 
luxuriousexistence is brief. 
Coming with the flowers of -^ 
Vignif 2-Pr.nNE. Spring, they are slain be- 
fore Winter, by the workers, who know them 
only as dependent idlers. Drones can not 
sting; can not gather pollen, secrete honey, or 
practice the art of masonry. Modern inquiry 
having ascertained their only use, bee-raisers 
regulate their number, and discontinue their 
production, by removing drone-combs from 
the hive. 

2'hird — workers. The little brown worker; 
the "busy bee" of the moralist and poet, is too 
well known for description to be necessary. 
They are smaller than queens or drones, and 
of different organization. They are called 
neuters, being undeveloped females, not pos- 
sessing the power of procreation. They are 
admirably adapted for ceiling 
their house.?, building the ele- 
gant comb that fills them, and 
gathering and conveying to its 
dependent inmates the food and 
water that sustains them. They 
are divided into courses for the 
systematic performance of their duty of senti- 
nels, forager.a, ventilators, comb-builders, com- 





446 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE. 



missaries and nurses of the young. With 
their tongue.s, a very changeable shaped and 
adaptable instrument, they construct their niar-| 
velous combs, succeeding each other, so as to 
keep the work always in progress — neither 
night nor inclement weather stops this labor. 

In proportionate size, the queen bee is eight 
and a half and the male seven, and the workers 
six. A queen will lay two hundred eggs daily 
for fifty or sixty days ; and the eggs are batched 
in three days. The workers are five days in 
tlie worm state, and in twenty days become bees. 
The males are si.x or seven days in the worm ! 
state, and in twenty-four days they become bees. 
A queen is five days in the worm state, and in 
sixteen days is perfect. When eggs are con- 
verted into queens, the old queen destroys them ; 
or it" there are two young queens they fight till 
one has killed the other. There are about nine 
thousand cells in a comb of a foot square ; their 
first purpose is as nurseries for the young, and' 
they are then cleaned and filled with honey.' 
Five thousand bees weigh a pound. 

Ferlilily of the Qtveen. —We extract from the 
Canada Farmer : "Generally within five or six 
days after emerging from the cell, the queen 
leaves the hive for a meeting with the drone, 
which takes place on the wing, and usually 
high in the air. She commonly leaves the 
hive between the hours of twelve and three 
o'clock P. M., when the drones are on the wing. 
If she does not meet with the drone she returns 
to the hive, and in a short time goes out again ; 
this she continues to do every day until she' 
mates with the drone and becomes inipreg-| 
nated, when she returns to the hive, not to 
leave it until sl;e goes off with a swarm. Hav- 
ing mated with a drone, she becomes impreg- 
nated for life, and under favorable circum- 
stances commences to lay within forty-eight 
hours. In some cases it may be much longer, 
extending to five, si-x, or even ten days; such 
cases, however, are rare. Another peculiar 
characteristic of the queen is, that if .she does 
not meet with the drone within the first twenty- 
one days of her existence, she becomes incapa- 
ble of being impregnated, and hence never 
makes anything more than a drone-laying 
queen. We here see the wisdom of the Creator 
in the provision of so many drones. The 
chances of the queen to be destroyed are nu- 
merous, the time for impregnation short, hence 
■ihe necessity of her meeting with the drone as 
soon as possible, that she may retire to the 
hive, where the chances for her destruction 
are greatly lessened. An unimpregnated queen 



may easily be known by her slim, tapering ab- 
domen, shy and rapid movements; the abdo- 
men of the fertile queen being much larger 
and longer, and her movements more stately 
and regular. The queen generally lives to the 
age of four or five years, though she usually 
ceases to lay eggs that will produce workers 
after the fourth year — in other words, her fer- 
tility ceases, and though she may continue to 
lay eggs, they will only produce drones. The 
consequence is, the stock will soon dwindle 
away and perish." 

Products of Bee Labor. —The fol- 
lowing are the varied products of the toil of 
the working bees : 

Propolis. — Tliey collect propolis, a resinous 
substance, from the buds of trees and other 
sources, with which they coat the inside of their 
hives, close crevices, and indeed, sometimes 
embalm an ofl^ensive substance which they can 
not remove. 

Pollen, or Bee-Bread. — They collect pollen 
from the antberte of flowers and other sources, 
brushing it as they do propolis, with their fore 
legs and wings, into the basket-like cavities in 
the thighs of the back legs. They announce 
the arrival of such supplies at the hives, by a 
beating of their wings. Ifit is not at once con- 
sumed by the workers, it is stored for future 
use, and constitutes that dark semi-liquid sub- 
stance called bee-bread, which, when ignorantly 
received ijilo the mouth, is rejected as speedily 
as the most nauseous drug. 

Honey and Wax. — They collect nectar, with 
their proboscis, from the nectariferous glands 
of flowers, and juices of fruit.s. This is con- 
veyed to their second stomach, from whence, 
like ruminating animals, they bring it up and 
deposit it as honey, or elaborate it as wax. 
Wax is produced from honey by some chemical 
change in the honey-sack, and is exuded from 
between the rings of the abdomen at the will of 
the bee; as is proved by their commencing at 
once, or deferring a day or two, the building of 
comb in their hives, after swarming. 

Tamingr the Honey-Bee.— It is well 

known by all scientific apiarists that the honey- 
bee is tractable, and is capable of being, to a 
certain extent, tamed and domesticated by any 
intelligent person who will go at the work 
kindly. Langstroth explains the method of 
controlling this ira,scible insect by three rules, 
expressed in the following formulas: 

1. "A honey-bee, when filled with honey 



BEES — SWARMINa OF. 



U7 



never volunteers an attack, Viut acts solely on the 
defensive. 

2. " Bee.s can not, under any circumstances, 
resist llie temptation to fill themselves with 
liquid sweets. 

3. " Bee.s, when frightened, be^in to fill them- 
selves with honey from their combs." 

According to the first rule, bees are generally 
good-natured at the hour of swarming, for be- 
fore leaving the old hive for another tliey al- 
ways fill their honey-bags to the utmost capacity. 
None sting unless they are crushed, except a 
few thriftless fellows who have neglected their 
rations. 

Under the second rule, bees can ahfays be 
managed. " If," says I./ANGSTROTH, " as soon 
as a hive is opened, the exposed bees are gently 
sprinkled with water sweetened with sugar, 
they will help themselves with great eagerness, 
and in a few moments will be perfectly under 
control." Visitors are always welcomed by 
bees thus treated; but all motions about a hive 
must be quiet and slow, and the keeper should 
familiarize his colonies with his presence. 

Under the third rule, bees can be handled 
without danger. Again we quote L.\kgstroth : 
"If the apiarian only succeeds in frightening 
his subjects, he can make them as peaceable as 
though they were incapable of stinging. By 
the use of a little smoke from decayed wood 
(spunk or touchwood— the smoke directed upon 
the bees by the bre.ath of the apiarian) the 
largest and most fiery colony may be at once 
brought into complete subjection. As .soon as 
the smoke is blown among them, they relreat 
from before it, raising a subdued or terrified 
note; and, seeming to imagine that their honey 
is to be taken from them, they cram their honey- 
bags." Tobacco smoke is equally efiective, and 
the same consternation may be produced by 
shutting the bees within their hive and drum- 
ming upon it. 

Sn'armlng'. — Of natural swarming, "a 
housekeeper" in the Cultivator says: "This 
most interesting event in bee-life and bee-keep- 
ing, used to be the only occasion when old fogies 
intermeddled with tlieir bees at all, until their 
combs being filled, they were deemed fit for 
destruction, and when, like Sodom and Gomor- 
rah, they perished in vapors of sulphur. The 
old queen of the hive leads out the adventurous 
emigrants, whether in a fit of jealousy toward 
her aspiring offspring, or like a good luiman 
mother she prefers the hardships of pioneerage 
herself, we wot not; but her loyal followers are 



of all ages and conditions. They will some- 
times precede her, but return again to the hive 
until she accompanies them. They usually 
cluster near the ground, on some convenient 
bush; sometimes inconveniently high, and in a 
freak occasionally on another hive, or even on 
a bystander. Sometimes they hie away to un- 
known parts. Sand or water thrown among 
them will often bring them to a halt. Cluster 
bushes, or a pole with a knot on the top of nml- 
lein-seed or pine burrs, or even swarm-catcher.s 
of muslin, are sometimes employed to facili- 
tate measures. Wherever clustered, proceed 
quickly to hive them, all things being always 
kept in readiness in this im|iortant season. 
Have a table in the shade; a sheet spread over 
it; a hive thereon a little tipped up in front. 
Cut off' the switch on which the bees are clu.s- 
tered, and shake them ofl"under the edge of the 
hive. If in a large body, brush off the bees 
into a basket; if on a high limb, fasten the 
basket on a pole, and have the limb jarred 
while the basket is held under the limb; empty 
the basket under the hive. If any bees are dil- 
atory about entering, sprinkle gently to expe- 
dite them. Set the hive at once on its stand, 
and keep it shaded. 

" If two swarms come off simultaneously and 
cluster together, if small hive together; the 
royal ladies will .settle the question of right to 
reign, speedily, and you will have a good strong 
stock. If the swarms are large, and you wish 
to divide them, spread a sheet on the ground, 
set two hives, and with a dipper divide the 
bees equally between the hives. If you unfor- 
tunately give one hive both queens — you will 
soon know it by the commotion of the queen- 
le^s stock — shut them up quickly with the wire- 
bottom board, empty the other, and search for 
a queen. If lucklessly she has been killed, re- 
turn the queenless stock to the parent hive, and 
it will swarm again in a few days; or, if you 
use movable combs, give it a frame or two of 
brood comb, and, if po-ssible, a queen. If you 
use the box hive, it is best to return late swarms 
to some weak stock, or unite two and foster un- 
remittingly. 

" In olden times bees used to swarm two or 
three times in a Summer ; this event occurring 
in from nine to twenty days. This event is 
nnich rarer now. The.se .second swarms, being 
led by young queens, are not so particular in 
choosing middays or fair weather. If these 
swarms occur late in the season, unite two ; if 
buckwheat is abundant, they will provide am- 
ply for themselves — otherwise you must be 



us 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



charitable^ to them. The piping of the young 
queens usually indicates these coming swarms — 
this note is supposed to be tlie cry of the royal 
infanta's for release from the nursery." 

A Swarming Pole. — A man who has proved 
its practicability, recommends the following 
method of securing a swarm: "Take a long 
pole, and make the small end bulky by wrap- 
ping paper around it about as thick as a man's 
arm, and half as long ; then bind a black cloth 
about it, and secure it with a cord. When the 
bees are swarming, as soon as they attempt to 
settle, put that end of the pole in the place 
where they are about lighting, and usually they 
will settle on it immediately, hut sliould they 
persist in settling on the limb, or whatever it 
is, jar it so as to disturb them, and they will 
leave it for the pole; when they are all clus- 
tered lay it gently down, and set the hive over 
them. Sometimes when fastened pretty firmly 
on the pole, it is expedient to shake it a little 
to make them leave it for the hive We have 
tried this simple plan for years, and have sel- 
dom failed." 

A Convenient Bee-JSiver. — The accompanying 
cut and following description are from Tuck- 
er's Rural. The plan appears practicable: 




Take a board as large as the bottom of the 
hive, bore a number of holes through it, and 
insert corn cobs through these holes ; then nail 
Becurely a handle eight or ten feet long, to this 
board. Nail a narrow board so as to form a 
sort of Iibod over the cobs when it is set up. 
Make a slanting hole with a crow-bar in the 
ground, and thrust the pole or handle into this 
hole. If these cobs are dved a dark-brown 
color, the bees will be almost sure to light 
upon them. But should they light on the 
branch of a tree a few gentle taps against the 
limb, will induce them to leave it and adhere 
to the cobs. These, from their rough surface, 
will enable the bees to hold on firmly. When 
they have settled, take out the pole, lay the in- 
strument flat, and place the hive on the board 



which holds the swarm, and the thing is done. 
In large apiaries two or three of these may be 
on hand for use. 

Another Eaxy Method of Hiving. — A corre- 
spondent of the old Yankee I'hr7ner, says he 
has practiced the following plan with complete 
success for fifteen years, and he has never 
known his bees to pitch on any other place 
than that prepared for them : " Drive down 
two stakes, about four feet apart, fifteen feet in 
front of the bee-house; tie a pole across these 
,stakes, about three feet from the ground ; then 
take a board one foot wide and twenty feet long, 
and lay one end on the ground, at the front of 
the bee-house, and lay the other part on the 
pole between the stakes. Put up this board in 
the beginning, and let it remain till the clo.se 
of the swarming season. The bees will pitch 
on the under part of this board, and then that 
end which lays on the ground should be raised 
to a level with the otlier, and put on a barrel, 
box, or something else. Then turn the board 
upside down, and place the hive over the bees, 
and fasten it with props, to prevent the wind 
blowing it down. By having a board not more 
than a foot wide, the hive will extend over the 
board, and be less likely to kill tlie bees when it 
is placed over them, and it will leave room for 
the bees that may be outside the hive to pass 
into it. Mr. Winslow observed that he had 
sometimes found three swarms at once pitched 
on one board in diflTerent places. When he 
first put up the board, he usually rubbed on it 
some honey, salt water, or the like; but this 
may not be necessary." 

Artificial Simrming. — Transferring all or a 
part of the bees from one hive to another, is a 
great advance in bee-culture and perhaps the 
boldest step in the profession. In skillful 
hands it can almost always be successfully 
performed, but it should be done in the early 
part of the swarming season, and from crowded 
stocks. Mrs. Ellen S. Tupper, an accom- 
plished apiarist, who gathers health and profit 
from the pursuit, says in the Iowa Hrnnestead : 

" Bee-keepers must decide in this month 
whether they will let the bees take their own 
way about swarming. For ourselves we never 
allow any natural swarms. It is much easier, 
we find, to keep the matter under our own con- 
trol, make as many colonics as we deem best at 
onr own time, and thus keep all colonies strong, 
and secure the greatest yield of surplus honey. 
To do this in the best and simplest way, some 
form of movable-comb hive is indispensable, 
but even those who have only box hives or 



EEES — SWARMING OF. 



449 



gums, need nol subject themselves to the watcli- 
\nff and uncertainty attending natural swarm- 
ins. Tho.se who wish to transfer their bees to 
nidvablc'-comh hives will find swarming time 
llie very best time to do it. 

'■ Siudke the hive from which you wish to 
take a swarm, carry it a few yards from its 
stinid, turn it upside down and place over it a 
box or hive as nearly as possible the same size, 
and stop all holes between tliem ; then drum 
on the lower hive with sticks, keeping up a 
steady noise and jar for fifteen or twenty min-, 
utc's, and the bees, witli their queen, will go 
into tlie upper box. [If the queen is not in the 
upper box^ tlie bees will be restless.] If this 
box is llie one which you wish to keep the bees 
in, you have only, when the bees have gone up, 
to set this on tlie stand where the old hive 
stood and carry the old one to a new place sev- 
eral yards away, and the thing is done. The 
boe.s in the new box will do in every respect as 
well as a natural swarm, the old hive, having 
plenty of hatching-brood and eggs, will at once 
rear a queen, and do as well as if no bees had 
been taken from it. 

"If you wish to have a new swarm in a mova- 
ble-comb hive, after you liave driven tliem into 
a bo.x as described, spread a sheet before the 
new liive, which is placed on the old stand, 
then empty the bees upon it and allow them to 
creep up into the hive. It is well, if po.ssible, 
to have pieces of comb fastened in the frames, 
as a guide and encouragement to the bees. 

"Caution. — Never expect to gain anything 
by dividing a swarm before it is strong in 
numbers; unless the colony be large, and the 
old one be left full of brood, it is better undis- 
turbed. 2. Don't wait until the bees are hang- 
ing idle out.side the hive. Unless swarms are 
made in May or early in June, they are not 
to be relied on. 3. The new colony must be 
placed where the old one stood, else the bees 
ciin not find it; the old one must not be placed 
loo near the place. If the bees are Italians, 
enough will find it if it be placed a rod away. 
The black bees do not as readily seek the old 
hive, an<l two or three yards is far enough to 
njuve their hive. This way of swarming we 
prac'.ict'd lor years with perfect success. It is 
a poor substitute for the manner in which mul- 
tiplication of colonies can be performed by the 
use of movable frames, but we recommend it 
as far preferable to natural swarming." The 
liive containing the forced swarm, should be ol 
the same shape and color as the parent hive. 

Another correspondent varies the method 

29 



slightly, removing from the old hive only two- 
thirds of the bees, with their queen, and then 
returning it to its former stand, instead of put- 
ting the new hive there. Lasgstroth says 
that some loss is apt to follow either method; 
if the old hive be put back, too many of tlie 
bees in the other will be likely to return to il ; 
and if its location be changed, its unsealed 
brood may perish from neglect. He, however, 
agrees that it is better than natural swarming; 
which is objectionable on account of the time 
and labor it requires, the loss of swarms that 
attends it, and the fact that many hives refuse 
to swarm at all. 

Some prefer another mode of forming an 
artificial swarm, thusdetailed by Langstroth: 
"After the bees have been driven from the 
parent stock, the forced swarm is at once placed 
on the old stand, while the parent stock, in 
which the proper number of bees has been left, 
is set in a cool place, and shut up — care being 
taken to give them air — until late in the after- 
noon of the third day. It may now be put on 
its periuanent stand, and opened an hour or 
two before sunset, when the bees will take wing 
almost as if intending to swarm. Some will 
join the forced swarm on the old stand, bnt 
most, al'ter hovering a short time in the air, 
will re-enter their hive. While the entrance 
was closed, thousands of young bees were liatch- 
ed, and these, knowing no other home, will all 
unite in the labors of the hive. The impris- 
oned bees ought 'o be .supplied with wafer, to 
enable them to prepare food for the larvse. In 
the common hive tliis may be injected with a 
straw through a gimlet hole." 

An observing farnler says : " But to have a 
sure success you must have a Langstroth or 
other movable-framed hive, and with a parti- 
tion through the center of each frame, you tie 
in with strings all pieces of nice worker comb 
ccmtaining brood, or honey mixed with bee- 
bread and unfit to eat. With three or four 
frames filled with woirner comb, and as many 
more empty frames placed alternately, first a 
full frame, then an empty one, and plenty of 
buckwheat or other Fall honey-producing flow- 
ers, you will have a colony in good shape to 
Winter." 

Chloroform. — A writer in tjie Maine Fat%er 
.says: "Having had liitle satisfaction and much 
trouble in fumigating bees with puflF ball, etc., 
I bethought me to try chloroform, and shall 
never use anything else in future. I put about 
ten drops on a bit of rag, pushed it under the 
hive from behind, and in about five minutes 



450 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE : 



the bees were all on the bottom board. In this 
way I united two small swarms most success- 
fully." AVe advise a cautious testing of this 
method. 

2'o Prevent Swarming. — It is sometimes pre- 
ferred not to increase the nnndjer of hives. 
Sucli may be interested in the following, con- 
tributed to the Anmud Register by Mr. QuiNBY: 
"It lias been ascertained that if abundant room 
he piovidi'd by surplus boxes being placed in 
immediate ccmtact witli the main combs of the 
hive, the bees that might go ofl' in the swarm 
wonl<l usually remain at home and fill the 
boxes. This use of surplus boxes at the sides, 
as well as on the top of the hive, with clean 
guide combs properly adjusted, has a tendency 
to prevent four-fifths of the swarms as demon- 
strated by Mr. Hazen's hive, and when no 
swarm issues, it is reported that the average 
yield per hive will be one hundred pounds. 
Jf an increase of stocks is wished for, the prod- 
uct of one will buy several. 

"As a further security against swarming, a 
device has been offered which prevents the 
queen from leaving. A pen or yard is made 
in front of the hive, eighteen or twenty inches 
square. Nail together strips that will make it 
about three inches deep, with floor of thin 
boards, excepting a strip four inches wide next 
the hive, which should be of wire cloth for 
sifting out dust and for ventilation. Around 
the top on the inside, fasten a strip of tin three 
inches wide, in such a way that it will be par- 
allel with the floor, and thus prevent the queen, 
whose wing should be clipped, from crawling 
over. She will creep up the side, but being 
unable to hold fast to the under side of the tin, 
will fall back, and finally return to tlie hive 
with the bees that will not go far without her. 
The upper side of the tin should be painted 
some light color. Cut a place for entrance on 
one side of this pen, to correspond with the 
entrance of the hive. To prevent their rearing 
a young queen that may supei-sede the mother, 
and can fly, it will be necessary to open the 
hive once in eight or nine days, and remove 
all queen cells, or if it is wished to replace the 
old with a young queen, let one cell be left. 
There will be no risk of a swarm in that case, 
and when she beginsto lay clip one wing." 

Ai'HGcial Feeding.— Mr. T. F. Bing- 
ham advocates feeding bees to induce early 
breeding, lie states that in many parts of the 
country, where bees were profitable in years 
past, it is not so now. Owing to cutting down 



the timber, reclaiming swamp lands, and bring- 
ing a larger area into cultivation, early forage 
is rendered scarce, and the principal crop for 
surplus, white clover, comes in bloom before 
the hive is sufhciently populated to take advan- 
tage of it. Bees hatched during its bloom are 
consumers, whereas had breeding been stimu- 
lated earlier, either from natural sources or 
by properly directed feeding for six or seven 
Weeks before the clover harvest, the most mark- 
ed results would follow. In such districts he 
recommended feeding from one to two ounces 
daily of sugar syrup, according to the strength 
of the colony. The benefit is not only to the 
owner in surplus honey, but the hive will 
swarm earlier, and all know the advantage of 
a few days to a new swarm. 

" The number of days in a season in which 
bees gather more than is consumed in breed- 
ing, or by young bees who gather nothing for 
about the first ten days of their c.'iistence, is 
more limited than most people suppose. Some 
seasons it is less than a fortniglit. Feeding 
swarms, weak in stores, to enable them to pass 
the Winter in .safety, should be done as rapidly 
as possible after the queen has ceased laying 
in October; otherwise they will consume much 
in rearing young, when their population may 
be already snfliciently strong. By feeding regu- 
larly and sparingly I have kept young queens 
laying more or less freel}', until the middle of 
November." Buckwheat and clover are the 
best food for bees ; though authorities state 
that the former only yields honey to them from 
sunrise until eleven o'clock A. M., unless the 
day sliould be damp. 

Preparations for Winter. — As 

soon as bees have finished storing surplus honey, 
it should be remo^'ed and the colonies equalized 
and prepared for Winter as speedily as possi- 
ble. Each colony should be made strong in 
both stores and numbers by the first of Winter, 
and the earlier in the Autumn this is done the 
better it will be for the owner. Says a bee- 
keeper: Small swarms should be united so 
that each swarm will have from four to si.x 
quarts of bees. To unite them I prefer to fu- 
migate them with puff-ball smoke, then put 
them together and let them revive in the hive 
in which you wisli to have them remain. I 
prefer to remove all the queens except the one 
which I think is the best. An Italian queen 
may be introduced to such a swarm with pei- 
fect safety if all the other queens have been 
removed. 



BEES — WINTERING OF. 



451 



"Now see that all liave feed enough to last | from 36° it makes an excellent Winter bce- 
theni until Spring. It is more troublesome and house. Between 32° and 40° bees keep very 
expensive feeding in Winter or early Spring quiet, and consequently eat litde. 

There should also be secured, if possible, a 
uniformity of temperature. Bees can not do 
well if subject to extreme and sudden changes. 



than in warmer weather. Feed only good 
northern honey or syrup made of good refined 
sugar. I have used brown coffee crushed and 
nii.Ned with a little cream of tartar, with satis- 
factory results. For a feeder fill a fruit can, 
glass bottle, or other convenient receptacle with 
feed ; then tie a tliin piece of cotton cloth over 
it and invert it over a hole in the honey-board 
where the bees will have free access to it. 
Tliey will suck the feed through the cloth. 
You can feed a little faster and perhaps easier 
by using an upright tin or wooden box with 
a float in it. It shimld be set in the top of the 
hive. Each hive should weigh at least thirty 
pounds in addition to its empty weight." 

Bees eat, on an average, fifteen pounds of 
honey per swarm in the Winter, varying fif- 
teen pounds, according to the severity of the 
wc.vther, and the size of the colony. An old 
bce-Ueeper says: "Take a small loaf of rye 
and Indian, or Graham bread, cut in two, and 
saturate the inside of each piece with good 
sugar water and place it over the bees, cover- 
ing close to keep warm ; they will eat the in- 
side out as clean as mice." 

During tho.se Winters which follow bad honey 
seasons, many hives of bees will perish unless 
fed artificially. Bees may have too much honey 
to Winter well. William W. Gary says, 
bees will not Winter well in solid honey ; there 
must be a fair number of open cells for them 
to cluster in and keep up their heat by being in 
a compact mass. 

Wivterinff in the Cellar. — Throughout the 
Middle and Southern States a thrifty hive will 
Winter out of doors with ordinary protection. 
Indeed, Langstroth lays it down as a rule, 
that '■ if the colonies are strong in numbers and 
stores, have upward ventilation, easy communi- 
cation from comb to comb, and water when 
needed, and the entrances are sheltered from 
piercing winds," they will generally Winter 
successfully in the open air. 

But it is well-known (hat bees, like all ani- 
mals, eat in very cold weather for the purpose 
of keeping themselves warm ; from which it 
follows that they will consume less honey it 
their temperature can be kept up by the warmth 
of the atmosphere. Most of the best apiarisi.s 
above the Ohio are adopting the practice of 
Wintering their bees in the cellar, a custom long 
in vogue in Europe. If the cellar is dark and 
drv, and the temperature does not vary much 



Ventilation, Light, etc. — Be sure that the hive 
is well ventilated. There should always be an 
opening of some sort in the top of the hive, 
so that the air within may be dry and pure; 
otherwise the moisture of their breath will con- 
dense in the hive, chill the bees, and eventually 
kill them. To prevent annoyance from intrud- 
ing insects, the opening may be protected by 
wire cloth, or something of that sort Keep the 
hives well darkened, in order that the bees may 
not be tempted out on warm, sunny days. .\ 
light carried into the' cellar for the purpose 
of getting vegetables, or any other purpose, 
disturbs the bees. After they once crawl or 
fly away from the hive, they seldom get back 
again. 

A bee-keeper says of ventilation: "If straw 
or the old-fashioned board hive, they should 
be turned bottom-side up with the bottom 
boards removed. The animal heat will tlicii 
drive all the dampness and mold out of the 
hive. If movable-comb hires are jjsecZ, the cap, 
boxes, etc., should be removed and the hive al- 
lowed to remain right-side-up, with the en- 
trance closed." 

Mr. Gary says: "We have wintered from 
fifty to seventy-five swarms in our cellar, for 
several years past, with good success. Our cel- 
lar is ferv dry. Bees never should be put into 
a damp cellar, as the combs would be very lia- 
ble to mold ; they had better be left on the 
Summer stands. I also use Langstboth's 
movable-comb hives, and leave all the boles 
open in the honey-board, twelve in number, 
the entrance also being left open. I should 
prefer removing the honey-board entirely, if it 
were not for mice." 

Another, who claims extensive e.xpeiience, 
urges that, " In frame hives there should be no 
lop ventilation directly through the top of the 
honey-board, but what I should term a side-top 
ventilation. This can be accomplished l)y hav- 
ing an inch hole through the sides of the hives, 
two inches below the honey-board. If directly 
through the center of the honey-board, there is 
too great a circulation of cold air, keeping the 
bees in constant commotion. The side venti- 
lation, the top being entirely closed, the inc h 
boles two inches below the honey-board, has a 
tendency to reverse the breath of the bees back 



452 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



uipon llie top of tlie frames, forcing it lo pass 
out at the fides, two inches below the top of 
the frames, l<eeping the top of the frames warm 
fiiougli at all times for the bees to pass over 
from one frame to the other, in the coldest of 
weather, for food, etc." 

Burying Bees for the Winter. — Above the lat- 
itude of 40°, wintering bees in a vault in the 
ground is somewhat practiced by tliose who 
have not dry and equable cellars or convenient 
clarl; rooms; but it is indispensable tliat the 
spot selected should be absolutely dry. With 
care in wintering, bees will eat one-third less 
honey than if left e.xposed. Charles Da- 
DANT, of Hamilton, Illinois, says in the Bee 
Journal : 

"Low and uniform temperature, dryness, 
tranquility, security against mice, and slow re- 
newal of air, are conditions required for winter- 
ing bees in the ground. I use the mode which 
e.\perience has proved successful. 

"In well-drained sloping grounds, I dig a 
ditch half a foot deeper than my hives are tall, 
arul one foot wider than they are broad. I 
drain that ditch for greater security. If fear- 
ing the falling in of the earth, I slay the ground 
with some old planks. Then I lay in the bot- 
tom (wo four-by-four-incli bean)s. Upon these 
I place my hives, having previously raised them 
troni their bottom boards by inserting strips of 
half-inch lath. I remove top boxes, and leave 
open all the holes in the honey-boards, in order 
to give the bees plenty of air. Then w'itli plas- 
terer's lath I frame ventilating pipes or flues 
to the surface, the longer ones descending to 
within four or five inches of the bottom; the 
shorter ones to be placed in the roof. I place 
one of these flues at each end of the ditch, and 
another- after each thii-d hive — alternating a 
hing and short one. These should be secured 
against mice. Finally, I prepare a support 
for a double-sloping roof of old boards, and 
then cover the roof vvith strawnenrly a foot 
high, .'ind place on that a layer of earth, equally 
thick — making altogether eighteen or twenty 
inches. 

" By these means bees are maintained in a 
low temperature, and remain dormant for 
months, consuming little honey; and are all 
alive and .active in the Spring. This is the best 
way to Winter feeble and poorly supplied flocks. 
Last ye;ir I wintered some thirty swarms in 
the ground, giving them honey in boxes, which 
remain untouched — the small quantity of honey 
they had in their hives having been sufiicient 
for their support." 



Feeding in Spring. — Another correspondent 
of the Bee Journal says of feeding in Spring: 
"I consider feeding bees in the Spring of as 
much importance as feeding any other stock. 
The apiarian should furnish his bees with un- 
bolted rye flour, water, and sugar syrup, as 
early in the Spring as the weather will permit. 
They seem quite pleased, and I have no doubt 
but the rye flour answers the purpose of pollen 
in feeding the young bees. It may be given 
them two or three weeks before they can obtain 
any from abroad. They can not rear their 
young without pollen water, honey, or a sub- 
stitute. A good substitute for honey is a syrup 
made by adding four pounds of water to ten 
pounds of good brown or cofi"ee sugar, boiled 
five minutes, and skimmed. This may be fur- 
nished for one-third the value of honey, and 
every pound fed fills the place of a pound of 
honey for feeding the young brood. I use a 
feeder that is so constructed that I can furnish 
my bees with honey, rye flour, and water, all at 
the same lime, and perfectly secure from rob- 
bing bees. 

'■ I have had considerable experience in feed- 
ing bees, and find it very profitable for three 
reasons. First, I save all swarms from dying 
in the Spring for the want of food ; second, my 
bees swarm from two to four weeks earlier than 
if they were not fed. A little food in the 
Spring .stimulates the queen to Lay more abun- 
dantly, for bees are provident, and do not rear 
their young so rapidly when their supplies are 
short; third, I secure a larger surplus of honey 
by allowing the bees to fill the store combs with 
syrup, thereby obtaining the honey as a sur- 
plus in the surplus boxes. 

"I consider one young swarm of bees, that 
issues the last of May or first of June, worth 
more than two in .July, for they will make from 
thirty to fifty pounds of surplus, while the July 
swarm will hardly make enough for their Win- 
ter's consumption." 

Exposure in Spring. — Colonies of bees which 
have been wintered in a dark chamber, vault 
or cellar, should not be replaced on their Sum- 
mer stand till the Winter is thoroughly broken, 
and a mild day when the bees can fly, should 
be chosen for the removal, otherwise many 
will be lost by the untimely exposure. Lano- 
STUOTH explains this : Bees very rarely dis- 
charge their fieces in the hive, unless they are 
diseased or greatly disturbed. If the Winter 
has been uncommonly severe, and they have 
had no opportunity to fly, their abdomens, be- 
fore Spring, often beconje greatly distended, and 



BEES — HIVE FOR, ETC. 



453 



they are veiy liable to be lost in tlie snow, if 
tlie weather, on their first flight, is not \innsii- 
ally favorable. After they liave once rliscliargeil 
tlieir faeces, they will not ventnre from tlieir 
hives in unsnitable weather, if well siiiplied 
with water. . 

Bee-Hives. — For people who don't take 
care of their bees, the old-fashioned box-hive 
is as good as anything, and a hollow tree about 
as good as the box-hive. For those who give 
tlieir colonies due attention, the movable-comb 
hive of L. L. Lanqstroth, of Oxford, Ohio, 
or one combiiyng its chief excellencies, should 
always be used. Mr. QuiNBY, one of tlie larg- 
est apiarists in America, says: "I think I liave 
found a hive superior, in many respects, to the 
simple box. It is not pretended that a swarm 
of bees located in it will store a greater amount 
of lioney in a given time; the advantages are 
in the control of their operations, and knowing 
their condition at all limes." But there are other 
obvious advantages whicl^ Mr. Quinby tersly 
sets forth : The movable-frame hive enables the 
owner to remove the honey, in part or in whole, 
at pleasure, without disturbing the bees; to 
trnnsfer a part of the colony to another hive 
without natural swarming; to overlook the 
frames and cut away the surplus queen cells, 
tlins preventing overswarming; to substitute 
worker comb for drone comb; to strengthen 
weak colonies by giving them brood combs; to 
remove worms ; in short to exercise complete 
and constant supervision over the bees, study- 
ing their habits and supplying their wants. 
Innnrant, nervous, and thriftless people should 
slick to the ancient tight box ; but we cordially 
agree with Mr. Quinby that "there is not the 
least doubt that whoever realizes the gre'atest 
jiossible benefits from his bees, will have to 
retain the movable combs in some form. The 
principle cnn hardly be dispensed witli." 

Langstroth's hive, with its adjustment of 
the frames, is patented; but the movable frame 
is not patentable — anybody can make them. 
Solon Robinson described them twenty years 
ago in the Cullivator, as they were used in En- 
land : "The form of the hive there recom- 
mended was to hang the frames by hook and 
eye-hinges to the back of the hive, so that all 
would swing like the leaves of a book standing 
on its end. The front, or cover to the edge of 
the leaves, being opened, leaf after leaf could 
be lilted oflF its hinges and a new one put in its 
place." A majority of the best bee-keepers in 



the country will use no other hive hut the 
Langstroth. 

Bee-IIoil.se. — A bee-house is not ncces- 
.sary. If deemed indispensable, it may be a 
very cheap structure — a shelter of posts and 
plank and board.s, or a bee-fancier of wealth 
may render it a.highly ornamental and tasteful 
decoration of his grounds. The last class only, 
in our judgment, should build bee-houses; fur 
to be useful, they must be expensive — of iion 
or finely-dre.ssed hard wood, or smooth hy- 
draulic plaster — some material so smooth and 
so close grained that a miller can find no crev- 
ice wherein to deposit her eggs. 

Quinby, in his " Bee- Keeping," recommends 
that hives stand close to the ground, so that 
bees coming in on a chilly evening may not 
drop and be lost. We quote: "I make stands 
in this way — for a box-hive a board about fif- 
teen inches wide is cut ofl' two feet long; a 
piece of durable wood' two by three inciies is 
nailed on each end. This raises the board just 
three inches from the earth, and will project 
in front of the hive some ten inches, making it 
admirably convenient for the bees to alight 
upon before entering the hive, when the gra.ss 
and weeds are kept down, which is but liltle 
trouble. A separate .stand for each hive is 
better than to have several on a bench together, 
as there can then be no communication by the 
bees running to and fro. If possible, the hives 
should stand where the wind will have but 
little eti'ect, especially from the northwest. 
If no hills or buildings ofier a protection, a 
close, high board fence should be put up for 
that purpose." 

Bee-Motl«.l. — Mr. Quinby gives the re- 
sult of his own large experience: "I have been 
fighting the bee-miller for thirty years, but not 
directly. I let the bees do mo.st of it. I give 
attention to strengthening the swarm instead. 
I have hundreds of hives in apiaries aw.iy from 
home, that are not visiled throughout the sea- 
son to destroy wonns. The only particular 
care is to know which are weak, and watch 
those — there ai'e always some in large apiaries — 
and when they can not be strengthened by any 
means, the next best thing is to remcive them 
and save the contents, au'd more than that, s;ive 
the swarm of moths ^hat invariably follow in 
the weak hive. With this care enforced I have 
no fear of the moth-worm. The Italians — pure as 
well as hybrid — resist the moth much more 



454 



POULXnY. BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



efTectiiMlIy llinn tlie blank l)ees. In large 
aiiiaries liivfs do not sepin to be imlivichrally 
tioiibleil as much as in small ones." 

One man has li(tle tin doors swinging at the 
entrance of his hives, which the bees can, and 
the little brown miller can not, open. Another 
sets plates of sweetened water, with little tapers 
binning in the center, around llu- hives at 
evening, and tliiis attracts the millers to tlieir 
drslrnetion by binning or drowning. Tlie lower 
edge of tlie hives should be inade sharp, so as 
not to afl'ord much room for the millers to de- 
posit their eggs. It is also a good plan to raise 
llie hives about one-fourth of an inch from the 
bottom board by placing little stones or nails 
under the corners. A moth trap is made by 
cutting creases ujion one side of a siiingle or 
strip of pine hoard, which is placed with the 
creases down, under a hive thus raised, so that 
tlie millers have free access to run in and deposit 
their eggs in these creases, and the worms are 
readily destroyed every evening. 

If some such devices are not employed, 
there is great danger that moths will invade 
the hive to tliejieril of its contents. 

Surplus IIoiiey-Boxos Ket'tled.— 

During the Sininner and Aulninn moiilhs it is 
important to see that your bees are provided pounds from four hives in one season. At the 
with surplus boxes as fast as they are disposed i prices for which honey has been selling for the 
to fill them. If you have' any pieces of clean j last few years, a man willing to work would be 
empty comb, do not commit the egregious folly w'ell paid for his labor; and he mv^t work, 
of melting them up for the sake of the litllelle nni-t thoioughly understand that not only 
wax they may contain, but save and fasten them [ labor, but energy, care and skill are absolutely 
into your honey- boxes. This you may do by, essential to success." 
dipping one end into melted beeswax; and 



plus honey. Sold twelve hundred pounds for 
$400, and have Bcventy-six swarms put for 
Winter care. What say you to that, you lovers 
of honey ?" 

Another writes from central Indiana: "One 
of my stocks of bees in Kidder's patent hive, 
last season, gave me three new swarms, and 
worked me 25 pounds of surplus honey in the 
bargain ! The first new swarm worked me 96 
pounds surplus, of which 24 frames filled was 
clover, making 64 pounds ; 12 frames filled was 
buck wheat, making 32 pounds. I disposed of the' 
buckwheat honey, both from the olil stocks and 
the new, at 25 cents per pound, amounting to 
$14 25 for buckwheat, and the 64 poiuids clover 
at 30 cents, making altogether !J33 45 for honey 
sold. I estimate my three new swarms, worth 
$8 per swarm, making S24 for increase of Dees, 
and the $33 45 added for honey, makes ?57 45— 
deduct $9 for hives — $48 45 profits realized 
from one colony in a single season." 

Mr. QuiNBY says : " Suppose a person should 
put in one yard fifl\» hives, or as many as he 
could look over in one day, and had seven, 
eight, or nine yards. At an average of fifty 
pounds from a hive, there would be an aggre- 
gate surplus of from eighteen to twenty thou- 
sand pouud.s. Mr. ITazen reports five hundred 



these combs not only guide the bees, but actually 
attract them to work sooner than they olher- 

ild 
industrious habits prompt them to fill them 
with boncv. 



Italian Bees. — These have been known 
for many years in Europe as a variety far supe- 



ise would; for, seeing tlie emply comb, their! rim- to the eonnnon black honey-bee, being 

more hardy, gathering a third mi>re honey and 
breeding a third more bees, and working when 
so cold that the black ones right alongside 
Does Bcc-Keeplng Pay I— No, if you would scarcely stir, and actually storing honey 
dim't take care of the bees; yes, if you do. If while the black were consuming their stores to 
colonies are cared for, as SHch industrious, in- live. They were introduced to America in 
genious creatures ought to be, fifty pounds of 1860, by Messrs. CoLViN and Wagner of Bal- 
honey per hive is a low average. A. II. Hart timore, and have since become widely dissemi- 
writes from Stockbridge, Wisconsin, as follows : nated among the most enthusiastic bee-cul- 
"I am somewhat engaged in the bee-culture, turists, both in their purity, through a fertile 
I commenced the season, last Spring, with thir- queen, and as a cross with the black drone, 
ty-eight swarms, mostly in the Langstroth The 'superiority of the Italian bee has been 
hive,''and closed the seast>n with one hundred attested by Langstroth, Quinby, Hazen, 
and three swarms. Practiced natural swarm- Fairchild, Kobi.er, Dzierson, Balden- 
ing, making all my stocks strong. stein, Busch, and the most skillful apiarians 

"I sold in the Fall twenty-seven swarms for of both continents. The Baron of Berlep.sch, 
$179 and got seventeen hundreif pounds sur-lone of the largest bee-culturists of Germany, 



BEES — ITALIAN. 



455 



confirms from his own experience the state- 
nients of DziERSOX having found: 

" 1. That the Italian bees are less sensitive 
to Cold than the common kind. 2. That tlieir 
qneens are more prolific. 3. That the colonies 
swarra earlier and more frequently, thongh of 
this he has less experience than DziERSON. 4. 
That tliey are less apt to sting. Not only are 
they less apt, but scarcely are they inclined to 
sting, though they will do so if intentionally 
annoyed or irritated. 5. That they are more 
industrious. Of this fact he had bnt one Sum- 
mer's experience, but all the results and indica- 
tions go to cgnfirm Dzierson's statements, ami 
.satisfy him of the superiority of this kind in. 
every point of view. 6. That they are more dis- 
posed to rob than common bees, and more cour- 
ageous and active in self-defense. They strive 
on all hands to force their way into colonies of 
common bees; bnt when strange bees attack 
their hives, they fight with great fierceness, and 
with an incredible adroitness. From one Italian 
queen sent him by Dzibrson, Berlepsch suc- 
ceeded in obtaining, in the ensuing season, one 
hundred and tliirty- nine fertile young queens, 
of which number about fifty produced pure 
Italian progeny." 

Mrs. TuppER writes in the Iowa Fanner: 
" Many fear.s were experienced on its first intro- 
duction that the Italian bee was not hardy, and 
could not endure our climate. I have found it 
more hardy than our common bee, wintering 
well out of doors, working later in the .season 
than the other varletj', and venturing abroad 
in weather when no common bee was seen to 
leave the hives. It is more prolific also, in- 
creasing much faster than the black bee, and, 
if allowed to do so, swarming earlier and of- 
tener. They continue also to rear young later 
in tlie Fall, and thus are prepared to go into 
winter-quarters .strong and populous. 

"Through the Summer of 1864, I averaged 
from my common hives, fifty-six pounds each, 
the largest yield being uinety-six pounds. I 
averaged from nine Italian colonies one hundred 
and nineteen pounds each! The best one of 
these shows this record in my journal : 'One full 
swarm taken from it on the 20th of May. One 
huniircd and fifty-six pounds from it in boxes.' 
The swarm taken from it made eighty poun<ls, 
and on the 16tli of August tlirew ofl' a swarm 
which filled its hive and wintered well. This 
makes two valuable swarms and two hundred 
and tliirty-six poundsof honey from one colony 
in a single season. 

"As these bees were all wintered alike, in 



the same sort of hives, and were managed in 
the same way, under the same circumstances 
of season and location, I claim that this result 
proves beyond a doubt the great superiority of 
the Italian bee. I attribute this superiority to 
their greater industry, their energy, and their 
more rapid increa.se of young in the Spring, 
and also their ability to gather honey from the 
red clover." 

Kev. E. L. Briggs, of Henry county, Iowa, 
says in the Iowa -Agricultural Report for 1S65: 
" I have no doubt but that the introduction of 
the Italian, or Ligurian honey-bee will produce 
as much of a revolution in bee-keeping in Amer- 
ica as tbe iutroduction of fine-wooled sheep, or 
improved breeds of hogs, cattle, and horses, 
has in stock-raising among the farmers of our 
country." 

Italianizing Natives. — L.^ngstroth & Son 
send out, with the I'ertile Ilalian queens they 
sell, the following directions for introducing 
them to the common hive: 

1. Remove the old queen from the colony. 
Six hours after her removal place the new 
queen in the wire cage sent with her, closing 
the end with a sponge or paper wad, and put 
the cage directly over the frames where the 
bees are most thickly clustered, leaving off the 
honey-board. If the weather is cool, or a hive 
without frames is used, the cage sliould be 
placed between two populous ranges of comb. 
Forty-eight hours after caging the queen, re- 
move the cage, take out the sponge and supply 
its place with a piece of damp newspaper of 
single thickne.ss, smeared on both sides with 
honey or sugar .syrup, and tied over the mouth 
of the cage, and return it to the bees, and they 
will gnaw through it and liberate the queen. 
We have devi.sed this method to avoid exciting 
the queen or bees at the moment of liberation. 
As royal cells are ordinarily begun before the 
queen is liberated, and the bees, in strong colo- 
nies, often swarm out in the gathering season 
with the new queen, the hive should be ex- 
amined about a week after the queen has her 
liberty, and all such cells destroyed. This 
examination can never be safely neglected, as 
,^even small colonies sometimes prevent the new 
queen from destroying the royal cells, and she 
may be killed after one of the young queens 
has been hatched. Unless otherwise directed 
in the order, we will clip the queen's wings be- 
fore shipping, that the apiarian may always 
know tliat he lias the queen originally intro- 
duced, and for his convenience in handling her 
on her arrival. 



456 



roULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



2. If their queen is removed some ten days 
or more before the new queen is to be intro- 
duced, so that they have no longer any means 
of raising queens, and all the royal colls are 
destroyed, tliere is next to no risk of losing the 
new queen. 

3. Tlie same result may be secured by keep- 
ing tlienew queen caged in the hive, asdirecled 
above, ten days, and then carefully seai-ching 
for and destroying all the royal cells. 

4. Many prefer to put the queen, witli tlie 
bees accompanying her into a hive containing 
a frame witli bees just hatched and hatching-, 
adding more framesof the same kind from time 
to tiiMo, so as to build up in a few days a good 
colcMiy. The young bees never hurt the queen. 
Tliis method requires special care to guard 
against robbers. 

5. When a queen is to he used for breeding 
other queens, it is a good plan to put her in a 
small box, holding six or more frames four and 
three-eight inclies wide by four and fivc-iight 
inches deep, inside measure; from this small 
hive brood may be taken without the trouble of 
opening a large colony, and without any cut- 
ting of combs, and she can be introduced at 
the close of the season to a full colony as above 
directed. With this method it is best to use an 
entrance ("Langstroth on the Hive and Honey- 
Beo," p. 174) so ailjusted that the queen can not 
at any time decamp. 

For inexperienced bee-keepers we recommend 
Plan No. 1 as the .safest and best mode of intro- 
duction. Handle the queen carejulbj. 

Facts and Suggestions in Brier. 

How to get mice out of a hive: Nail a strip 
of wire-cloth over the ventilator, and keep 
them from getting in. 

The following is the best way to manage rob- 
bing bees: Close the door of tlie hive five min- 
utes;" in this time the robbers will have obtained 
their loads, and will be pressing to the door. 
Open it and let them out, and as soon as 
the hive is emptied of these intruders, close 
again so nearly that but a single bee can 
pass at a time. With so small a space the rob- 
bers will soon give over, after which open 
gradually. 

Apropos: G. B. TuRRELL says in the Scien- 
tific American: " When it is discovered that two 
swarms of bees are at war with each other, by 
turning up the hive containing tlie attacking 
bees, thrusting a stick up into the honey and 
fracturing the comb, you will at once stop all 
further aggression, and set the bees repairing 



the damage done to their own empire, instead 
of trying to conquer another." 

Offer sweetened water to bees, and ihcv will 
partake freely. After they have filled ilieiu- 
selve.s, you can run yonr hand among tliem as 
much as you please — if you are careful not to 
injure them — and they will take it all in good 
part. You may shake them down from their 
combs over your own person, or that of others, 
and they will not resent it if you are caieful 
not to bieathe upon them. 

Some ignorant cities have actually banished 
bees by ordinance, to keep them from rendering 
the fruit trees barren by carrying offthe pollen. 
It is well known that these insects are the great 
fertilizers of plants, carrying pollen, which in 
many instances, without their aid, would never 
become distributed. 

An excess of drones slmuUl be avoided, by 
discouraging the construction of tiie cells that 
produce tlieiu. Drones are the "dead-heads" 
of the hive — the itscless 7»ules in the farmer's 
herds. The building of drone comb may, tea 
great extent, be prevented; first, by securing 
the constructioT. of new combs, in hives con- 
taining young queens; and, second, by placing 
frames to be filled in otiier hives, near the cen- 
ter. "An ounce of prevention is better ihan a 
pound of cure." 

I^L.tNDERs' Bee Book advises : " In piirclias- 
ing bees, select two-year old stocks of large 
size, that swarmed the previous year. It has 
been demonstrated that .such stocks have young 
and vigorous queens, and are generally well- 
conditioned, promising a healthy generation. 
A very old stfick should be rejected, for they 
will be fciuiid of small size and insignificant 
in number." 

Nervous people had better buy their honey ; 
but if they will have bees, let them wear, 
whenever they go among them, gloves (leather 
or India rubber, never woolen), and a broad 
hat with musquitobar thrown over it and fas- 
tened to the shoulders. This will answer in 
place of a more elaborate bee-hat, with a cur- 
tain of wire-cloth. 

Fugitive swarms may be stopped, when 
they fly low, by throwing sand or writer 
among them. Ding-dongs are generally val- 
ueless. 

For a bee-sting, one drop of ammonia, spirit 
of hartshorn, will instantly remove the pain of 
a bee-sting. So will half a tea-spoont'ul of saler- 
atus water, and sometime? tobacco juice. Mud 
or water is a relief in the absence of anything 
better. Always remove the sting as quickly as 



FISH — S?ABCITV OF, ETC. 457 

possible, and never irrit;ilc the wound b_v the fifth of their size. In the Connecticut, Susqne- 
sliglite.st rubbing. hannn, Potomac, .James, and Delaware, where 

If an angry bee attacl<s you, never .strilie at drift net.s are n.sed, the supply of fish i.s in like 
him, or act on the offensive; resentment wiir manner decreasing. No more fish can now be 
bring heavy reinforcements. Stand still, or taken in a net a hundred yards long tlian for- 
Iiokl your hands before your face and quietly nierly in one of five rods. The same reports 
retreat. Langstkotii records two interesting come from the South, and unless the fisheries 
fads : 1, That " a bee at a distance from ils are suspended, or the supply of fish vigorously 
hive never volunteers an attack — even if as- increased by artificial means, there will soon be 
snulied, it. seeks only to escape;" 2, that bee no more shad in the market. 
I>oison produces less and less effect upon the Restoration Ensy. — When oysters began to 
system, and that, after a term of years, the pain disappear, under the increa.sed demanil, oyster- 
becomes very slight. beds were established, and artificial propaga- 

Eees dislik»the oflensive odor of sweaty ani- tion has quite restored the former supply, and 
mals, and will not endure injpme air from enriched thou.=ands of enterprising men. These 
human lungs. Isauje men stand helpless before the diminution 

It ha.< been believed that the darker the hive of favorite fish, yet it is easier to restore our 
the more content the bees; but L.^ngstroth fish than it was to restore the oysters, 
insists that this is a matter of habit ; thattliey' This is no doubtful experiment; it is a work 
will thrive just as well exposed to the light whose result is certain. Germany has re- 
when they get used to it, and he acts upon his stocked lier streams JDy the method now pro- 
theory in the construction of his observing posed. The rivers of France were almost en- 
hives, tirely exhausted of fish when Louis Napoleon 

became President, inlS48; since then, througli 

the use of the means which are being adopted 

FISH CULTUEE-METHOD ANd|;" ""-^ ^"""'■■y. ">« ««hf«« of France have 

I been completely restored — in laet, are richer 
PEOFITABLENESS. | (1^.^,^ ^1,^^ „.g,.g ;^gj. i.,.,^,^^ ^^ ^e belbre. Can- 

Farmers are inclined to ridicule the idea of ««)« "sed to import fish from this country; she 
"farming on the water," but if they knew how restored her rivers by the French system, 
very easy it is to breed trout and salmon artifi- while we went on exhausting ours by wasteftil 
cially, and what profits are certain, to re.sult, fishing, and by obstructing and defiling the 
many of those who have the advantage of run- streams; and we are now, in turn, importing 
ning springs would hasten to begin the work our finest fish from Canada, and paying her 
of propaoation. fil'.V cents a pound for the very articles we used' 

I to sell her at one-fifth that price. It is ju-o- 
Scarcity of Fisll.— In almost all our j posed to remedy this by restocking our rivers- 
waters east of Chicago, fish are now scarce, ' each State becoming its own fish-farmer, 
where once they disported in abundance. The 

natural supply is foiling. Fish of the mostj Origin Of Fi-Sll Culture— Fish eul- 
delicious kinds ought to be the cheapest food , ture is centuries old in China, but it was re- 
eaten by man, for no care or expense is be- served among the sacred secrets, and the art 
stowed upon their growth; but the numbers' never escaped for the use of Europeans. In 
liave been reduced by the cutting down of 1"63, Jacobi, a German, discovered and de- 
shade trees and the pursuit of reckle.ss and ini- scribed the method of artificial fecmulation, 
provident sportsmen, until, in all our midland but the art slept soundly seventy-five years 
States, salmon and trout are about as rare as thereafter, when it was revived by Professor 
rabbits. L- Agassiz. As recommended by hiiy. Sir 

Not only are these scarce in the inland Francis A. Mackenzie experimented, and 
streams, and other equally delicious fish that thus tells the story : " In the Autumn of 1840, 
ought to abound there entirely vanished, but having selected a brook flowing rapidly into 
shad .seem to be taking a final leave of the the river Ewe, a hollow spot adjoining to it 
rivers confluent to the sea. The stake nets in was cleared out, of the following dimensions: 
the Hudson, stretching for hundreds of rods Length, twenty-three yards; breadth, from 
into the channel, do not take more in a day twelve to eiglileen feet. All large stones liav- 
than were furnierly taken in nets a quarter or a ing been removed, the bottom was covered one 



458 



POULTRY, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE : 



foot thick with coarse sand and small gravel — 
the largest stones probably not exceeding the 
Bize of a walnut. A stream from the brook 
was then led into this hollow, so as to form a 
pool of about eight inches in depth at the 
upper, and three feet at the lower end ; thus 
giving it one gentle uniform current over the 
whole pool, while the supply of water" was 
regulated by a sluice, so as to have the same 
depth at all times, and a strong stone wall ex- 
cluded all eels or trout, so destructive to both 
spawn and fry. 

On November 23d, four pair of salmon were 
caught and placed in the pool, and were ob- 
served to commence spawning on the day fol- 
lowing. They were caught carefully, and about 
twelve hundred ova were gently squeezed from a 
female into a basin of water, and then ihey were 
covered over with an equal quantity of milt 
pressed from a male fisl>^ The two were stirred 
about together gently, but well with the fingei's, 
and, af-ter allowing them rest for an hour, the 
whole was deposited and spread in one of the 
wicker baskets recommended by Professor Agas- 
SIZ, having about four inches of gravel below 
and two or three inches of gravel above them. 

" On the 19th of February, llie ova were ex- 
amined ; life was plainly observed, both where 
placed artificially and deposited by the salmon 
themselves. On the 19th of March, the fry 
had increased in size, and went on gradually 
increasing, much in proporticm to the tempera- 
ture of the weather. 

"On the 22d the eyes were easily visible, and 
a few of the ova had burst, the young fry hav- 
ing a small watery bladder-like bag attached 
to the throat. 

"On the 18lh of April the baskets were all 
opened. The bags bad become detached from 
their throats; the fry measured about three- 
quarters of an inch in length, and ihey swam 
about easily, all dislinotly marked." 

Public Fi.'iili Culture.— Within the 

last ten ye^irs, the possiliility of restocking our 
rivers has been much sludied and debated, and 
the debaters having found it entirely feasible 
and easy, considerable has been accomplished 
in prosecuting the work. To carry it forward 
systematically requires a concurrence of public 
and private enterprise; fish commissioners to 
restock, and legislation to protect the larger 
rivers, and individual labor in constructing race- 
ways and stocking ponds in private streams. 

Legislation. — The legislation necessary to the 
accomplishment of the work in the several 



New England States is now in accord ; that of 
tlie Middle States has been confined solely to 
the appointment of commissioners to inquire 
into the feasibility of the work contemplated. 
The actual work done in the New England 
Slates is also greatly in advance of that accom- 
plished in the Middle States. Destructive fish- 
ing with seine-s, weir.s, etc., at the mouth of 
rivers, has been entirely prohibited, and all 
other kind of fishing regulated by law Ap- 
propriations have been made for the establish- 
ment of suitable hatching-boxes along the upper 
waters of the rivers, and for building fish- 
ways or ladders, by which the natural falls and 
artificial dams in the rivers may be overcome 
by the fish who desire to ascend to their natural 
spawning-beds in the upper and shallow waters 
of the streams — instinct requiring them to make 
the cradle of their own young on the very spot 
where they, themselves, were hatched. 

In many cases, these fish-ways are already 
completed, and the rivers have been largely 
stocked. One gentlemen, Mr. Seth Gkeen, 
of Mumford, New York, in his zeal in the 
work, deposiled in the spawning-beds of the 
Connecticut 40,000,000 of young shad in a sin- 
gle week in the Summer of 1868, and immense 
quantities in other streams East and South. 
These will go to sea, grow fat, and come back 
by the help of the fish-ladders, which are like 
stairways, and which the fish riipidly ascend by 
jumping from step to ste]!, and go to their 
spawning-beds to lay their eggs, and thus in- 
crease the supply of the stream. 

What is a I'^ish-wuy ? — A fish-way or ladder 
to help fish up over a dam, may be easily de- 
scribed. It should be some fifty or sixty feet 
long, extending from the dam down stream, 
with a fall of one foot in ten. It may be five 
feet deep an<l eight feet wiile, heavily timbered 
and planked at the bottom and sides, like an 
ordinary flume. Across the flume diagonally 
there are several divisions, stopping all the 
width of it except perhaps one foot. The wa- 
ter is admitted at one corner, by an opening in 
the dam a foot wide and the depth of the flume. 
It rushes down and is stopped by the acute an- 
gle of the first division, and eddies upward to 
the opening at the upper corner of it, where it 
again rushes down some ten or twelve feet into 
the second [angle, and so on in a zigzag course 
through the flume to the still water below. The 
flume fills with water, and the current is so 
slight that a fish of ordinary si)irit finds no 
difficulty in sailing up into the pond. It is 
believed that, as the result of the measures 



FISH — PRIVATE CULTURE OF. 



459 



taken, sh,ad will soon increase Ihiougliout all 
the Eastern States. 

Private Fi<ili Culture. — Ifanvlarm- 
er who reads this has an unfailing siiiipiv of 
rnnning water, sufhcient in volume to fill a pipe 
two inclies in diameter, he can rai.se enough 
fish to feed liis whole family, and supply his 
less enterprising neighbors at prices that will 
leave him a profit of from three hundred to 
five hundred per cent, on his investment. And 
the original investment in money, Labor, and 
knowledge, which is requisite to success as a 
fish-farmer, i8 so small as to appear insig- 
nificant. 

Layinr, Out Fish Ponds. — The intelligent 
reader will have no great difiiculty in [iropa- 
gating trout in abundance, by following these 
directions : The first essential is a small quiet 
brook, that never dries up. If there be no such 
available, perhaps you can tap a larger stream 
and draw it thence, or originate one by uniting 
a number of springs. Then take a month, with 
team and a hand, any time in Summer, and 
make a series of oblong ponds on the brook, so 
that the outflow of one is two to sLt rods above 
the inflow of the other. Continue this system 
of ponds as far as your I.-ind extends, or far 
enough to give a suflicient run of water. 

They should be of difTerent sizes, the smallest 
at or near the spring, being five feet in diame- 
ter at the surface and three feet deep, and the 
other ponds — two or more — doubling in diame- 
ter successively, down the stream. This would 
make the second pond, on the basis we have 
named, ten feet long, and the third one twenty. 
These basins should be connected with races 
also increasing in capacity as the stream de- 
scends ; the upper one not less than a foot wide 
and a foot deep, if so much water can be com- 
manded. The ponds .-ilionld be from four to 
twelve feet deep, according to their size. 

W. F. G. Shanks, in Hearth and Home, fur- 
ther directs as to the construction : " The sides 
of the races should he unide of not less than 
inch-hoards, and the bottom paved with a layer 
of fine gravel over cobble stones. The hnttom 
of the ponds must be of the natural .■■oil, with 
an occasional large stone, against which the 
fish m.iy rub in order to free themselves from 
the little animals which sometimes trouble 
them, and a few water-plants to afford shade 
and hiding places. The ponda and races must 
be separated from each other by galvanized 
wire-gratings, to prevent the fish from passing 
from pond to pond at will or entering the races 



at fcu'bidden times. Fish — particularly trout, 
which farmers will find it most profitable to 
raise — are such terrible cannibals that they 
often eat their own young." 

When you have the basins completed (per- 
manent) set each side of your stream with sngar- 
maple trees. Set them about fifteen feet apart 
in the row, that they may soon shade the 
stream. At the end of fifteen years every other 
one should be taken out to give room to the 
others. This will in time give a fine sugar 
bush on land that will give the most and rich- 
est .sap, furnish a cool shade for fish and cattle, 
and just in the right place where the cattle 
come to drink. This will make a rough un- 
couth stream the most beautiful and produc- 
tive part of the farm, and will add to the 
value of the farm ten times the cost. 

Fish to Stock With: — If there are trout in 
your .stream, you will need no other kinds; 
they will run into and not much out of your 
dams. If you have none in your stream, you 
should be very careful to get the genuine brook 
trout ; you can buy a few pairs of two-year 
old trout to begin with if you choose. Mo.st 
farmers buy their eggs already imjircgnated or 
their young fisli already hatched. There are 
numbers of pisciculturists who sell trout eggs 
at ten dollars per thou.sand, and the young fry 
at forty dollars per thousand, and forward them 
to all parts of the country by express. 

Trout begin to spawn about the first of No- 
vember and cease the first of March. Seth 
Green sells spawn and young trout an inch 
long — mostly between these dates — shipping 
spawn in mo.ss and young trout in barrels any 
distance, with instructions how to proceed in 
maturing them. 

Artificial Fecundation. — If you begin with the 
mature fish, the eggs have to be taken from the 
fish by hand, or by the use of Ainswortii's 
screen.* — not patented — strongly recommended 
by Mr. Shanks. If you desire to construct the 
screens, yon had better apply to your State Fish 
Commissioners or to some well-known fish cul- 
turist for instruction. 

The manual practice is more in vogue. This 
involves handling the male and female fish in 
order to impregnate the eggs. A common tin- 
pan only is required, half-full of fresh water 
from the spring pool. "Take the male fish first, 
the head firmly in the left hand, the body in the 
right, but held loosely. The lower part of the 
body should be submerged, and the body gently 
stroked or pressed toward the tail by the right 
hand. The milt — a milky-white sub.stance — 



460 



POULTRV, BEES, AND FISH CULTURE: 



will flow from the fish iind discolor the water. 
Only a little milt is necessary, but too much does 
no harm. The female is then used in the .same 
Tf ay ; egg.s are extracted instead of milt. In 
ten minutes the eggs will have become impreg- 
nated, and may be put in the hatching-box." 
A female trout furnishes more than a thousand 
eggs. The milt of one male is sufficient to 
impregnate the spawn of five fish of the same 
size; fifteen grains of milt will impregnate ten 
thousand eggs, yet in practice much more is 
used. A large shad yields about thirty lhoi»- 
Band* spawn. When ejected they are round 
and nearly transparent, and as large as a No. 
9 shot. 

Dr. Theodore G11.1-, in an Essay on Pi.sci- 
culture in the United Slates Agricultural Re- 
port for 1866, remarks under this head: "It 
will be seen that the fish should be firmly seized 
by the hand, and that the other should be 
passed over the altdomen gently, hut firmly, 
and the ova and milt, if mature, will readily 
pour out. Only those fishes which are mature 
should be treated thus. If the ova or milt 
comes out with diffieulty, and only under hard 
pres.sure, it is a sufficient indication that they 
are not ripe, and it would not only injure the 
pregnant fish, but be useless as to results to an- 
ticipate the period of maturity. This uncer- 
tainly as to the period when the fish may be 
most advantageously manipulated, is one of the 
difficulties incidental to artificial fecundation. 
The fishes may be caught when they have 
apparently nearly reached their term, and be 
ccmfincd so as to be under the notice of the 
pisciculturi.st. When ripe they may be dis- 
tinguished by their turgid sides, the pouting 
anus, and their uneasy movements." 

The Hatching Apparatus. — The hatching-box 
is made in a variety of ways, two imperative 
conditions being that it be placed beyond the 
reach of the mature fish, which have a singular 
appetite for eggs, and that the running water 
be kept i^ery clean and cool. The in-door ap- 
paratus is generally preferred. It nuist be 
placed under a partially turned faucet, where it 
can receive an uiiinterniittent supply. Some- 
times two or more boxes are used, llie bottom 
of one resting on the edge of anotlier. 

Tiie accompanying drawing shows the troughs 
best suited for the purpose, e.ach being fitted 
with a spout, which conducts off the surplus 
water. The troughs can be multiplied, one 
above the other, ad infinitum. Figure 1 indi- 



, of PenQsylvaoia, L'stipatcs it at i 



cates the hands of the operator placing in th« 
frame work of glass rods, upon which the eggs 
are left to hatch. The lower tank (figure 2) re- 
presents the IVesh eggs resting upon the gravel. 
The water from the spout above must be flow- 
ing incessantly, but gently. Board.s should be 
fitted on the tops of the troughs while the egg8 
are being developed. Tlie tanks can be made 
of zinc, two feel long, five inches wide, four 
inches deep, with one side of glasi?. Alter be- 
ing deposited in the tank the eggs should not 
be exposed to the air. 




The hatoliiiig of Irniit eggs occupies about 
seventy days, if the water be of the proper 
temperature of forty-five degrees; every degree 
colder or warmer making some five or six days 
diff"erence in the time of hatching. The young 
fish should be removed from the hatching ap- 
paratus and deposited in the upper jiond, en- 
tirely cut off from their unnatural parents. 
When they are two months old they should be 
fed occasionally with curds, or beef's heart, or 
liver minutely hashed. Toss this to the fish a 
little at a time, so that they can catch and de- 
vour it before it reaches tlie bottom of the 
trough; no more should be given than the fish 
will eat, because if any is left it will settle on 
the bottom and foul the water, and the fish will 
sicken and die. 

From the report of the Commissioners for the 
Restoralion of Fish in Massachusetts, we quote: 
"The little ones will get enough food in a 
proper pond or brook, if simply left to them- 
selves; but to grow the larger fish rapidly, ex- 
tra food in large quantities will be required. 
The way to get this is the way of CoMMACHiO; 
to breed one fish to feed another, and to let the 
first gain its own living from insects or water- 
plants. Near the sea-coast vast quantities of 
little fish may be had for the catching; among 
which may be named the 'friars,' that swarm 
in salt-water ditches and creeks. These, scalded 



FISH — PROFITS OF CULTURE. 



461 



ami si'^'fii to trniif, priKhR-o a r.ipiil growth, 
some L;fltin^ to Iiulf a imiiiul ami more in a 
yeai'. There seems no reason wliy every inland 
fisli-brecding establishment shoiikl not liatcli, 
artificially, large quatitities of small fish en- 
tirely as food for the more valuable trout. 
Probably the shiners wonld be the best, because 
they breed rapidly. A certain amount of beef 
liver could be used to advantage, but would be 
loo dear and too hard to get for a constant food. 
The shiners would be kept in small ponds, 
^vhen(■e the pickerel and pouts had been re- 
moved, ar.d where tliey would get tlieir own 
living." 

Profits of FislB-Farniiiis.— There is 

nothing to which farmers near city markets 
can turn their attention that will pay, on an 
aceragc, so heavy a percentage of profit as 
fish-projiagation for a few years, at least, and 
nnlil llie normal supply of fish shall be re- 
stored, furnishing trout at fifteen cents a pound 
in market. That it will pay an enormous in- 
terest on the investment has been abundantly 
demonstrated by farmers in almost every State 
east of Illinois. 

Experience of Seth Orccn. — Seth Green, of 
Mumford, Monroe county, New York, is the 
great authority on fish-bieeding in America. 
He has made himself perfectly familiar with 
the habits of fish; has found his knowledge in 
personal experienoe; is a man of unusual skill, 
originality, and public spirit, and has done 
more for the development of fish-culture than 
any other ten men. He has a living faith that 
our rivers, ponds, and bays may, by artificial 
breeding, be so filled with fish, that, to use his 
own words, " the people can't catch 'em all out, 
if they fry." Strong in this confidence, he has 
given his time and efforts to the propagation 
of shad in the rivers of the sea-board. 

Seth Green's experience with his private 
trout-ponds is suggestive. He was known only 
as a crack marksman and the best fi-herman 
iu central New York, when he bought an old 
mill site on Caledonia creek for $2,000, for the 
pur|iose of growing trout artificially. He pre- 
pared ponds, by simply creating divisions in 
tlie old fore-bay and race-way, in which he 
speedily secured an abundant supply of breed- 
ing trout, with which the stream naturally 
alHJuniled. No sooner had he made these 
preparations and commenced artificial propa- 
gation, than he admitted a partner, who paid 
him i^6,000 for one-half interest. He has since 



constructed ponds, races, hatching-houses, and 
hatching-boxs for 3,000,000 spawn. 

In one of his ponds, only 75 feet long, 12 
feet wide, and 5 feet deep, he has 9,000 trout 
from 9 to 20 inches in length, weighing from a 
quarter of a pound to three pounds each. Mr. 
Green's profits in 1866 were $1,000; in 1867 
they amounted to $6,000, and in 1868 he .sold 
300,000 spawn, at from $8 to $10 per 1,000, and 
200,000 young fry at from $30 to $-10 per 1,000, 
yielding at least $10,000, besides the profits 
arising from the sale of full-grown trout from 
his ponds. The owner has been offered $20,000 
for the farm, and refused to sell it for twice 
that sum. Four thousand pounds of trout are 
taken annually from the stream, each rod of 
which contains by computation, 1,000 fish of all 
sizes. Mr. Green, speaking from his experi- 
ence, once said that "an acre of good water can 
be nmde to produce twice as much food as an acre 
of land." It was Francis Fraijcis, the first 
fish farmer of England, who said that a sow- 
ing of fish was twice as valuable as a sowing 
of corn. 

Expenenee nf Otiiers. — Dr. Thaddeds Norris 
estimates the annual cost of breeding ten thou- 
sand yearling, eight thousand two-year old, 
and seven thousand three-year old trout at 
$706 60; the receipts from the sale of their 
product, without decreasing the stock on hand, 
at $6,100— a net i)rolit of over $5,000. 

Mr. AiNSWORTH, of West Bloomfied, New 
Y^ork, found on his farm, when he purchased 
it, tliirteen or fourteen smftU springs, no one 
of them of sufficient volume to fill a good-sized 
quill. But by collecting their several streams 
into one he secured a volume of one inch of 
rather variable water — variable not only in 
temperature, but iivgredients ; yet he nuilses 
this supply of water sufficient for a pond four- 
teen feet deep, and covering sixty rods of 
ground — formerly a useless marsh; and in 
this pond and accessory pools he keeps from 
fifteen hundred to two thousand trout, which 
he feeds to his family, and about a dozen farm 
laborers, and yet manages to sell eggs to the 
value of at least five hundred dollars a year. 

William Cli,ft, of the American Agricul- 
luri^il, in an address before the Massachusetts 
Board of Agriculture, in 1868, thus spoke of 
the ponds of Dr. J. H. Slack, of Bloomsbuiy, 
New Jersey, then established a year: "In one 
of these ponds he has, as the result of his last 
year's operations, ten thousand young trout 
turned out of his hatching-boxes. The fish are 



462 



FISH CCLTCRE. 



now aDout six inches long. He has in the next 
pond about two hnndred that are two years old, 
ind in anotlier pond two hundred and fifty fish 
thnt were on liand wlien he began liis operalii 
When I saw liini, a few days since, he told me he 
had taken oflT fortj'-seven thousand eggs, which 
he has in hatching-box, and they are doing very 
well. He has not lost one per cent, of them, 
and calculates that when his establishment if 
fully going, he can raise every year, in that liltle 
yard, perhaps about four times tlie size of this 
room, fifty thousand pounds of trout, wortli^at 
wholesale prices, not less than thirty thousand 
dollars. It may, perhaps, cost him two or 
three thousand dollars to carry it on." 

A correspondent of the Springjield Republi- 
can describes the ponds of J. C. Bridomam, of 
Bellows Falls, Vermont: "Mr. Bridgman 
is a retired lawyer, living on a farm a little 
from the center of the village. The numerous 
springs on his property suggested to him the 
feasibility of fish-raising as a means to his own 
gratification; but his experience of only one year 
has (aught him that profit can be combined with 
pleasure. From seven to twelve beautiful springs 
come welling up at the base of the mountain 
where his bouse stands, and he has converted 
his 'back-yard' into ponds of 'living water,' 
the successive ponds being filled with fishes 
according to size. As 'dogs eat dog,' .so trout 
eat trout — and it is necessary for their safety to 
keep those of the same aye by themselves. A 
trout will swallow his brother of two-lhirds 
his own size. The ponds are all connected Ijy 
sluices, which are covered with wire-gauze, for 
the double purpose of protecting the lish and 
catching all leaves and sticks. In pond No. 1 



are three thousand large trout, from five to 
twelve inches in length ; the pond is no larger 
than a good-sized parlor, and to see these beau- 
ties swimming about would make an old fisher- 
man nervous. Tliey are as tame as gold-fi.sh, 
and make the prettiest of pets. In all the 
ponds, some eight in number, are twenty thou- 
sand trout, of all ages, from three weeks old 
to as many years; and >Ir. Bridgm.\n expects 
to have five hundred thousand by another 
year.'' 

In Englan<l and Scotland, entire rivers are 
farmed for their fisli. The Galway, Ireland, 
was rented in 1852 to a fish-farmer named AsH- 
WORTH, who began to stock it with salmon. 
In 1853 he took one thousand six hundred and 
three fish ; in 1854, three thousand one hundred 
and fifty-eight; 1861, eleven thousand and fifty- 
one, and in 1S64, twenty thousand fivehimdred 
and twelve — all this without decreasing the 
original stock. At the same time the same 
gentleman rented the river Tay for $40,000 per 
year; in 1854 he had to pay 545,000, and in 
1864 the rent had advanced to 4-75,000. The 
profits of the fishery were so great that not 
only was the lessee justified in paying this rent, 
but he was enabled to build a breeding estab- 
lishment superior to any outside of France. 

Among others who have had much experi- 
ence, and who m.ay profitably be consulted by 
beginners, are Colonel James Worrall, of 
Ilarrisburg, Pennsylvania, Stephen H. Ains- 
woRTH, of West Bloomfield, New York, and 
Messrs. Treat & Son, Eastport, Maine. The 
American Fish Culturist, a volume by Thad- 
DEUS NoRRis, will also be found a most valua- 
ble counsellor. 



THE DAIRY; 



How TO Make Butter and Cheese. — The Factory System. 



The dairy has become an iniportant branch 
of national inaustry. It is rai>iilly sjireudini; 
over new fields, and is eng;iging the attention 
of farmers in the Western, Nortliwestern, and 
MiddJ^ States, wherever tlie hands are adapted 
to gracing, and there are springs and streams 
of living water. Tlie dairy districts, tlioiigli 
conipnralively limited, embrace a larger area 
tlian has been commonly .supposed. 

It is trne, there are extensive plains at the 
South and Southwest, where the business of 
dairying can not be carried on, but broad belts 
and isolated patches of land are scattered over 
our vast domain, well adapted to grazing, and 
,snch lands, when taken in the aggregate, cover 
a wide extent of territory. 

There are two causes that have been operat- 
ing the past few years to stimulate the develop- 
ment of this branch of industry, and have 
caused it to assume proporlions that give it a 
distinctive feature of nationality. The first is 
a large and increasing foreign demand for dairy 
products; the second is the American system of 
" assciciated dairies," now brought to such won- 
derful perfection that the business can be readily 
introduced into new sections with all the ease 
and certainty of success in producing tlie quil- 
ities attained in old dairy di.stricls. 

The foreign demand for cheese, it is believed, 
will be permanent, an<l exportations from year 
to year nuist largely increase, since the finest 
American grades are acknowledged to be equal 
to the best manufactured abroad, while the cost 
of production is so much le.ss as to render com- 
petition with European dairies an ea.sy nuitter 
on our part. This fact alone gives confidence 
to those about entering upon the busine.ss of 
dairy farming, that it will be remunerative and 
enduring. 

In addition, as the texture and flavor of 
cheese hav« been improved, a large home de- 
mand has sprung up, which requires large 
quantities to meet its wants. It is believed by 



many that the home demand, for years to come, 
will more than keep pace with increased pro- 
duction ; and home sales for the last two yeara 
would seem to prove that this view is not with- 
out foundation. 

With a constantly increasing home trade, 
and a reliable market abroad, no branch of 
farming to-day offers prospects of belter or 
more permanent remuneration than the dairy. 

Overproduction is not likely soon to attack 
dairymen. Anson BabtI/ETT, of Ohio, recently 
called attention to the fact,* that the rel.itive 
number of milch cows in the United Slates, 
in jjroportion to the entire pojiulation has 
remained constant for seventy years, being 
about twenty-seven cows to each one huiulred 
jieople. The proportion of cows to inhabitants 
in the older States is .steadily decreasing, while 
the Western States alone show an increasing 
excess ; thus, Mas.sachusetts has twelve cows 
to each one hundred of the populati(m, while 
Orecoii has one hundred and one, or more than 
one <ow to each person. The production of 
butter and cheese is not likely soon to outrun 
tlie demand. 

"The American factory S3"stem," says Mr. 
Wll>L.4.RD,t now stands pre-eminently in ad- 
vance of dairy practice in the Old World. By 
it a more uniform and better product of cheese 
and butter can be made. These must soon take 
the lead in European markets, and European 
nations will adopt the system or be content to 
see their home products rank as secondary, and 
sold at inferior prices. Since the adoption of 
the factory system, a large export trade in 
cheese has grown up between America and 
Great Britain. The value of American cheese 
now sent abroad, is from seven to ten millions 



*E6>a> iu Ohio Asricultural Report for 18' (i. 

♦ X. A. WiLr.AKD, A. M.,ii^rii-iiltiinil («!ie..rof tho Ul 



many of the best sili^gestiona in 
Irei'ly, not only frosn hia jouni 
e=8ays in the tjnited States A^ 
and 1S6G. 



(463) 



464 



THE daiuy: 



of dollars annually, and as factories improve 
in the quality of their manufacture, a much 
larger trade, it is beliavcd, will be inaugurated." 

The total production of butter in the United 
States, in 1850, was 313,345,300 ponn(!s; and in 
1860, 409,081,372 pounds. Of cheese, the pro- 
duct in 1850 was 105,535,893 pounds; and in 
1800, 1(33,003,927 pounds, showin"; an increase 
in the production of butter, and a decrease of 
cheese, during that decade. The Western Stales 
increased four million pounds in cheesc-mal;- 
ing; and in butter-making from ninety mill- 
ion to one hundred and sixty-four n]i!lii)n. 
New York made two-thirds as much butter, and 
twice as much cheese, as the eleven Western 
States. The production of cheese increased 
very rapidly and largely after 1800, in con.-c- 
quence of the establishment of cheese fact(n-ic.~ 
throughout the country, and a thorough devel- 
0|micnt of the associated system of dairying, 
known abroad as "the American system." 

Mr. WlI,L.\RD says: "We have not the exact 
figures at hand for giving the statistics of butler 
and cheese made in the Union during the year 
1805, but the production of cheese in the Mid- 
dle and Western States alone, it is believed, 
was more than 200,000,000 of pounds. From 
facts gathered by the American DairyineuV 
Association, it is known that there are now up- 
ward of a thousand cheese factories in opera- 
tion throughout the United Slates. If ilu- 
rumber of cows to each be estimated at 500, we 
have half a million of cows eUiployed in the 
associated dairies, and if the average annual 
yield per cow be put at 300 pounds, we have in 
the aggregate 150,000,000 pounds. Eul ilure 
are a large number of private or family dairies 
in operation, especially in the Eastern and 
Middle States, the production of which, it is 
believed, will more than make up the esti- 
mated annual product of cheese to 200,000,000 
pounds. If the value of the cheese product of 
1865 be put at an average of fifteen cents per 
pound, it shows a total of $30,000,000, while 
the butter product, if no larger than that of 
1800, at the low estimate of twenty-five cents 
per pound, would amount to over §114,000,000. 
In the estimate of the cheese product, it will be 
proper to remark that the quantity is presumed 
to lie the amount sold, and dues not include 
that consumed in the families of producers." 

Advantagre of Dairying.— The dairy 

ought to be more largely introduced at the 
West, as a prominent department of husbandry. 
It is less profitable, as a rule, to transport field 



crops a long distance, in their crude stato, than 
to transport the .same crops after they have been 
worked over into beef, pork, mutton, butter, 
cheese, etc. Milch cows are machines to turn 
grass into gold. A Western Reserve farmer thus 
talks of the advantages of dairy farming: " T 
live in the Western Reserve, and in an almost 
exclusively dairying region, and have seen it 
change from stock raising and grain gmwing 
to what it now is, and the profits of the farms 
now, are nearly two-fold more than they were 
under the old system of management. Farmers 
found that ten to twelve bushels of wheat to the 
acre, thirty of corn, the .same of oats, with at- 
tendant expense, such as iiired help, seed, extra 
teams, etc., with the inevitable wear of land, did 
not pay, but that dairying, with cheese at twelve 
to sixteen cents per pound, with a little hired 
labor, and no wear and tiring of one's self, but 
the reverse docs pay, and that well. I do not 
propose to go into a long argument to prove 
the advantages and beauties this business has 
over other brandies of farming. I do claim, 
however, that dairying, in a country adapted to 
it, is less exhausting to the land, requires* one- 
fourth the manual labor that grain growing 
does, and yields twice the profit." 

English and American Dairying Compared. — 
Mr. WiLLARD visited Great Britain in 1866, 
commissioned by the American Dairy Associa- 
tion, to investigate English methods. lie re- 
ports, in the cs.say already referred to : "The 
dairy lands of Great Britain, it is believed, are 
no better than in the best dairy districts of 
.\merica. Pastures there, it is true, will gen- 
erally carry more stock than ours, because theirs 
are fieer from weeds and better managed. The 
yield of bay from permanent meadows is no 
larger than from our best lands, two tons per 
acre being considered a good crop, but theirs is 
composed of a greater variety of grasses, is 
finer, and doubtless more nutriiious than ours, 
on account of less waste in woody fiber. Their 
dairy stock is generally no better than in our 
first-class dairies. I think there is no county 
in England or Scotland, where the average 
yield of cheese per cow is so large as in Her- 
kimer county. New York." 

He says that, 'in the management of farms 
they ;ire far in advance of us ; but that in the 
general process of cheese-making, they are be- 
hind us. We quote: "But laying all preju- 
dice aside, I must, in truth say, that we have 
not yet been able to surpass in excellence the 
fine specimens of English Cheddar. It is a 
very high standard of cheese, and is deserving 



■WESTERN DAIRYING. 



465 



of all the encomiums which it lias received 
from time to time. The quantity of extra Ched- 
dar made in England is cominiratively small, 
and its poculiar excellence has been rarely 
reatht'd in American dairies. Its requisites 
may be briefly summed up in the following 
points : 

1. Mildness and purity of flavor. 

2. Quality, which consists of mellowness or 
richness under tlie tongue. 

3. Long-keeping qualities. 

4. Solidity or freedom from eyes or holes. 

5. An economical shape as regards shrink- 
age, handling, and cutting. 

" Yet I think I may safely say, that Ameri- 
ican cheese to-day, as a whole, has more quality 
and is belter manufactured than the bulk of 
English cheese. I have given them the credit 
of producing a limited quantity of cheese of the 
finest type that has ever been reached by any 
manufacture, but the quantity is comparatively 
small, and when the whole bulk is considered, 
there is nothing like the richness and uniform- 
ity of that from our factories." 

" We come now to consider the two leading 
defects in American cheese — porosity and bad ; 
flavor; and the last may be said to-day to over- 
balance all the other defects put together, two\ 
or three times over. I need not waste time up-i 
on that cliaracter of cheese known as soft, 
spongy, or salvy, or the poor grades which i 
come from carelessness, inefficiency, or igno- 
rance in manufacture. The English acknowl- 
edge that the American factories stand unri- 
valled as sending out a cheese full of meat — that j 
is, full of butter, or rich in quality. 

"Tliecauses of bad flavor in cheese are vari- 
ous — insutficient and uneven salting ; a faulty 
separation of the whey from the curds before 
going to press and while pressing; putting the 
curds to press too hot ; high heat and a rapid 
manipulation of tlie curds, getting them in press 
before the proper chemical changes have been 
effected; but the chief causes of bad flavor in 
well manufactured cheese, as I saw it abroad, 
is, in my opinion, due to bad milk, bad rennet, 
and bad curing of the cheese. If our dairy 
farmers would only look upon this matter in its 
proper light, instead of laying all the blame of 
bad-flavored cheese upon the manufacturer, 
there would be some hope of improvement. 
They send to the factory tainted milk and de- 
mand from it a perfect cheese. They impose 
upon the manufacturer conditions which no 
skill has yet been able to surmount. High 
skill and great experience in manipulating 

30 



milk, together with favorable weather, and the 
putting the cheese in market, just at the right 
moment, may enable the manufacturer to coun- 
teract, in part, the faults of tainted milk; but 
with intensely hot weather, and under unfa- 
vorable circumstances, it is beyond his art. 
Bad rennet and tainted milk are prominent 
j causes of the early decay of our cheese." 

[ 'Western Dairying-.— Mr. Willard 

spAt some lime in the West, in 186S, and he 
thus reported to the Utica Heialil, comparing 
the methods and advantages of the two sec- 
tions : '"It appears that northern Illinois and 
southern Wisconsin are much better grazing 
regions than the people of the East liave been 
led to imagine. Timothy, clover, and all the 
cultivated grasses grow luxuriantly and do 
well. Springs and streams of living water are 
not so abundant as in the dairy region of New 
York, but an unlimited supply of water is ob- 
tained from wells of medium dejith. In many 
parts of northern Illinois, by digging down 
twenty feet, 'sheet water,' as it is called, is 
reached. The water in these wells is perma- 
nent, and as windmills are coming into use for 
pumping, the herds get a good supply of water 
without much trouble. 

"It is very probable that the great bulk of 
Western cheese is inferior to first-class New 
York factory make, but the factories are rap- 
idly improving in their make, and many are 
producing a quality of cheese that is .scarcely 
inferior to the average good grades of New 
York. * ~ Doubtless the Western farm- 

ers are not so well in formed as to the manu- 
facture of dairy products as ihe old and expe- 
rienced dairymen of the East ; but they are 
earnest, active, and intelligent, and determined 
not to leave a stone unturned until they have 
acquired the whole art of manufacturing. 
They will never rest content until ' theirgoods' 
shall be equal in quality and flavor with those 
of the East. 

"The advantages and disadvantages of the 
two sections may be briefly summed up as fol- 
lows : We of the East are nearer the se.a-board 
and the English markets; our lands produce 
more and better grass during the season, 'acre 
for acre ;' we are not so liable to be affected by 
droughts ; we have more streams and springs 
of living water scattered over pastures and 
meadows, giving at all times abundance of 
water to stock at no expense ; we have been a 
long time engaged in the business, and have 
acquired a reputation in the markets of the 



•466 



THE dairy: 



world, which for some time will give our goods 
a preference in the trade, even if no better than 
those made at the West. On the other hand 
the West can make up in the cheapness of the 
lands any difference of production, acre for 
acre; the lands West are m<ire easily culti- 
vated ; corn fodder, and other forage plants can 
be raised more cheaply tiian with us, and these 
in a measure will supply deficiency in case of 
drouth; stock can be raised at less expense, 
and so with all manner of grain and foot 
crops. They liave as yet no diseases among 
their stock like those that are affecting the 
herds of New York. The farms generally at 
the West are much larger than at the East, and 
the surface being less broken than ours, make 
them better adapted to machinery. Hence they 
can be worked at less outlay of labor and ex- 
pense. They can make a profit on dairy pro- 
ducts at prices where it would be i loss to us on 
our high-priced lands. And thus it will be 
seen our main props rest on being near market 
and upon our capacity to improve in making 
fine goods, keeping ahead of all other sections, 
and leading the markets." 

The price of butter and cheese is fully thirty 
per cent, lower in the We.stern markets than 
in the Eastern, and can be produced at one- 
half the cost. 

Best Cow for the Dairy.— This 
question is treated at length under the head of 
Live Stock. We will here (mly recapitulate: 
The Shorthorns will average best for milk and 
the ultimate shamble-s if they can be kept on 
thick grass — " up to their knees in clover." 
The Ayrshires average lighter on' foot, are ca- 
pable of enduring severe Winters and of recu- 
perating readily in the Spring; moreover they 
yield a larger quantity of milk and butter, in 
proportion to the food eaten, than any other 
breed. The Jerseys ( Alderneys) on an aver- 
age surpass all others in richness of milk and 
butter, in color, flavor, and texture. The 
Devons are better adapted to some localities 
than any other breed, being usually good milk- 
ers, while no beef is sweeter. The grades, as 
of Ayrshire and Shorthorn, or Jersey, are bet- 
ter for some purposes than the pure bloods; 
while now and then a herd of natives is found 
to vie with cither in dairy qualities. And it is 
understood that many a poor cow, well-fed and 
cared for, will produce more than the best cow 
on half rations. 

Feedlngr> — Evans, in his " Dairyman's 



Manual," thus confirms the methods of cook- 
ing, already insisted on, under the appropriate 
head: "It may be laid down, as a standing 
fact, that ait roots, brav, shoi-ts, and grain of any 
kind, that contain much starch, will be greatly t'm- 
proved by boiling or scalding. The reason is, 
that starch before entering into the circulation 
and secretions of the animal system, must first 
be changed to a condition called dextrine — the 
glutinous substance produced by the house- 
keeper, when starch is prepared for use in the 
laundry. Starch, in its granular condition, is 
quite insoluble in cold water, but when scalded 
it is perfectly soluble, and enters readily into 
the circulation. In fact, if starch is eaten raw, 
this change must be wrought in the animal's 
stomach by an expenditure of animal heat, 
before it can be digested ; but if it be thus 
changed by artificial heat before being eaten, 
the amount of animal heat necessary to pro- 
duce the change is thus saved, and hence effects 
a great saving of food ; for the amount of food 
digested is nearly in direct proportion to the 
amount of animal heat necessary to carry on 
the vital functions." 

■What Is lUIIkt— Milk is a yellowi.sh- 
white opaque liquid, of a sweetish taste, and is 
a compound of water, butler, curd or casein, 
sugar, and a little mineral matter. These fac- 
tors are subject to various changes in form and 
character; and these changes give rise to the 
various branches of the dairy. 

Milk is a most excellent diet — the very per- 
fecticjn of food. Theie is nothing like it — it 
contains curd, which is necessary for the devel- 
opment and formation of muscle; butter, for 
the production of an adequate supply of fat; 
sugar, to feed the respiration, and thereby add 
warmth to the body ; the phosphates of lime 
and magnesia, the peroxide of iron, the chlo- 
rides of potassium and soda, with the free soda, 
required to give solidity and strength to the 
bone, together with the saline particles so es- 
sentially necessary for other parts of the body. 
It contains lactic acid, or the acid of milk, 
which chemists inform us is the acid of the gas- 
tric juice, so requisite lor the proper dissolving 
of our food in the stouuicli. It. is therefore ob- 
vious that milk should be chemically correct in 
all its constituents, and that its beneficial effects 
on the ccmslitulion should not be neutralized 
by adulteration. " It is," Dr. Prout properly 
states, "the true tyjie of all food." 

The oily part, being lighter, rises lo the sur- 
face in the form of cream. Cream ou being 



WHAT IS MILK? 



467 



violently shaken at a certain temperature, be- 
comes butler. If a little acid be added to milk 
wanned (o 100° Fahrenlieit, it immediately co- 
agulates and separates into two parts, curds and 
wlicy. The same eflect is produced by the ad- 
diiiiin of rennet, or sour milk. If sour milk 
slanil for a certain time, fermentation ensues, 
and an intoxicating: liquor results, extensively 
manufactured by the Arabs from the milk of 
the camel, called arrack. 

The following analyses of milk, by different 
chemists, are copied for the purpose of giving 
a comparative view of the composition of that 
of different anhiials: 





Cow. 


Asa. 


Goat. 


Ewe. 


Oiisein. (pure curd) 


4.48 
3.KS 
4.77 
(l.tjO 
87.02 

100.00 


1.82 
0.11 
fi.OS 

91.«.i 

100.00 


4.0S 
3.32 
.'i.22 
0..T.-. 
W.-O 

100.00 


4.50 




5.00 


Saliue mattei- 




■<" r' 







The milk of the a.ss has considerable resem- 
blance to that of woman, the butter bein 
diiced considerably while the sugar is increased 
in proportion. Milk is secreted by an organ 
called the mammary gland, the structure and 
function of which are precisely the same in all 
animals. 

Cooling Milk. — Most milk dairymen feel com- 
pelled to resort to methods of cooling milk 
artificially ; for the sooner it is cooled after 
milking, and the colder it is made, the longer 
it will keep sweet. Many cool it by setting the 
cans, as soon as they are filled, into a vat 
through which runs a stream of cold water, 
and stirring the milk to hasten the operation. 
This cools it to about 50° Fahrenheit. It 
should not be covered close while cooling, or 
for some time after. 

At a meeting of the Western Dairymen's 
Association, in 1869, Mr. Stone, of McIIenry 
county, Illinois, .said it was of the utmost im- 
portance that the animal heat be e-xpelled from 
milk before undertaking to work it into chee.se. 
It should be done before the milk is carried to 
the factory. Has known it to be injured badly 
by being carried to the factory immediately, 
after being drawn from the cows. He would 
put in cans and immerse them in cold water 
before loading. All cans should be full when 
carried, or tliere would be injury from churning. 

Mr. Eldridge, of Afton, Wisconsin, would 
not mix the two milkings. No danger of cool- 
ing milk too rapidly; would immerse the can 
of warm milk immediately in cold water, and 
cool to about 60°. The cans should be left 
uncovered while cooling. Milk thoroughly 



cooled will keep sweet several hours longer 
than warm milk left to cool of it.self. The 
cans in transporting should not be shut tight 
unless the milk has been cooled previously. 
Keep night and morning's milk separate in 
warm weather. 

Others thought it ought to be cooled more 
slowly, and by hand-stirring. 

Mr. WiLLARD recently visited the Orange 
county butter factories, and thus describes the 
cooling-spring of the WallkiU Creamery A.s.so- 
ciation, which receives the milk from four hun- 
dre<l cows: 

There are two springs in the spring-house — 
one is soft water, and the other happens to be 
slightly tinctured with iron. Vats are con- 
structed about the springs for holding the water. 
They are three in number, twelve feet long bv 
six feet wide, set down even with the floor, and 
with rack? in the bottom for holding the cans. 
The water flows up through these racks and 
above them to the depth of seventeen inches. 
The pails are twenty-two inches long and eight 
inches in diameter, and as fast as the milk is 
received they are tilled within five or six inches 
of the top, and imyiediately placed in the water." 
Care is taken that the surface of the milk in the 
pails is not above that of the water in the spring. 
The pails are .set close together, and one spring 
will hold two thou.sand and forty quarts of 
milk. The spring should have a sufficient flow 
of water to divest the milk of the animal heat 
in less than an hour. 

Mr. Slauguteb reg.ards 56° as the highest 
temperature that the water of the spring should 
be for conducting operations successfully. He 
has not yet determined the precise tempera- 
ture of water best adapted for obtaining the 
most cream from the milk, but is satisfied from 
his experiments that the natural temperature 
of the water should not be below 48° nor above 
56°. He says more cream, and that of better 
quality for butter-making, can be obtained by 
setting the milk on the above plan, than in 
shallow pans. The object is to expo.se as little 
of the surface of tiie milk to the air as possible, 
and that surface should always be in a umist 
atmosphere, in order that the top of the cream 
may not get dry, which has a tendency to fleck 
the buttei; and injure its flavor. The milk of 
one day is left in the spring until next morning, 
when it is taken out, the cream dipped off and 
put immediately in the churns. 

In Chester county, Pennsylvania, may be 
found some of the most complete dairying 
establishments we have in any part of the couu- 



468 



THE dairy: 



try. The agricultural editor of the New York 
World, ill notes of a recent visit there, mentions 
the following facts with regard to the farm of 
Air. S. J. SiiARPLESS: 

" He keeps from twenty to twenty-five Akler- 
neys, and has what we saw at very few other 
places, a niilking-house; a large and airy 
structure, with a hard clay floor well rammed, 
and stanchions, with the name of each animal 
tastefully printed and nailed over the place 
where she regularly stands. This house is 
kept as clean as a dining-room. The cows 
remain there only during milking time, when 
a little green corn or other food is thrown in 
the mangers, so a cheerful entry and quiet 
standing is insured. Close by stands his milk- 
house, the walls about ten feet high, si.^ feet 
being beneath the surface. The floor is covered 
with oxk plank, with a platform or walk raised 
four inches. Cold spring water stands or rather 
flows with a depth of about three inches all 
over the floor. In one place the depth of water 
is eight or ten inches. Here the great pails of 
cream stand till churning day. The tempera- 
ture of the water and of the stone walls which 
ri.se from it is fifly-two degress. When closed, 
as it generally is, the temper.ature of the spring- 
house is about fifty-six degrees, and varies very 
little whetlier people outside wear overcoats, or 
are dropping down with sim-stroke. In fact, 
we may as well here disclose the grand secret 
of the Philadelpliia butter, for we found the 
same rule observed at the establishments of 
John R. Penrose and of Marshall Strode, 
wlio live near Mr. S., and make first-class but- 
ter. From the lime the milk leaves the cow till the 
butter graces the table, milk, cream, and butter are 
near the temperature of sixty degrees." 

Joseph Harris, the accomplished editor of 
the Genesee Farmer, remarks, in a paper on 
"Butter and Cheese-Making:" 

"Ca,sein, or pure curd, is almost identical in 
composition with the albumen of grass, roots, 
hay, etc.; with the legumin of peas and beans; 
with the gluten of wheat, etc.; and with all the 
so-called protein compounds of oil-cake, bran, 
linseed, corn, barley, oats, and all substances 
used as food. These foods also contain oil or 
butter, as well .is starch or sugar; so that we 
find in milk precisely the same substances as 
in grasi), hay, roots, grains, etc. In view of 
this fact, some writers have supposed that, by 
selecting food containing more or less albumen, 
or oil, or starch, we might, by using the body 
of the cow as a machine, obtain at pleasure 
milk containing more or less cheese, butter, and 



sugar. So far, tlie experiments which have 
been made show this idea erroneous. It is 
found that substances rich in albuminous mat- 
ter, and which, according to this idea, should 
produce milk rich in casein or curd, have pre- 
cisely the opposite eflect, and give milk rela- 
tively deficient in casein and rich in butter. 

'■ Milk when drawn from the cow is always 
alkaline; it contains free soda. Ca,sein or curd 
is insoluble in pure water, but readily soluble 
in water containing free soda. It is the soda 
of the milk, therefore, that keeps the curd in 
solution. The oil or butter is contained in little 
bags or films of ca.sein, and is not dissolved, but 
simply suspended in the water. The sugar and 
saline matter are of course held in solution. 
Such is milk wlien drawn from the cow. By 
allowing it to cool and remain quiet fur a short 
lime, the little bags of butler, being specifically 
lighter than the otlier portion of the milk, rise 
to the surface, and are known :is cream. Other 
changes soon take place. The milk cuagulate.s, 
and at a warm temperature speedily becomes 
perceptibly sour. The cause of this is very 
simple. At a proper temperature, by the ab- 
sorption of oxygen from the atmosphere, the 
casein undergoes a slight transformation, and 
reacts on the sugar of the milk, converting it 
into lactic (milk) acid. This acid immediately 
unites with the soda, which holds the curd iu 
solution, neutralizing it, and forming lactate of 
soda, while the casein being insohible in water, 
is precipitated, or, in common parlance, the 
milk becomes curdled. The conditions favora- 
ble to fermentation — heat, light, and moisture — 
are therefore unfavorable for preserving milk 
sweet." 

Butter-Making. — We can not do better 
than to quote at .some length from the essay of 
Mr. Harris — an excellent authority, living in 
the midst of a prominent dairy region. We 
shall insert figures at different points, referring 
the reader to comments and suggestions which 
are annexed : 

" As we have said, the oil or butter is sus- 
pended in milk in small globules surrounded 
by films of casein. Cream is an aggregation 
of these oil bags. The object of churning is 
to separate tlie oil from the curd by which it is 
.surrounded. This is accomplishwl by agitating 
the cream and breaking the films of curd, ahd 
setting free the oil which then runs together 
and forms lumps of butter. Cream, from the 
formation of lactic acid, is generally sour be- 
fore churning, and, if not, always becomes so 



BUTTER MAKING. 



469 



during the operation. The hiclic acid acts on 
tlie films of curd and renders them more easily 
broken. During the progress, the cream in- 
creases in temperature from five to ten degrees. 

"The best temperature at which to churn 
the cream is a disputed point. It appears, how- 
ever, to be well-established by numerous experi- 
ments, that fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, when 
the cream is put in the churn, and about sixty- 
live degrees when the butter comes, affords the 
best results. If higher than this, the butter is 
while and soft; if lower, the whole of the but- 
ter is not separated, and the labor of churning 
is much increased. (') In Summer the butter 
should not come in less than forty minute,s. If 
obtained quicker, it is geueruUy at the expense 
of color, flavor, and hardness. After the cream 
is broken, it should be churned slowly until the 
butter is gathered. (*) 

" Some good butter-makers do not wa.sh the 
butter at all, but merely work out the butter- 
milk by pressure. It is said that a better-fla- 
vored butter is obtained in this way; but where 
good, cool spring water can be procui-ed we 
prcier to wash the butter thoroughly, taking 
great (lains to remove all the buttermilk. |^) 
llulter generally contains about fifteen per cent, 
of water, curd, etc. It is imporlant for the 
preservation of the butter that as much of this 
as possible should be removed. The quantity 
of salt required depends very nmch upon the 
quantity of water remaining in the butler. The 
water should be saturated with salt, hence the 
less water the butter retains, the le.ss salt will 
be required for its perlect preservation. (*) 
Tliere are several machines for working but- 
ler, but we have had no experience in their use. 

"There are various opinions a-s to tiie advan- 
tage of churning the whole milk or the cream. 
Some contend that not only is more barter ob- 
tained by churning the whole milk, but that it 
is of better flavor. There is probably a litt!e 
more butter obtained ; but that it is of better 
quality we may be allowed to question. In 
the neighborhood of a large city, where, as in 
Great Britain, buttermilk is in demand, it will 
pay to churn the whole of the milk ; but, as a. 
general thing, it is much less labor and far 
more convenient to churn only the cream. (^) 

" In some of the best English dairies that 
we are acquainted with, the milk is skimmed 
every morning; and, sometimes, when a very 
su|icrior article of butter is required, the cream 
trom the first and second skimmings only is 
churned — that from the milk, when it is par- 
tially orquitesour, being churned separately for 



use in the kitchen. (") In this country the 
milk is not skimmed till all the cream has 
risen, when it is all removed at once. This is 
probably the better way, for not (mly is it less 
labor, but the milk remains sweet much longer 
than when disturbed every morning by skim- 
ming, and this in our hot weather is quite a 
consideration. It is desinible that the dairy 
should be cool enough to keep the milk sweet 
sufficiently long to permit all the cream to rise 
to the surface, for there can be little doubt that 
if the milk becomes quite sour or bitter before 
the cream is removed, the quality of the butter 
will be impaired. Milk, too, for butter-making 
purposes should not be placed in deep pans, or 
all the cream may not have time to reach the 
surface. For the same reason the pans should 
be narrower at the bottom than at the top. 

" Probably a better quality of butter is ob- 
tained by churning the cream before it becomes 
sour. In hot weather it is almost impo.ssible 
to do this without churning every morning. 
A greater length of time is occupied in churning 
sweet than sour cre:im, but in hot weather this 
is no objection. When by fast churning, or 
any other cause, the butter comes in ten or fif- 
teeu minutes, it can hardly fail to be soft, white, 
and poor flavored. A celebrated butter-maker 
in this State, who churns every morning in hot 
weather, has the cream so cold and churns so 
.slowly that the butter is from one to two hours 
in corning. When the butter is come, it is well 
washed and salted — six pounds Pacific salt to 
each one hundred pounds of butter. The next 
day it is reworked till every particle of butter- 
milk is reuioved, when it is packed in tub.s, 
and stored away in a cool cellar. 

"'The chief |)oints besides cleanliness,' says 
an experienced writer, 'in making good butter 
are these: To milk at regular hours; to place 
the milk in shallow vessels; to have a perfectly 
clean cellar, with a hard brick or flag-stone bot- 
tom, and with shutters and wire-screen windows 
10 adjiiit air and exclude insects; to skim the 
milk the moment itcoaguhitesor'loppers,' which 
will be in thirty to forty-eight hours; to churn 
the cream at a temperature between 60° and 65" 
(in hot weather 55° to 60° is better) by the 
thermometer; to free the butter as much as 
possible from buttermilk, and then add a six- 
teenth part of the purest salt; to work out the 
remaining buttermilk in twelve hours after- 
ward, and again in twenty-lour hours, being 
careful not to work it too much at a time; to 
pack it closely in stone jars, till nearly full, 
and then spread clean white muslin cloth over 



470 



THE dairy: 



the top, pack closely a layer of one inch of 
fine salt upon the muslin, and finally cover 
the jar with a neatly-fitting tin cover. This 
is, substantially, the process of most of the 
best butter-makers. Butter thus made will 
keep a year, if placed on the bottom of a cool 
cellar.' 

"Cream always becomes sour in churning, 
and rises in temperature. This is owing to 
chemical action — to the conversion of sugar 
into lactic acid. This increase in temperature, 
if the cream is cool enough when put into the 
churn, is probably desirable. But after the 
cream is well 'broke,' it is frequently necessary 
to cool it slightly, while the butter is being 
gathered. This is usually done by pouring in 
a little cold water, washing down the particles 
of butter attached to the sides of the churn at 
the same time. In gathering the butter, it is 
essential not only to have tlie buttermilk cool, 
but to churn quite slowly, or the butter will be 
soft, and it will be difficult to work out the 
buttermilk. 

" For the attainment of the proper tempera- 
ture in churning, wc consider the ' thermometer 
churn ' one of the best inventions of recent dale. 
It consists of a zinc cylinder, with the loner 
half encased in a wooden frame line<l with 
zinc, having an inch or two of space between, 
so that the body of the churn can be surrounded 
with warm or cold water as desired. There is 
also a thermometer set in one end, wliich is of 
much use as long as it is clean, so that the mer- 
cury can be seen. 

"Kendall's Cylinder Churn is well known, 
and much esteemed for its cheapness and sim- 
plicity. It is an excellent churn, especially 
lor small dairies. Some object to it, and to the 
"thermometer churn," on account of the cor- 
rodibility of the iron at the ends of the a.\is, 
which, when much time is occupied in churn- 
ing, as is frequently the case in late Autumn 
and Winter, imparts, by the action of the acid 
buttermilk, a disagreeable color and flavor to 
the butter. This objection does e.xist in all 
churns of this description we have used. Nev- 
ertheless, if the joints are properly fitted to- 
gether, and ordinary care is exercised in keep- 
ing them clean and free from rust, little incon- 
venience will be suffered from this cause. 
There are those, however, who prefer the old 
barrel churn, or some of its modifications, as in 
it all danger in this respect it removed. Some, 
too, are inclined to go back to first principles, 
and use the old up-and-down plunge churn. 
This is very well where a dog-power is used; 



or the labor can be much lessened by the sim- 
ple adjustment of a crank to the dasher." 

Comments on the Above. — 1. — Temperature. — In 
Winter the temperature of the cream when put 
into thechurn, should be three or four degrees 
higher than in Summer. The rapidity of 
churning also has a marked effect upon butter, 
and also upon the temperature of the cream in 
the churn ; if the cream is at 55° when put in 
(he churn, very fast churning in the Summer 
will raise it too high, and soft, light-colored 
butter will be the result ; in cold weather the 
motion should be faster, in order to keep up 
the proper temperature. If the whole milk be 
used, the temperature should be about 65° Fah- 
renheit at commencing. The cream should be 
brought to the proper temperature in cold 
weather by warming; in warm weather by 
cooling with ice or in cold well water — or what 
is far better yet, let the cream be kept at the 
proper uniform temperature from the moment 
it is taken from the cow. A piece of ice in the 
churn will frequently " bring " perverse butter 
in the dog-days. 

The degrees of heat at which butter can be 
obtained from cream ranges from 45° to 75°; a 
moderate quantity of butter, of the best qttality 
can be obtained by churning the cream at 51°; 
the largest quantity of butter of a poorer quality 
results from churning at 60°; while the be.st 
yield in quality and quantity is generally pro- 
duced at the medium temperature of 66°. 

2. — " Why don't the butter come f" is a question 
which is often asked, especially in Winter, and 
not so easily answered. Perhaps your cowa 
have not been salted regularly while fed on 
dry food. Perhaps the milk has been kept too 
cold, so that it has stood loo long before it 
began to change. Some add at the rate of a 
table- spoon lul of good vinegar to four gallons 
of cream, which often expedites the operation 
of churning. And others adopt the following 
method in Winter: ".\t the time of straining 
the milk, put in and stir up a spoonful of sour 
milk, which may be kept in a bowl for the pur- 
pose, and set the milk in a moderately warm 
joom, and let it stand without further care till 
it is ready to be skimmed. When ready to 
churn, warm the cream to the proper tempera- 
ture." The butler is apt to be hitter, where the 
milk has been allowed to freeze and thaw. 

3. — Workiny. — There is nothing on which the 
quality of butter more depends than on freeing 
it entirely from the butlermilk. Many of the 
best European dairymen, and good American 
authorities, like Charles L. Flint, insist that 



BCTTER-MAKINQ. 



471 



when the buttermilk is worked out without 
wasliing, a more delicate aroma is retained ; 
and this principle is observed in Holstein and 
Normandy, where a very superior butter is 
manufactured for the London market. A few 
of the best dairywomen of America have 
adopted the practice. 

Dr. L. D. MoBSB, Corresponding Secretary 
of the Missouri Agricultural Society, in his 
report for 1865-6, says : " Soft water is believed 
to be better for the cows than hard, and is 
probably much better for use in butter-making. 
It is customary, at some .seasons at least, to add 
water to the cream in churning, and soiue w;isli 
the butter in cold water. Hard water contains 
carbonate and sulphate of lime. If butter is 
immersed in lime water it will become so strong 
in twenty-four hours as to be unfit to eat, by 
the action of the alkali upon the butyric acid. 
For this reason the purest water, which is soft 
water, must be preferable for use in the process 
of separating butter from milk, and such pure 
water every farmer should have, if not in bis 
spring or well, then in his cistern." 

From an able agricultural address by J. S. 
Gould, we copy the following practical re- 
marks upon the mysterious " knack " of work- 
ing over butter: "One of the causes of bad 
butter is the habit which some dairywomen in- 
dulge in of leaving their butter unworked for a 
considerable time after churning. Every hour 
that the buttermilk remains in contact with the 
butter, after churning, is an injury; it can not 
be freed from it too soon. 

" The grain of butler is often spoiled by 
too much working; on the other hand, if it is 
not worked enough, it will be spoiled — the 
process, therefore, requires much attention. It 
is difficult to define with accuracy what we 
mean by the grain of butter, but every one 
knows whether butter looks or feels grea.=y or 
waxy. When it has the appearance of wa.x, 
we say the grain is good, and the more it re- 
Bembles wax in its consistency the better is the 
grain. The more greasy in its appearance, the 
more we say the grain has been injured. In 
order to free butter from the milk with the 
Iea.st injury to the grain it should be gathered 
into an egg-shaped form, with a wooden butter- 
ladle, without touching it with the naked hand ; 
it should then be gashed longitudinally around 
the whole circumference, making the channels 
lowest at either end of the transverse axis, so 
that the milk can run readily away. Pressing 
the mass together, so that the particles are 
compelled to slide over each other laterally, as 



when putty is worked, and mortar is tempered, 
must be carefully avoided, under penalty of 
spoiling the grain. 

"It is not easy to work out all the buttermilk 
at once; ii is, therefore, better to set it aside 
after the first working, in a cool place for 
twelve hours, during which the action of the 
salt will liberate more of the buttermilk; the 
first process should then be repeated, with the 
same precautions against injury to the grain; 
it is then ready for packing." 

Charles L. Flint .says, in Hearth and 
Home: "The hand should never touch the but- 
ter after it leaves the churn, as it tends to soften 
it, and it is not effectual in accomplishing its 
object in releasing the milk. The best method 
of getting out the buttermilk, and at the same 
time working in the salt, is by the use of the 
butter-worker, which is a marble or hard-wood 
top table, of circular form, with a groov 
around the edges to carry off' the milk, whey, 
and curd, and slightly inclined. .The butler is 
placed on the table and there worked by a cyl- 
indrical brake, turning on a spiral joint, which 
ffattens out the butter into a thin mas.s, thor- 
oughly incorporating the salt, and leaving the 
butter dry and in proper condition for the ball 
(U- tub. ]'.y the u.se of this instrument a hun- 
dred pounds can be worked in an hour." 

The best of the famous "Philadelphia but- 
ler " comes from Chester, Lancaster, and Dela- 
ware counties. A committee recently visited 
some of these dairies, and we extract from their 
description of the dairy of SamuelhI. Shakp- 
LESS: "Near by the milking house is the 
'spring-house,' the institution of this region, 
about twenty- four feet long and eighteen feet 
wide, built of stone, with its foundation set 
deeply in the hill-side, and its floor about four 
feet below the level of the ground at the down- 
hill side. The site is that of a plentiful spring, 
which is allowed to spread over the whole of 
the enclo.sed area to a depth of about three 
inches above the floor of oak laid on sand or 
gravel. At this height there is an overflow by 
which the water pa-sses to a tank in an open 
shed at the down-hill end of the hou.se. On 
the floor of the spring-house there are rai.sed 
platforms or walks, to be used in moving about 
the room, but probably three-quarters of the 
space is occupied by the slowly-flowing .spring 
water." 

The churning is done in a large barrel cluirn, 
revolved by horsepower. "In one corner of 
the spring-house stands the butler-worker, a re- 
volving table about three feet in diameter. T-iie 



472 



THE DAIRY 



center of this, for a diameter of twelve incliCH, 
is an iron wheel with a row of cogs on the 
upper side of its rim. From tliis rim to the 
raised outer edge, the table (made of wood) 
slopes ilownward, so that the buttermilk as 
worked out is passed into a shallow groove, and 
is carried away through a pipe which dis- 
charges into a pail standing below. Over the 
sloping part of the table there works a corru- 
g[ilcd wooden roller, revolving on a shaft that 
is supported over the center of the table, and 
has a small cog-wheel that works iu the cogged 
rim of the center wlieel, and causes the table 
to revolve under the roller, as this is turned 
by a crank at its outer end. Of course the 
roller is larger at one end than the other, so as 
to conform to the slope of the table, and its 
corrugations are very deep, not less than two 
inches at the larger end. Supported at each 
end of the roller and on both sides are bevelled 
Moi'ks which, as the table revolves, force the 
hutter from eacli enil toward the center of the 
slope. .^bout twenty pounds of butler is now 
put on the table, and the roller is turned, each 
corrugation carrying through a long narrow 
roll, which is immediately followed by another 
and another, until the whole table is covered. 
The roller does ncit quite touch the table, and 
(here is no actual crushing of the particles. 
The bevelled blocks slightly bend these rolls 
and crowd them toward the center of the slop- 
ing part, so that when they reach the roller 
they are broken in fresh places, and by a few 
revolutions are thoroughly worked in every 
part." 

4. — Sail. — Mr. WlLLARD says: "As to the 
quantity of salt to be used for butler, something 
will depend upon its manufacture and the mar- 
ket for which it is intended. The Orange 
cimnly butter-makers, who obtain the largest 
prices for their product, use at the rate of a 
pound and two ounces of salt for a batch of 
twenty-two pounds of butter. For Winter but- 
ter, or butter designed lor Winter use, a little 
more salt is used at the last working. The 
Government tests of Onondaga salt for preserv- 
ing meats, and the more recent tests for butler 
under the superintendence of the New York 
Stale Agricultural Society, must show to any 
unprejudiced mind that as good salt is made at 
the Onondaga salt works as can be made any- 
where. We use this brand of salt in our own 
dairy, and believe it to be equal to any of the 
foreign salts." In Chester county, Pennsyl- 
vania, they generally use one pound of salt to 
twenty-four pounds of butter. 



5. — Churning whole mill;, instead of the cream 
alone, is not a very uncommon practice in this 
country, and in Europe it is the usual method. 
Its advantages are that it requires a tempera- 
ture of 65° instead of 55°, and the former is 
more easily attained the year round; and the 
resulting buttermilk is delicious, while I'roni 
cream-butter it is rarely fit to drink. Wluie 
buttermilk is regarded as a luxury, clinrn- 
ing whole milk is considered to be quite 
necessary. 

Professor Johnson observes that " a hundred 
gallons of entire milk will give in Summer five 
per cent, more of butter than the cream from 
the .same nn'lk will yield. Butter of the best 
quality can be obtained without difficulty Sum- 
mer and Winter — not only of the best quality 
while fresh, but also best for long-keeping 
when properly cured and salted." 

The mode to be pursued, where whole milk 
is to be churned, is to allow the product of two 
or three milkings to stand till the cream rises 
to the surface, and then to pour tlie contents of 
the vessels containing these milkings, when still 
sweet, into one large vessel. The whole, cream 
and milk, is then allowed to remain till it be- 
coujcs sour and thick. The true degree of 
sourness is ktiown by a thick, uneven skin 
formed over the whole mass, and when this is 
observed it should be immediately churned. 
In Ireland, this method of butter-making is 
almost universal. 

In Holland, where the whole milk is very 
generally used for butter-making, repeated 
stirring is given to the whole mass of milk in 
order to prevent the cream from rising, and 
this causes the mass to thicken rapidly. It is 
kept till it is .sour, and till it is thick enough 
to hold a spoon upright in it. The mass is 
ready for churning when it will not adhere to 
the bone or ivory knife stuck into it. 

6. — r/ie Strippings. — It is well known that 
the milk last drawn from a cow's udder is far 
the richest in cream. Schubler says the milk 
la.st drawn contains three times as much cream 
as that first procured. Dickerson's Practical 
Agriculture, asserts that by actual analysis,' in 
one instance, the last cup of milk drawn from 
the udder was found to contain sixteen times as 
much Cream as the first cup. 

The Western Rural, inculcating the necessity 
of milking a cow thoroughly, thus advises: 
"Shortly after the first flow of milk has ceased, 
or while the milker is drawing from the other 
half of the udder, a new accumulation is found 
in the part first drawn. This will be found 



BUTTER-MAKING. 



473 



nearly all cream, and when the object is butter- 1 
making, this should be drawn into a small 
vessel by itself, and strained directly into the 
cream-pot and thoroughly mixed with the 
cream." 

The milk in Spring is supposed to be the 
best I'or drinking, and hence it would be best 
lor calves; in Summer it is best suited for 
cheese, and in Autumn for butter — the butter 
keeping better than that of the Summer; the 
cows less frequently milked give richer milk, 
and consequently more butter. The mornings 
milk is richer than that of the evening. 

Four Interesting' Facts.— Dr. An- 
derson furnislifs the following maxims in re- 
gard to the management of milk : 

"1. Of the milk drawn from any cow at one 
time, that part which comes ofT at the first is 
always thinner, and of a poorer quality for 
making butter than '''"t afterward obtained, 
and this richness continues to increase progres- 
sively to the last drop that can be drawn from 
the udder. 

"2. If milk be put into a dish, and allowed 
to stand till it throws up cream, the portion of 
cream rising first to the surface is richer in 
quality, and greater in quantity, than thai 
which rises in a second equal proportion of 
time, and so on— the cream progressively de- 
clining in quality, and decreasing in quantity, 
60 long as any rises to the surface. 

"3. Thick milk always throws up a much 
smaller proportion of the cream which it con- 
tains than milk which is thinner, but the cream 
is of a richer quality ; and, if water be added 
to that thick milk, it will afford a considerably 
greater quantity of cream, and consequently 
more butter, than it would have done if allowed 
to remain pure; but its quality at the same 
time is greatly debased. 

"4. Milk which is put into a bucket, or other 
proper vessel, and carried to a considerable 
distance, so as to he greatly agitated, and in 
part cooled, before it is put into the milk-pans 
to settle for cream, never throws up .so nmch, 
or so rich cream, as if the same milk had been 
put into the milk-pans directly after it was 
milked." 

Frencli Mode or Butter-Itlaking. 

It is. well known that cream may be converted 
into butter by simply being buried in the 
ground, but it is not generally known that this 
motie is in common use in Normandy, and 
some other parts of France. The process is 



as follows : The cream is placed in a linen bag 
of moderate thickness, which is perfectly .se- 
cured and placed in a hole in the ground, about 
a foot and a half deep; it is then covered, and 
left for twenty-five hours. When taken out thf 
cream is very hard, and only requires beating 
for a short time with a wooden mallet; after 
which half a glass of water is thrown upon it, 
which causes the buttermilk to separate from 
the butter. If the quantity of cream to be 
converted into butter is large, it is left more 
than twenty-five hours in the ground. In 
Winter, when the ground is frozen, the opera- 
tion is performed in a cellar, the bag being 
well covered up with sand. Some place the 
bag containing the cream in another bag, in 
order to prevent the chance of any taint from 
the earth. This system saves labor, and it is 
said to produce a larger amount of butter than 
churning, and of excellent quality, and is, 
moreover, said never to fail. 

The Devonsllire IWetllOd. — In De- 
vonshire the method of making butler is pecu- 
liar to the county. The milk is placed in tin 
or earthen pans and twelve hours after milking, 
these pans (each holding about eleven or twelve 
quarts) are placed on an iron plate, over a 
small furnace. Tlie milk is not boiled, but 
heated until a thick scum arises to the surface; 
if, when a small portion of this is displaced, 
bubbles appear, the milk is removed and suf- 
fered to cool. The thick part is then taken off 
the surface, and this is the clouted creuin of De- 
vonshire, which is celebrated all over England. 
By a gentle agitation this clouted cream is 
speedily converted into butter. An English 
journal remarks that scalding the cream ac- 
cording to the Devonshire method, yieldf in 
the shortest time the largest quantity of butter, 
which, if intended for immediate use, is agree- 
able to the palate, and readily salable; bnt if 
intended to be salted, is more liable to acquire, 
by keeping, a rancid flavor. 

A correspondent of the Scottish Fanner affirms 
that by .scalding he can produce fully double the 
quantity of butler from the same amount of milk. 
He continues : "My plan is simply this: On re- 
ceiving the milk I have ready dishes just dip- 
ped in boiling water. After straining the milk 
into these, I place them inside other basins con- 
taining a quantity of boiling water. 1 place 
them thus in the dairy, at the end of twelve 
hours renew the boiling water in the outer 
dish. At the end of thirty-six hours the cream 
will astonish those who have been accustomed 



474 



THE DAIRY : 



to the cold basin plan. A friend, to whom I 
lately showed a large basin of niillc, treated in 
the hot-water way, placed a copper penny piece 
on the top of the cream, and there it remained 
comfortably until I removed it sometime after. 
No Winter cream, after being even forty-eight 
hours on the milk, could bear the weight of 
eyen a silver penny." 

Many Americans raise their cream in the 
same way, setting the basins of milk in larger 
pans of hot water on the stove until the top be- 
comes "wavy," when it is taken oft' and left to 
stand forly-eight hour.s and then skimmed for 
the cliurn. The churn is now set into hot wa- 
ter, and from fil'leen to thirty minutes' churning 
brings the butter. Care should be taken not to 
let the churn stand too loni/ in hot water as the 
butler might come soft 

How to Sweden Eancid Butter. — Rancid but- 
ter may be rendered perfectly fresh and sweet 
by putling from five to ten drops of chloride 
of lime, per pound of butler, into as much wa- 
ter as will wash the bulter when rolled out 
again and reworked. .\ greater porliou of 
chloride would not be in any degree injurious, 
but experience has proved tliat the quantity 
stated has precisely the effect desired. 

How to Freshen Salt Butler. — Churn the but- 
ter with new milk, in the proportion of a 
pound of butter to a quart of milk. Treat 
the butter in all respects as if it were fresh. 
Bad butter may be improved greatly by dissolv- 
ing it thoroughly in hot water. Let it cool, 
then skim it oS and churn again, adding a small 
quantity of good salt and sugar. The water 
shc.uld be merely hot enough to melt the but- 
•ter or it will become oily. 

How to make Butter Yellow.' — The yolk of an 
egg well beaten to every two quarts of cream, 
added Just before the termination of the churn- 
ing will make a very sweet and yellow bulter. 
Any desired shade can be given to Winter but- 
ter without in any way injuring the flavor, by 
grating a carrot (Altringham preferred) into 
a little milk, and straining it into the cream 
through a cloth. But carrots fed to the cows give 
the same result ; and they like to do the mix- 
ing and coloring themselves. Coloring the 
cow with a few quarts of yellow-corn meal 
daily also has been observed to have a marvel- 
ous effect on the hue of the butter. 

How to Keep Butter in t}ie Summer. — First. 
make it fit to keep! Then, a simple mode of 
keeping it in warm weather, where ice is not 
handy, is to invert a common flower-pot over 
it, with some water in the dish in which the 



butter is laid. The orifice in tlie flowur-pot 
may be corked or not. It will be still cooler 
if the cork be wrapped with a wet cloth. The 
rapid abstraction of heat by external evapora- 
tion causes the butter to become hard. 

Tin Paih for the Dairy. — Thfe Dairymen's 
Conventions, both East and West, agree in con- 
demning the n.se of wooden pails, and in recom- 
mending the substitution of tin pails. Mr. 
Wir^LABD says: "Let the old wooden pail be 
oast out of the dairy and tin only used for 
milking and carrying milk. The tin paila 
should be made with rounded corners at the 
bottom so as to be readily cleaned. They 
should be made so as to nicely fit into a wooden 
pail, which will then serve as a protection to 
the tin. When arranged in this way the pails 
will la.st many years in a dairy, and the time 
gained in cleansing when compared with the 
old wooden nuisances, will about pay the cost 
of the pails the first year." ^ 

Pac.kin(j Tubs. — A most important point to be 
observed by butter-makers who hope to make 
a reputation for fine goods, is to pack in suitr 
able tubs or packages. Mr. Gould, before 
quoted, says : " I need not tell the dairymen of 
this country that no packages save oaken tuba 
are fif for butter, nor that the wood from which 
they are made should be thoroughly seasoned. 
They should be prepared by pouring bulling 
water into them, in which they shpuld soak for 
twenty-four hours; they are then to be filled 
with strong brine for two or three days, after 
which they should be well rubbed with fine 
salt when they are to receive the butter." The 
firkins should be of sucli size that one can be 
readily filled in a week or ten days with sweet 
butter, to within half an inch of the head, then 
place over it a clean cloth, and fill the space 
with coarse sail, put in the head, tlien fill with 
strong brine, previously made of coarse salt, 
and stop it up. Butter packed in this way and 
kept in a cool place, will be as sweet in one 
year as when fir.st made. 

Why so Much Bud Butter? — Butter-making 
is one of the simplest of processes; any inielli- 
gent person csin toniprehend it easily, and there 
is no "luck" about it; yet more than half of 
the butter manufactured in .\merica every year 
— not fit to set before a civilized man — is what 
Mrs. Stowe calls it, " a hobgoblin bewitchment 
of cream into hiathsome poisons." The Jirst 
prerequisite to good biater and chee.se, is abso- 
lute cleanliness. Better keep no cow than to 
store the milk as many do, in the common 
kitchen, exposed to its compound of ii.finite 



CHEESE — PROCESS OF .MAKING. 



475 



and disgusting odors — the pans stuck away in 
a filthy suioky nook, 

;g3 all the while, 

"Wliat wonder that thousands of tons of milk 
go into cloudy hutter, fit for soap-grease, tra- 
versed liy alternate rivulets of buttenuilk, brine, 
and filth? "Cleanliness ia next to godliness" — 
and, in bntter-makers, quite as rare. Mr. WiL- 
LARD, in a recent address, gave liigh praise to 
the Knglish dairymen for the perfect neatness 
and cleanliness of their dairies. Nothing in 
English cheese-making struck him with so 
much force and admiration as the cleanliness 
in which everything is conducted. The milk- 
ing is very carefully performed in tin pails. 
The dairy is located out of the reach of bad 
odors, or anything likely to taint milk. The 
milk-rooms have stone floors, the joints of the 
flagging cemented, so that no slops or decom- 
posed milk can find an entrance. The uten.*ils 
and everything about the dairy are kept as 
clean as the table and crockery of the most fas- 
tidious housewife. This feature of cleanliness, 
the speaker said, he found wherever he went, 
from the Eoyal Dairy, at Windsor, and radiat- 
ing from thence all through England. H 
believed it was this cleanliness and the un- 
tainted condition of the milk, together with the 
even temperature of the curing-rooms, tliat 
were the leading causes of the fiiu' flavor which 
is characteristic of some of the English cheese. 
All the utensils — the pails, hair-cloth sieves, 
milk-dishes, or coolers, tubs, churns, and the 
butter-prints, should be kept perfectly sweet 
and clean, put into boiling water for two or 
three hours, scrubbed, rinsed, and dried every 
time they are used, otherwise they will have a 
bad smell and taint the butter. 

Cfaeese. — Hon. Horatio Seymour, re 
cently President of the American Dairyman's 
Association, delivered an address upon the 
subject of cheese. He asserted that " cheese 
ouglit to be more generally used in this country. 
The Americitn people have lost the cheese-eat- 
ing propensities of their forefathers. Cheese is 
the cheapest of all articles of food that can be 
used. Compared with meat, there are very 
important economies connected with it. It re- 
quires no fuel to prepare it. It is more nutri- 
tious, and we must look upon it as a substantial 
article of food. It is not a 'cheap luxury,' it 
is a cheap necessity." He hoped steps would 
be taken to present cheese as a common article 
of food to the favorable consideration of the 



poor people of our cities. The attention of our 
Government should be called to the value of 
cheese as the food of our armies. There is no 
article so cheap for soldiers' rations; no article 
so nutritious; no article so easy of transpor- 
tation. The Swiss chamois hunters take on 
their expeditions among the higher Alps,where 
they remain sometimes for days together, ex- 
posed to intense cold and undergoing the hard- 
est of exercise, only a small quantity of cheese 
and a flask of brandy. The English harvesters 
live on ale, cheese, bread, and occasionally a 
bit of mutton. 

Process of Cheese-Making.— A gain 

we have recourse to the essay of Mr. Harris: 
"Milk can be instantly curdled by the addition 
of an acid, and, in some countries, spirits of 
salts (hydrochloric acid), and vinegar (acetic 
acid), are used instead of rennet for 'setting 
the cheese.' Cheese so made, however, is harsh 
and unpalatable. 

"The only way to make good cheese, is to 
produce lactic acid from the .sugar of r.,ilk by 
fermentation. A great variety of means are em- 
ployed for this purpose. As we have said, the 
casein in milk will of itself change the .sugar 
into lactic acid, and curdle the milk ; but, be- 
fore it does this, it has itself begun to ferment, 
under the influence of light and heat, and by 
the absorption of oxygen from I he air. If curd 
be exposed to the atmosphere for a few days, 
and then be added to milk, it coagulates it as 
quickly as rennet, and is often used for this 
purpose. A number of vegetable substances, 
such as the juice of the fig or thistle, are also 
used as rennet. All animal substances, in a 
state of decomposition,' will convert the sugar 
of milk into lactic acid ; but, although pig's 
bladder is still used in some countries in Eu- 
rope, it is generally conceded that tlie stomach 
of the calf, properly prepared, is the best sub- 
stance for this purpose. 

"When fresh, the membrane of the calf's 
stomach is insoluble in water, but when it is 
salted, and kept for several months exposed to 
the air, a portion of its surface is decomposed 
and becomes soluble. It is this soluble, de- 
compo.sed, or, more properly, decomposing 
membrane, which is the active princi|ile in 
reimet. It is a soluble, highly nitrogenous 
■substance, having its elements in a disl\irbed 
state, and therefore highly efl'ective in inducing 
change in the elements of other bodies with 
which it is brought in contact. 
" In preparing rennet, we have to check the 



476 



THE dairy: 



natural depomposition of the stomach by the 
use of sail, otherwise it would communicate an 
unpleasant flavor to the cheese; but, at the 
same time, keep the salted stomach long enough 
to permit its elements to become disturbed by 
the action of the atmosphere. In Clieshire, 
England, the skins are cleaned out and packed 
away with salt in an earthen jar till. the follow- 
ing year. They are taken out a nmnth before 
use, stretched on pine sticks and dried. A 
square inch of the skin, for each fifteen or 
twenty gallons of milk, is soaked for twenty- 
four hdurs in a solution of lukewarm water 
and salt, and the whole poured into the milk 
and well stirred. 

" In Ayrshire, the contents of the stomach are 
preserved; lliey are well salted, both inside and 
out, and dried for a year or more; and, when 
needed for use, the whole is chopped up and 
placed with salt in ajar, along with water and 
new whey, which, after two or three days, is 
strained to remove impurities, and is then 
ready for use. In the dairy districLs of New 
York State, the stomach is emptied of its con- 
tents, sailed and dried, without scraping or 
rinsing, and kept for one year. It is soaked 
for twenty-four hours in tepid water — a gallon 
to each rennet. They should be frequently 
pressed and rubbed to get out all the strength. 

"The liquor containing the soluble rennet is 
then saturated with .salt, allowed to settle, and 
strained to remove the sediment and impurities. 
It is now fit for use. It should be kept in 
a stone jar, and in a cool place. As much of 
the liquor is used each morning as will set the 
cheese firm in forty minutes. We have visited 
many excellent English dairies where the same 
.systcTU is adopted. It is, in our opinion, better 
than placing the rennet itself in the milk. The 
stomach may again be salted, stretched, and ex- 
posed 10 the air for some months, when it can 
be u.sed over again — a fresh portion of the 
membrane having been decomposed by the air 
and rendered soluble. This fact, and others 
that might be mentioned, sufficiently prove that 
it is not the yastric juice of the stomach that is 
the active ingredient of rennet in coagulating 
milk. 

"As cheese-making is a fermenting process, 
it is influenced materially by heat, proceeding 
within certain limits, faster or slower as the 
tem[ieralure is raised or lowered. In England, 
the milk is generally raised to a temperature 
of 85° Fahrenheit, before adding the rennet. 
In this country it is set cooler, and raised to a 



higher temperature after the milk is coagulated. 
This is called 'scalding.' The word is a bad 
one, calculated to mislead. To ' scald the curd,' 
would be to spoil the cheese; but all that 18 
meant by the phrase is raising the temperature 
of the whey and curd up to about 100" Fahren 
heit. This 'scalding' process has many ad- 
vantages; among others, the cheese requires 
le.ss pressure, and the milk can be set at a much 
lower temperature — say 80° Fahrenheit. 

" Scalding should be done with great care and 
nicety. Formerly it was done by heating a 
portion of whey, and pouring it into the cheese; 
but there is danger of injuring a portion of 
the cheese by overheating it. A much better 
method is now generally adopted by the dairy- 
men in the northern counties of New York, 
and it is one of the greatest improvements in 
cheese-making we have seen. What our Eng- 
lish friends call the ' cheese tub,' is made of 
tin, and is placed in a wooden frame, so fixed 
that it can be surrounded by hot or cold water 
as desired. The evening's milk is strained into 
this tin, as it is brought in warm from the cows; 
and is kept cool by allowing cold water to run 
around it. The morning's milk is added to the 
cooled evening's milk, and if not then sufli- 
ciently warm to add the rennet, warm water is 
poured round the tin till the proper tempera- 
ture is attained. There is some diflference of 
opinion on this point; we know good dairy- 
men who add the rennet to the milk at 80°, and 
others not until it is as high .as 90°. The curd 
should come in about forty minutes. Shortly 
afterward the curd is cut up with a 'cheese- 
breaker,' and then the temperature is gradually 
rai.sed by pouring warm water around the tin. 
Many err by raising the temperature too fa.st. 
It should not be increased more than a degree 
in five minutes. 

" The English method of separating the whey 
from the curd, by allowing it to settle, and dip- 
ping off the whey, is too slow for an intelligent 
go-ahead .American. A lattice frame-work, on 
which a large doth is spread, is fitted into a 
sink, connected by a pipe with the receptacle 
for the whey, or pig cistern. The whey and 
curd are dipped on to this cloth, the whey run- 
ning through in a few minutes, leaving the curd 
on the cloth. A little cold water is then poured 
on to the curd to keep it from packing. Some, 
however, prefer to cool the whey and curd 
together, by putting cold water round the tin. 
When the whey has all drained away, the curd 
is broken up fine and salted. It is then placed 



CHEESE — rROCESS OF MAKING. 



477 



ill a olieese lioop and pressed for twenty-fuiir 
lion IS." 

Of the large nnmber of excellent clieese 
presses on tlie market, Mr. Harris mention 
as among the best, Dick's, Kendall's, and the 
Self-acting Press. 

Cheshire dairymen, as a general thing, do not 
scald their curd, and hence much more care is 
needed in .salting and pressing than in the pro- 
ce.ss we have described. After the curd is sep- 
arated from tlie whey, it is put under a liand 
press for an hour or two, and as much of the 
whey expressed from it as possible petii'ous to 
siiltinr/. When taken from under the hand 
press, it is broken quite fine by hand, and salted. 
It is then put in the cheese hoop, and pressed 
slightly for six or eight hours. It is then taken 
from under the press, pierced with a wooden 
skewer, in order to open channels for the exu- 
dation of the whey, covered with a clean cloth, 
and put under a heavy pressure till next morn- 
ing, when a clean cloth is again put round it, 
and a heavy pressure applied till it will no 
longer wet the cloth. Cheeses are frequently 
left under the press three or four days. " Scald- 
ing" expels the whey from the curd more effect- 
ually than can be done by the most powerful 
and long-continued pressure, but it is a question 
whether at the same time It does not destroy 
some of the desired flavor of. the cheese. If 
our dairymen should "scald" less and press 
more, their cheese would be more highly prized, 
at least in the English market. 

Tl,e Cheddar Process.— The celebrated Ched- 
dar cheese is regarded by Englishmen as the 
fine.s4 made in the world ; and American author- 
ities confirm this high estimate. Mr. WiLLARD 
says, in studying the eau.se of this superiority, 
that it is referable to the uniform cleanliness of 
the English dairies, more than to anything else. 
" There is nothing, perhaps," he continues, 
"which indicates the progress and skill of our 
manufacturers more than the fact that they are 
able to take imperfect milk from the hands of 
patrons, manipulate it among the fetid odors of 
whey slops and decomposed milk, and yet turn 
out a cheese that will compete with the great 
bulk of English make. But these conditions 
will not and can not produce the fine, delicate 
flavor of the best Cheddar, and it is one reason 
why there is such a great bulk of American 
cheese condemned abroad as ' not just right in 
flavor.' Now this putrid inoculation docs not 
show its whole character at first, but, like an 
insidious poison in the blood, increases from 



week to week, until it puts on a distinctive fea- 
ture which spoils all the good material with 
which it comes in contact. I saw American 
cheese abroad, perfect in shape and color, rich 
in quality, splendidly manufactured, and hav- 
ing a bright, handsome appearance, that would 
have placed it on an equality with the best in 
the world; but the trier showed a flavor that 
could be plainly traced to a bad or imperfect 
condition of the milk before manipulation. I 
have been extremely mortified, while testing 
chee.se abroad, to catch the taste and smell of 
putrid rennet and of the stables. This is one 
point of difference between the dairy practice 
of the two nations. 
"In the Cheddar process the milk is at a low 
temperature, from 78° to 80° using some whey 
with the rennet, according to the condition of 
the milk. After coagulation is perfected, which 
takes from forty to sixty minutes, the curd ig 
cut in large checks, and soon after they com- 
mence breaking with a wire breaker attaciied 
to a long handle. The breaking is at first 
slow and gentle, and is continued till the curd 
is minutely divided. This is effected before 
any additional heat is apiilied. They claim 
that the curd can not be properly broken at 90° 
or above 90°, and that there is a better separa- 
tion of the whey and condition of the curd by 
minutely breaking at about 75° or °80, without 
an increase of heat during the process. This 
process of minute breaking in the early stages 
of the curd, appeared to me to result in lo.ss of 
butler, and this is the chief reason, I think, why 
Cheddars have less butter in their composition 
than our best American. The breaking usually 
occupied a full hour. The heat is raised, in 
scalding, to 100°. There is a wide difference 
in the treatment of the curds. 

" When the curd has reached a firm consist- 
ency, and the whey shows a slightly acid 
change — a change so slight as to be detected 
only by the experienced observer — it is imme- 
liately drawn and the curd heaped up in the 
bottom of the tub. I am not sure but that 
this early drawing of the whey is an improve- 
ment. 

" Soon after the whey is drawn and the curd 
leaped, it is cut across in pieces a foot or more 
.square, and thrown again in a heap to facilitate 
drainage and develop further acidity. It re- 
mains in this condition for half an hour, the 
whey meanwhile flowing slowly from tlie heap, 
when it is taken out of the cheese tub and 
placed in the sink or cooler. It is then split 



478 



THE DAIRY: 



by tlie liand into tliin flakes and spread out to 
cool. The curd at tliis stage lias a distinctly 
acid smell, and is slij^htly sour to the taste. It 
is left here to cool for fifteen minutes, when it 
is turned over and left for the same length of 
time, or until it has the peculiar mellow and 
flaky feel desired. It is then gathered up and 
put to press for ten minutes, when it is taken 
out, ground in a curd-mill, and salted at the 
rate of two pounds salt to the cwt. (112 pounds) 
of curd. It then goes to press, and is kept un- 
der pressure two or tliree days. The curd, 
when it goes to press, has a temperature of from 
60° to 65°, and when in the sink it is preferred 
not to get helow this point. A proper temper- 
ature is retained in the curd during the various 
parts of the process, in cool weather by throw- 
ing over a thick cloth. It will be seen that, the 
whey being disposed of at an early stage, the 
attention of the manufacturer is to be directed 
only to one siibstanoe — the curd. By draining 
the whey and expelling it under the press, and 
then grinding, a uniform incorporation of this 
material is efltclod. The cooling of the curd 
before going to press, and the removal of the 
cheese, after pressure, to a cheese-room, where 
an even temperature is kept up, differing but 
little from that of the cheese when taken from 
the press, effects a gradual transformation of 
the parts into that compact, mellow, flaky con- 
dition which is characteristic of the Cheddar, 
and at the same time [ireserves its milky or 
nutty flavor." 

In Loudon, small Clioddarsizes of forty, fifty, 
sixty, and seventy pounds are popular, and will 
command an extra price over ciieese of large 
size of the same quality. The true Cheddar 
shape is fifteen and a half inches in diameter 
by twelve inches in height, and by preserving 
this proportion for larger or smaller cheese that 
style is obtained. Cheddars are made varying 
in size from those named up to eighty and one 
hundred pounds, but the larger are not so 
common. 

The. Factory System.— In 1859 there were only 
four cheese factories in the State of New York ; 
in 1867 there were 500; in 1869 the number 
is estimated at 800! Tributary to these, were 
at kast 400 cows to each; and their total 
product in 1867, was 40,000,000 pounds of 
cheese. Under this system of association the 
fanners bring their milk and pay for having 
it worked up. We extract from Mr. Wiliakd 
again : 

'" The cost of manufacturing cheese is, to the 



farmer, one cent per pound, rennet, salt, band- 
age, annalto, and boxes, as well as carting the 
cheese to market, being charged to the associa- 
tion and paid by each dairyman in proportion 
to the quantity of milk furnished during the 
season. The whey, as has been before observed, 
belongs to the factory. All other expenses, in- 
cluding the care of the cheese while curing, 
etc., is paid by the manufacturer. 

"To run a factory Using the milk of 600 
cows will give constant eiuploymjut to at least 
four persons, half or nuire of whom may be 
females. Before the war, whe;i prices had not 
become inflated, the actual cost of manufact- 
uring the milk from 600 cows was about $700 
for the season. This sum does not cover in- 
terest on capital invested for buildings and 
fixtures, but was the amount paid for labor, 
board, fuel, etc. 

"From these data it will be easily estimated 
what amount of money can be realized from the 
business of manufacturing. Allowing that the 
600 cows ]iroduce, on an average, 400 pounds 
of cheese each, there will be in the aggregate 
240,000 pounds. The cost of a well-constructed 
factory will not be far from $3,000. 

We have tli.n 2lcl.im pdnuls iit one cent $2,100 

Cost ..f runniiii; i.u-ton $70(1 

Interest on LniLliMK", .le 210 

Aiinniil wejir imil tear, oi- (ieprerjation of prop- 
el ty :".»i 

— l.UC 

Trufits $1,2'.» 

Now, for 300 cows, nearly the same expense 
would be incurred, and the factory account 
would stand thus: 

120,000 poninis of cheese, at one cent SI, 200 

Expons • of rnnnlrig fintorj.... $70n 

Interest on capital inv.-ttteil 2itl 

Annual depruciution of property 2tHJ 

1,100 

Profits $90 

" We do not pretend to give the exact figures 
in the above estimate, but it will be seen that a 
factory manufacturing the milk of a less num- 
ber than 300 cows will not be a very paying 
business, unless the manufacturer can have 
most of the work performed by members of his 
own family." There are now no less than sixty 
cheese factories in Ohio. 

Important Factory Statistics. — At a recent 
meeting of the New York State Cheese Manu- 
facturers' As.s(iciation, in Utica, iute'restiug and 
vtiluable statistics were presented from a con- 
siderable number of factories in difTerent local- 
ities. The returns from twenty-five of these 
factories were complete, on the four points em- 
braced in the subjoined table. These figures 



CHEESE PRflCESS OF MAKING. 



479 



illustrate the extensive business now done in 
making cheese, on tlie factory system : 



•ilk' factory, Ch.-nangi 



al Cmk. Hc-rkii 



Chiirl- 

Nflanl, 



S 1 

■ ? 


iS-5' 




: 2, 


: =1 


: £5 


4IKI 


lH.24fi 


2(1.62 


8;-.l 

sti; 


IS.;, Ill 

l7i.,lliKi 
3112^064 


2ll'7.-! 
21..S11 
Is. 80 
-■1.60 
22.25 
111.69 
21. ao 

21 !h 

24! 2.1 

21.70 

21 Ixi 

•.■IMB 
24. IK! 
21.42 

2.i.oa 

ls,97 


600 


a«,o;» 


"•'" 



)..^6. 



, for 24 factorii'S, 

for .-Hch 
factory. 



largest average number of Itis. of cheese 1 
cow, is that repoi-teil hy the SpriDgtield Center 
Ots-g.i countv, 4oy lt>s. 

The lie.\t largest, by the Coal Creek factory, Herkl 
coinitv, 370 lbs. 

Tile smallest mimlier Itis. milk, per lt>. cured cheese 
ported by Elliston'a Biookficld factory, Madison cou 



S.3I. 



ity. 



! next smallest, by Whitte; 



criba factory, Os- 
wet:o county, y.;i:>. 

Aggreiiate sales of the 2.t factories, at an average of 21 
cenis, 4 mills per tt.. S7!ii.979 37. 

Average sales of each factory, H.'<,8I6 lbs.. $.11,839 IS. 

It will be observed tliat the weights of cheese 
made, as above given, are those of cured cheese. 
Five factories give llie weight of the chee.se 
wlien green, as well as when cured, and as this 
illustrates the shrinkage before marketing, we 
give the aggregate, as follows; The.se five fac- 
tories maniifactnred 719,759 pound.*,' weighed 
in its green state, or 679,872 pounds, weighed 
wlien cured — a loss of 39,887 pounds, or about 
5.54 pounds in the hundred. The average sizes 
of the chee.se made are given by nearly all the 
factories — the greater number running at about 
one hundred pounds each, and three at about 
one hundred and fifty pounds. 

Making on a Small Scale. — A Maine paper, 
gives the following account of a new process 
of making cheese, which promises well where 
only one or two cows are kept, as it has been 
"repeatedly tried with flattering success:" 
Ihe milk is set in the ordinary way every 
morning, and the curd is separated from the 
whey as well as it can be with the hands. It 
is then pressed comptictly into the bottom of 



an earthen (or stone) pot, and covered over 
with several folds of dry linen or cotton cloth. 
By this process the remaining whey is ab- 
sorbed, and when Ihe cloth becomes saturated, 
it is removed, and a dry one placed in its slead. 
In the course of a day and night the whey is 
removed as efTectually as it could be done by 
pressing. The next morning the milk is pre- 
pared in the same manner, and the curd is 
packed closely upon the lop of that prepared 
the day previous, and the same method pursued 
in separating the moisture. This process is to 
be repeated till you have a cream-pot full of 
cheese The labor is much less than in the 
old method, and the care of it afterward com- 
paratirely nothing. 

Here is another method, practiced where one 
or two cows are kept: "Take cool weal her, 
either in Spring or Fall, when milk and cream 
will keep, and when flies are scarce. .Slrain 
your milk in some deep vessel, that will hold 
two milkings, in the morning skim slightly; 
warm the milk to blood heat, add the water 
which has soaked a bit of rennet about two 
inches .square over night, and as soon as stiff 
cut wilh a carving or other knife; let it stand 
a fewminHtes, when you can put it into a cloth 
strainer, and lay by until you .accumulate as 
large a curd as your hoop will hold, when yon 
chop the whole, scalding with hot whey, just 
so it will give a creaking sound if chewed. 
Then add a little salt, sage, or whatever you 
like, and press. The whole operation need not 
require over an hour's time." 

D. C. ScoFlELD writes to the Western Farmer : 
"Cheese is now being manufactured in the city 
of Elgin, Illinois, on a principle which prom- 
ises to give a reputation for excellence hitherto 
unknown. By this new method the whey and 
watery substances are entirely extracted from 
the curd, before it is subjected to the press, re- 
taining the entire richness of the cheese, and 
rendering it so pure that it will keep unchanged 
for years. The process is by placing the curd, 
when prepared for the pre.ss in the ordinary 
way, into a wire-screen hoop, which is placed 
horizontally and set in motion of about one 
hundred and fifty circuits or revolution.* in a 
minute." 

It would seem practicable and profitable for 
the dairymen of each State or section to unite 
in employing an agent in New York for the 
sale of their products intended for export or- 
otherwise, iiistead of trusting to the present 
hap-liazard way of reaching the consumer. 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



Houses, Barns, and Fences. 



Farmers are, as a rule, miserably lodged. 
A majority of our rural habitations are un- 
couth and outlandish in the extreme, showing 
little evidence of good taste or refinement in 
the occnpants^ — the whole group of home build- 
ings bearing an aspect of dreariness and incon- 
gruity. Architecture is almost entirely un- 
known in this country beyond the city limits, 
unless the gratifying improvement in tlie public 
school buildings that has taken place within fif- 
teen years, may be said to furnish an exception. 

In this matter of building attractively, farm- 
ers are really the most independent men in the 
world ; for, wbile they have not alw.-^-s a large 
sum of ready nmney in hand, they can gener- 
ally furnish much of their own .stone and lum- 
ber, do much of the work, and so build at a 
reduced cost. By bestowing some degree of 
simple ornament on their residences, they can 
make themselves more comfortable and their 
sons more contented to follow the ancestral 
calling. Beauty is a sort of physical morality, 
and the farmer wlio ignores or despises it, and 
is willing to drag out his days in a clumsy, ill- 
contrived dwelling, runs the risk of becoming 
a worse neighbor and father than if he had 
pleasanfer surroundings. 

We do not intend to urge or suggest extrav- 
agance in this matter; economy is quite as 
needful here as elsewhere. It is only our pur- 
pose to deprecate the prevalent lack of refined 
taste in this department of farm life, and to 
call attention to the fact that a handsome house 
can be built as cheaply as a deformed and repulsive 
house. A residence may be rude, yet neat and 
shapely ; it may be very plain, yet very at- 
tractive. This fact does not .seem to be under- 
stood in our rural districts. 

"Joiners," who have served an apprentice- 
■fihip at the jack-plane, so brief that it would 
hardly qualify them to build a barn in England, 
are called upon to erect many of our largest 
and most complicated farm-houses. " Build 
(480) 



mine like neighbor Sjlixn's?," are their in- 
structions; "only put a window in /lere, and 
swing that room around so, aiul cut a door 
through there." So the hybrid houses are mul- 
tiplied, and comeliness and symmetry retreat 
into the unhewn woods. 

This chapter will give some hints in regard 
to style, but the general theme of farm archi- 
teclure must of course be very inadequately 
treated in the few pages at our command. We 
advise tho.se who can, to look at some standard 
work before building, such as Downino's Cot- 
tage Kesidences, Wheeler's Eural Hcmies, or 
Slo.\n's Homestead Architecture; while all 
wlio contemplate a residence of much preten- 
sions should also consult a reliable architect. 
The cost of such profession;d advice is a mat- 
ter to be considered, and of this Downing says: 
"Many persons wilhin our knowledge have 
been deterred from applying to a professional 
man for advice in building a house, or laying 
out their grounds, from a mistaken idea of the 
enormous charges to which they would be sub- 
jected. In the hope of lessening this error we 
h.ave applied to one of our ablest architects, for 
a general list of professional terms, an extract 
from which we shall here offer: 

" Design for a gate lodge or small cottage, $50. 

" Design for a church, $100. 

" Design for a villa residence of moderate 
size, §.50 to $100. 

" Design for a villa of the first class (esti- 
mated at $15,000), including a visit to the 
site, $150. 

"The foregoing are exclusive of the working 
drawinys. 

" For five per cent, on the estimate of the 
whole cost at New York price.', the architect 
furnishes the design, including the elevations, 
.sections, and working drawings, a complete 
list of specifications, procures an estimate, and 
gives an occasional superintendence while the 
building is in progress." 



STYLE OF ARCHITECTT:RE — SUGGESTIONS FOR BUILDERS. 



4R1 



This estimate was made twenty years ago, 
but we learn, upon inquiry, that the average 
charges are about the same to-day. 

Style of Arcliitecture.— This sliould 

be adapted to an American landscape, and 
some of the neat and attractive composites 
scattered here and there through our States, 
are preferable for this purpose to any feudal 
importations. Downing, Allen, and others 
agree tliat there is little place on this continent 
for the massive ancient orders ; the Doric, Ionic, 
Grecian, Tuscan, Egyptian ; that these are su- 
perseded by tjie lighter styles whose charac- 
teristic is elegant variety ; modifications of the 
Italian and Swi.ss, witli projecting roofs and 
balconies, the rural Gothic, with its sylvan 
arches and pointed gables, the animated French 
with ilshroUen Mansard-roof and its airy aspect, 
or the Anglo- .American cottage, with its neat- 
ness and modesty, which fit it to a quiet land- 
scape. These graceful forms will better adorn 
the hill-sides of America than anything more 
ostentatious. We earnestly second the sugges- 
tion of Downing: "For domestic architec- 
ture, we would strongly recommend those 
simple modifications of architectural styles, 
where the beauty grows out of the enricliment 
of some useful or elegant features of the liouse 
as tlie windows or verandas, rather than those 
where some strongly marked features of little 
domestic beauty overpower the rest of tlie 
building." 

The style of architecture should also depend 
much on the location. The Swiss chalet seems 
most at home when it hangs like a bird's nest 
in a gorge or on a mountain-side ; a wooded 
vista should lie below the Italian balcony, 
the piquant Gothic should have rugged and 
rustic surroimdings, always including ever- 
green-trees that shoot up higher than the build- 
ing. For an open plain, there is nothing like a 
simple winged mansion, or an adapted Englisli 
cottage, suggestive of repose. How often we see 
these essential conditions inverted, and beauty 
wasted for want of harmony ! 

Farmers who aim at magnificence in build- 
ing, generally make wretched failures. Imita- 
tions of the castellated mansions of Europe, if 
not ridiculous wliile occupied by the builder, 
always become so within a generation; for 
property is not entailed. Convenience, dura- 
bility, utility, harmony — qualities which may 
be summed up in the word expression — should 
govern absolutely in forming an American 
home. 

31 



Sug-g-estions for Builders. — 

The Site.— The relative position of the house 
on the farm is a matter of much importance. 
Fitness is the first consideration. The resi- 
dence need not necessarily be located on the 
highest hill, though the ground should decline 
on all sides. 

"The house," says Allen, "should so stand 
as to present an agreeable aspect from the main 
points at which it is seen, or the thoroughfares 
by which it is approached. It should liave an 
unmistakable front, sides, and rear; and the 
uses to which its various parts are applied 
shouln di.stinctly appear in its outward char- 
acter. If a site on the estate command a pras- 
pect of singular beauty, other things equal, the 
dwelling should embrace it; if the luxury of a. 
stream, or a sheet of water in repose, present 
itself, it should, if pcssible, be enjoyed ;• if the 
shade and protection of a grove be near, its 
benefits should be included." 

"In England," says Wheeler, in Ru,ral 
Hmnes, "it is very common to face the building, 
not due north and south, east and west, but to 
place it diagonally, so that the sun shall, in a 
greater or less degree, have access to each side 
of the house. This plan has advantages, which 
recommend its adoption in some cases here. 
Although the soutliern side of the house has, 
in warm weather, the sun upon its front for a 
longer portion of the day than any other, it is 
nevertheless the most desirable for occupancy. 
A breeze almost always, even in tlie hottest 
suTisliine, rustles from the south, and the even, 
steady light, although bright and accompanied 
with heat, is cheerful. Properly contrived 
blinds will screen the sun, and due regard to 
the position of dooi'S, windows, and ventilating 
valv-es, will secure a constant change of air 
within the rooms. 

"As a general rule, the entrance hall should 
not open toward the north, but toward the east, 
south, or west; if, however, any local peculiar- 
ity compels the necessity of the northern side 
being chosen, take care that the hall door is 
screened by a porch, closed toward the north, 
and open through on the two sides, as then, 
though the door be thrown back, the entrance 
of the cold air will he prevented." 

The Surroundings. — In this country, the 
houses all seem to huddle upon the road. This 
habit, which resulted .at first, perhaps from the 
unprotected and lonely condition of the early 
settlers, is perpetuated by the gregarious char- 
acter of our people. We crowd down upon 
the highway, that we may "see folks." This 



482 



ABCniTECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



tends to disquiet, while it sacrifices tlie inex- 
pensive beauty which a farin-liouse borrows 
I'rom a spacious and well-kept lawn in its front. 
Moreover, a good house standing ten rods from 
the liighway, with a pleasant grass plot inter- 
vening, will almost always sell at a higher 
price, and more readily, than a house precisely 
similar, located immediately upon the road. 

Another thing : no country house is fit to live 
in if it have not trees near it — the larger the 
belter. We would rather occupy a cabin em- 
bowered in trees and evergreens, than such a 
stately mansion as we have seen, standing high 
and dry on a naked hill, freezing in Winter and 
broiling in Summer, looking as desolate as if 
it had been blown there by some malevolent 
hurricane. 

But trees should not be too near; when stand- 
ing so as to overshadow tlie house, they create an 
unwholesome dampness, not only injuring the 
walls, and roof, and making the cistern water 
impure, but impairing the health of the occu- 
pants. Close to the house, trees are pernicious ; 
at a little distance, they are wholesome, orna- 
mental, and desirable. They should never be 
near enough to intercept the rays of the sun; 
there is no more important curative agent, and 
some sunshine should be introduced, every day 
of the year, into as many rooms as possible. 
Small lattice-work before the door and around 
the windows, for creeping vines, add much to 
value and beauty. A neat, pleasant-looking 
place is always salable. Horticulture, especi- 
ally that phase of it which decorates the lawn, 
is the poetry of farming, and it is a poetry that 
returns compound interest. 

The Shape. — A curve is the line of beauty; 
but, in architecture, ideal beauty is subordinate 
to the beauty of vtilily. So square houses, 
square doors, square windows, or at least, those 
constructed on right angles, proving generally 
the most useful, are therefore regarded as most 
comely. For the same reason, houses longer 
than they are wide, or rambling into wings, 
being found more economically divisable into 
well-lighted rooms, become the most agreeable 
to the eye. This diversity gives to a residence 
an animated and social appearance, and should 
not be disregarded. 

The Roof. — Slate roofs are haud.some and 
durable, and are now much u.sed in the Eastern 
States ; their practicability in different sections 
of the country will, of course, depend on the 
cost of the material. As to form, the Mansard 
French roof is coming rapidly into favor, with 
such modifications as adapt it to American 



houses without sacrificing its unique beauty. 
Scarcely anything else is now used to cover 
houses in the vicinity of Boston. The upper 
roof is almost flat; the lower, nearly perpen- 
dicular. 

The Scientific American says: "All the new 
houses which have been built in New York re- 
cently, have what are termed flat roofs; that is, 
the roof is nearly level and slants but slightly 
from one side to the other. The old huge peaked 
roofs are last disappearing; we wonder how they 
ever came into use. The inventor of them 
must have been a man full of conical ideas. 
The flat roofs are covered with tin, and well 
painted. If a fire takes place in a building, it 
is easy to walk and work on the flat roof, so as 
to command the fire if it be in the adjacent 
building; this can not be done on the peaked 
roofs. Flat roofs are cheaper and more con- 
venient in every respect. We advise all those 
who intend to build new liouses, to have flat 
roofs to them. It is far better to have a flush 
story at the top of a building than a peaked, 
cramped-up garret which is only comfortable 
for traveling on the hands and knees." 

The Color. — A. J. Downing protests heartily 
against the use of white paint on houses, as 
"entirely unsuitable and in bad taste." He 
thinks that the glaring nature of this color, 
when seen in contrast with the soft green of 
foliage, renders it extremely unpleasant to an 
eye attuned to harmony of cohu'ing." But he 
will find many who will protest against his 
"protest." If "harmony of coloring" in the 
sense of identity of coloring, be really desira- 
ble, why not paint all houses green — especially 
such as are to be occupied only in the Summer? 
Nothing could be in wor.se taste; green blind.-* 
are bad enough. 

It seera^ to us that white, as a color for 
houses, is often well cho.sen. This very "con- 
trast with the soft green of foliage " produces 
harmony in many landscapes. It is, perhaps, 
too generally used ; with some surroundings 
the color will seem more in keeping, if toned 
down from the glare of white to s<mie pleasant 
neutral shade. Straw, and the different drabs 
are agreeable to the eye, and are now much 
used. Flash is vulgar, and painting wood to 
imitate stone. Is not only vulgar, but a fraud on 
art. Paint late in Autumn, not during the hot 
season. It will harden twice as well, and last 
twice as long. 

The Interior, — The sitting, or living room, 
should be the largest and pleasantest room in 
the house. It should always be located at the 



THE nOUSE, ETC. 



483 



front, and on the side where the sun will enter 
the windows. All means should be employed 
to render it attractive, comfortable, and con- 
venient, for it is generally used for the dining 
as well as sitting-room, and is occupied for 
more hours a day than any other apartment. 
That indispensable nuisance, a parlor, may be 
a secondary consideration; it has an air of 
fiigid propriety and disuse, and the north side 
of tlie house i.s good enough for it. The kitchen 
should be spacious, and the pantry and wash- 
room handy. Tliere can hardly be too many 
closets. Every house where civilized beings 
live ought to be from nine to twelve feet be- 
tween joints. 

The Library. — Every house whose occupants 
pretend to any degree of refinement ought to 
have a room known as the library or study. 
Especially should every farm-house be so fitted. 
This room is quite as important as the parlor. 
Almost anything else should be sacritrced to it. 
It need not be huge, but it must be comfortable 
and somewhat secluded, and it should be con- 
veniently furnished. Here there should be 
maps, shelves for the books, boxes or flies for 
the agricultural papers, and a good desk with 
apajtmeiits for letters, inoinurandiau books 
wherein to record firm experimenls, and a 
blotter and ledger wherein to keep tlie farm 
accounts witli animals, fields, and crojis. Farm- 
ers ought to read more, write more, and think 
more ; they have no business to be clods or 
boors. 'With such a room as this made attract- 
ive, farmer's boys will be less disposed to stroll 
about during the long evenings of Winter, or 
spend their time in idle talk or bar-rooms, 
stores, and other places where the idle and un- 
cultivated assemble, and where they often ac- 
quire the first lessons in smoking, drinking, 
and gaming. And they will be far more likely 
to spend their lives on the old homestead, too. 

Size of Rooms. — Rooms ought to be of a .si'je 
to fit carpeting. This point is uniformly over- 
looked by the hand-books of architecture. Car- 
peting is, ordinarily, a yard wide, and three- 
fourths of the patterns are so figured as to re- 
quire cutting by the yard to make them match. 
There is not only a sacrificing of harmony but 
a waste of dollars in carpeting every room 
whose width is not an exact multiple of a 
yard — either nine, twelve, fifteen, or eighteen 
feet. If house-builders and architects would 
remember this, it would save husbands much 
expense and housewives much annoyance. 

Liyhl. — Do not so arrange your house as to 
violate God's first command. Give it many 



windows, and then, oh housewife, koej) your 
blinds open during the day, and your curtains 
drawn a.'-ide. If you let in the sun freely, it 
may " fade the carpets ;" but if you don't it will 
be sure to fade the children and tlieir mother. 
The sun is a good physician; he has never had 
due credit for his curative qualities — for the 
bright eyes and rosy cheeks that come from his 
healing baths. Do you know how puny is the 
growth of a potato-vine along the darkened 
cellar wall ? Such is the health of human be- 
ings living where sunshine is intercepted by 
the window's drapery. So dark wall-paper is 
not only gloomy, but it is physically unwhole- 
some. Let in the sun! — for with it come 
cheerfulness and strength. A dark room is an 
enemy of good health, good temper, and good 
morals. 

Cllinineys.— The household calamity of 
smoky chimneys can generally be prevented in 
building new houses, by making a bulge in the 
flue, so that it will be smallest at top and largest 
in tlie middle. Thus, let the throat of the 
chimney be so constructed that immediately 
inside of it the space shall be abruptly in- 
creased several inches in length and breadtli. 
Let it increase upward for two or three feet, 
and then be gradually "drawn in" to the di- 
mensions necessary, and let the whole inside of 
the chimney be plastered with cement, which 
will harden with time. 

There should be a door opposite every fire- 
place. This diminishes the chances of having 
a smoky chimney, for in fire-time of year the 
cold air will be always entering the room at 
the crevices of the door, and in the direction 
of the fire-place, and upward through the 
chimney. The draught of a chimney may be 
increased by the simple expedient of cutting 
out a small part of the floor with a saw, so 
tliat it may be easily replaced after the fire is 
kindled. No chimney will "draw" well if 
there is any wall or other thing near which is 
higher than the chimney itself. A room that 
has a fire should always be well ventilated. 

.An open door, connecting two rooms which 
have fires, will frequently cause one to smoke, 
the stronger fire robbing the weaker of its sup- 
ply of fresh air. So of two stoves on different 
floors, connecting with the same chimney; if 
there be a fire in only one, it will be likely to 
smoke, unless the other be nearly air-tight. 
The higher a chimney is, and the hotter its 
air-column can be kept, the better its draught. 
To prevent the wind from entering chimneys. 



484 



ARCIIITECTUKE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



cooling the air and driving tlie smoke down, 
chimneys are sometimes surmounted with cowls 
that turn with the wind, and so assist the dis- 
charge of smoke. 

One of the latest plans is to eonstruet the 
chimney with an outer sliell, so arranged that 
an air space is provided around the chimney, 
this space forming a kind of ventilating flue 
for the building. The sliell has its upper end 
extended above that of tlie chimney, and pro- 
vided with openings, through which the wind 
may pass in horizontal currents. These cur- 
rents fall against the chimney, and are turned 
in an upward direction, and thus promote the 
ilranght. 

In building a chimney put a quantity of salt 
into the mortar with which the courses of brick 
are to be laid. The eS'ect will be that there 
will never be any accumulation of soot in that 
chimney. The philosophy is thus stated : The 
salt in the portion of mortar which is exposed 
absorbs moisture every damp day. The soot 
thus becoming damp falls down the fire-place, 
and may be removed with the aslies. 

Let every builder watch the carpenters and 
insist that they put no wood-work about cjiim- 
neys to expose the house to destruction by fire. 
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been 
lost by such carelessness. Chimneys, raoueover, 
should always stand with a firm base on the 
ground. 

Cellars. — We copy from the Herald of Health 
the following excellent counsel: "Useful as 
they are, yet cellars are almost universally 
manufactories of foul air, which, finding its 
way upward, by means of doors, windows, 
stairways, and crevices in the floors, diffuses its 
noxio»is elements through the rooms above, and 
HO becomes a fruitful source of disease, besides 
affording a harbor for rata and mice. The sur- 
face of the earth is filled with decomposable 
substances, and whenever air is confined to any 
spot, it becomes saturated with various exha- 
lations deleterious to health. Means must be 
provided, therefore, for their thorough venti- 
lation, or cellars must be totally abandoned. A 
cellar, fully to serve its purposes, should be 
cool in Summer, impervious to fro.st in Winter, 
and at all times free from moisture. The 
walls should rise one or two feet at least above 
the surrounding ground, and should be laid in 
good lime-mortar, or at least pointed with it. 
The thickness of the wall should not be less 
than fifteen or eighteen inches; and if the 
house walls above be built of brick or stone, 
two feet is preferable. 



" The cellar should have a connecting drain 
at its lowest corner, which shoiild be kept free 
from obstruction ; and each room in it should 
have at least two sliding windows, to secure a 
good circulation of air. In very cold climates 
those portions of the wall above the ground 
should bo double, either by means of a distinct 
thin wall, on the outside, or by lathing and 
plastering inside, and be furnished with double 
windows, as a further security against the 
frost. An outside door, covering a flight of 
steps, is desir.able in every cellar, and especially 
in one connected with a farm-house. With 
proper care, all the walls and their connecting 
surfaces with tlie ceilings above, may be made 
so perl'ectly tight as to prevent the egress and 
ingress of vermin; and keeping the cellar 
clean from rubbish and decaying vegetable 
matter will insure neatness, sweetness, and 
health." 

Mortar for Cellar Floors. — A correspondent 
says: "I have seen a great number of plaster 
or mortar floors, but I never saw one equal to 
the one in my cellar, not only for hardness and 
durability but for cost of materials. It is 
without a single crack and as hard as a stone. 
It was made in the following manner : When 
the plastering of my house was finished I 
found a quantity of refuse lime, which had not 
slaked soon enough for them, thrown out of the 
box, and al'tcr lying there a few weeks had all 
become slaked, excejit a few lumps of unburnt 
limestone; the largest of these I threw out. I 
then cast the lime into a large box, or ' mortar 
bed,' adding a little water, and worked it well 
with the tools the plasterers had left The 
sand I used for plastering was collected from 
the roads, and consequently contained much 
small stone. The plasterers, of course, riddled 
it so that I had .several loads of these small 
stunes, etc., lying near the 'mortar bed.' I 
threw this into the bed and mixed it with the 
lime; proportion, seven or eight parts to one 
of lime. I am aware that those who know 
nothing of the chemical aflinity of lime for car- 
bonic acid and silex, would think of improving 
their floor by adding a larger proportion of 
lime, especially if they had plenty of it at 
hand. This would ruin their floor; put it on 
the land, or let it lie a nuisance sooner than 
spoil the floor with it. 

" Make the mortar stifl enough to bear 
wheeling in a barrow, lay it about three inches 
thick, making it the whole thickness as you 
proceed, beginning at the side opposite 'the 
dour, and with a corn hoe held with the handle 



BALLOON FRAMFS. 



485 



perpendicular, hit it on the top gentlj', so as to 
level the surface, and unite each barrowful 
wiih the last laid. My cellar floor has been 
laid six or eight j-ears, and, when newly 
washed, the small stones may be seen (worn off 
level) as close to each other as they would be 
in a bucket of water, and as firm as shells in a 
block of marble." 

Balloon Frames. — "Ballooning," in 
arcliitecture, is a terra at first applied in de- 
rision to a cheap method of framing, believed 
to re.<ult in buildings frail and unsubstantial, 
and now applied technically to designate the 
same method, found to result in frames light 
and sutjstantial. Balloon framing had no in- 
ventor; it grew from the sudden necessity of 
building rapidly and cheaply, in frontier States, 
wliere there was plenty of light lumber but few 
carpenters. 

A balloon frame is built wholly of studs, 
generally two by four inches, two being .'^etside 
by .side for the uprights at the corners, and the 
whole frame nailed firmly together. It is 
built- without a mortice or tenon, or pin or 
brace; without an auger or chisel; generally, 
also, without a joiner, for an intelligent man, 
who can lay a right-angle with a square, and 
hang a plumb-line perpendicularly, can serve 
as his own mechanic. 

It is very simple. Tliat which has hitherto 
called out a whole neighborhood to the "rais- 
ing," and required avast expenditure of labor, 
time, noise, and cider, can, in the adoption of 
the balloon frame, be done with all the quiet- 
ness and security of an ordinary day's work. 
And a man and boy can now attain, with ease, 
the same results that twenty men could on an 
old-fashioned frame. 

AVe avail ourselves of quotations from an ex- 
cellent essay on this subject by Geobge E. 
Woodward, a New York architect: 

"The balloon frame fulfills all the neces- 
sary conditions of cheapness, protection, and 
strength. To these circumstances we must 
award the early conception of this frame, 
which, with subsequent additions and improve- 
ments, has led to its universal adoption for 
wooden buildings of every class throughout the 
Slates and cities of the West, and on the 
Pacific coast. 

"The balloon frame has for more than twenty 
years been before the building public. Its suc- 
cess, adaptiibility, and practicability have been 
fully demonstrated. Its simple, eflfective, and 
economical manner of construction has very 



materially aided the rapid settlement of the 
West, and placed the art of building, to a 
great extent, within the control of the pioneer. 
That necessity, which must do without the aid 
of the mechanic, or the knowledge of his skill, 
has developed a principle in construction that 
has sufficient merit to warrant its u.se by all 
who wish to erect, in a cheap and substantial 
manner, any class of wooden buildings. 

"Like all successful movements, which thrive 
on their own merits, the balloon frame has 
passed through and survived the ridicule and 
abuse of all who have seen fit to attack it, and 
may be reckoned among the prominent inven- 
tions of the present generation^ — an invention 
neither fostered nor developed by any hope of 
great rewards, but which plainly and boldly 
acknowledges its origin in necessity. 

"The sills are generally three by eight inches, 
halved at the ends or corners, and nailed to- 
gether with large nails. Having laid the sills 
upon the foundation, the next thing in order is 
to put up the studding. Use four by four studs 
for corners and door-posts, or spike two by four 
studs together, stand them up, set them plumb, 
and with stay laths secure them in position. 
Set up the intermediate studs, which are two 
by four inches, and si.xteen inches between cen- 
ters, toe or nail them diagonally to the sill. 
Then put in the floor joists for first floor, each 
joLst to be placed alongside each stud, and 
nailed to it and to the sill. Next measure the 
height to ceiling, and with a chalk line mark 
it around the entire range of studding; below 
the ceiling line notch each stud wue inch deep 
and four inches wide, and into this, flush with 
the inside face of the studding, nail an inch 
strip four inches wide. This notch may be cut 
before putting up the studs. If the frame De 
lined on the inside, it will not be necessary to 
notch the strip into the studs, but simply to 
nail it to the studding; the object of notching 
the studding is to present a flush surface for 
lathing, as well as to form a shoulder or bear- 
ing necessary to sustain the second floor; both 
of these are accomplished by lining inside the 
studding. In this rest the joists of the second 
floor, the ends of which come flush to the out- 
side face of the studding, and both ends of the 
joist are .securely nailed to each stud. The bear- 
ing of the joist below is clo.se by the stud, and the 
inch strip rests on a shoulderor lower side of the 
notch cut to receive it. This bearing is so 
strong that the joists will break before it would 
yield. Having reached the top of the building, 
each stud is sawed off to an equal height; if any 



483 



AUCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



nre too short tliey are splioed bv placing one on 
lop of the other, and nailing a strip of inch 
board on both sides. The wall plate, two by 
four inches, is laid flat on top of the studding, 




Perspective View op the Balloon Fbahe. 
and nailed to each stud ; the rafters are then 
put on ; they are notched, allowing the ends to 
project outside for cornice, etc. The bearing 
of each rafter comes directly over the top of 
each stud, and is nailed to it. 

"A balloon frame looks light, and its name 
was given in contempt by those old fogy me- 
chanics who had been brought up to rob a stick 
of timber of all its strength and durability by 
catting it full of mortices, tenons, and auger 
holes, and Ihc^ supposing it to be stronger than 
a far lighter stick differently applied, and witli 
all its capabilities unimpaired. 

"Properly constructed, and with timber 
adapted to its purposes, it will stand securely 
against the fury of the elements, and answer 
every purpose that an old-fashioned timber 
frame is calculated to fulfil. 




Kru Two OS 



" In the construction of balloon frame-houses, 
the studs for those partitions that run through 



the building are not cut separately for each 
floor, as in the old mode of framing, but are 
preserved entire, or .spliced, when required, in 
the same manner as the outside frame. The 
studs pass between the joists of each floor, which 
rest upon a girt oije by four inches, let into the 
studs. The joists are locked over this girt, by 
cutting an inch notch on the under side, and 
lap each other from eight inches to one foot, as 
shown in tlie preceding figure. 

" Houses and barns, and even warehouses, 
depots, and other buildings of a very large size, ^ 
can be made stronger by using the balloon frame, 
instead of the lie.ivy timber frame. Those who 
prefer to err on the right side, can get unneces- 
sary strength by using deeper studding, placing 
them closer together, putting in one or more 
rows of bridging, and as many diagonal ribs as 
they like. In large buildings there is no sav- 
ing in timlier, only the substitution of small 
sizes for large — the great saving is in the labor, 
which is quite important. 

"The following are some of the advantages 
claimed for the balloon frame: 

" 1. The whole labor of framing is dispensed 
with. 

"2. It is a far cheaper frame to raise. 

"3. It is stronger and more durable than any 
other frame. 

"4 Any stick can be removed, and another 
put in its place, without disturbing the strength 
of those remaining — in fact, the whole building 
can be renewed, stick by stick. 

"5. It is adapted to every style of building, 
and better adapted for all irregular forms. 

"6. It is forty per cent, cheaper than any 
other known style of frame. 

"7. It embraces strength, security, comfort, 
and economy, and can be put up without the 
aid of a mechanic." 

A Cheap Brick House. — Thomas 
Tasker, of Steuben county, Indiana, writes 
thus to the American Institute Farmei-s' Club, 
telling how he made his own brick for his house: 
"1 dug a circle large enough for a yoke of 
oxen to work in. I then removed the loam, 
dug the clay one foot deep — any ordinary clay 
will answer. I treaded this clay with o.'sen, 
and added some straw cut three or four inches 
long. After the clay was well tempered by 
working it with cattle, the material was duly 
prepared for making brick. I then constructed 
a mold twelve inches long, six inches wide, 
and four inches thick. Two molds are enough, 
as one man will mold as fast as another mau 



LABOllEES COTTAGES. 



487 



will carry away. The bricks are placed upon 
the level ground, where they are suffered to 
dry l«o days, turning them up edgewise the 
settund day ; then packed in a pile, protected 
from the rain, and left to dry ten or twelve 
da^s. In all cases, before commencing tlie 
walls of the first .story, dig down to solid foun- 
dation, and fill up witli .stone to at least one foot 
above tlie level of t)ie surface of the ground; 
and if the stone of the foundation were laid 
with lime-mortar, so much the better, although 
mine is not laid with anything. These bricks 
are not burned in t!ie sun. You can make 
your molds lai'ger or smaller as you like. 

" I have built a house twenty-four feet square, 
with a wing twelve feet, and I would not trade 
it for any frame hou.se of the same size that I 
have seen, and I am satisfied a house built of 
unburned brick don't cost half as much as a 
frame, and any laboring man can build his 
own house. I am satisfied that a hou.se of un- 
burned brick can be built for less than a log 
cabin of the same size, and i*. is worth five log 
cabins." 

Al'tlOcial Stone. — One of the prospect- 
ive discoveries of the age seems to be that of 
artificial stone, by recombining the common 
elements of decomposed rocks, so as to form 
durable material for building, and other pur- 
po,ses. experiments witliin a few years, en- 
courage the hope that the time will come when 
we shall have beautiful and durable material 
from sand and gravel, at cheaper rates than it 
can now be afforded in common brick. Al- 
ready one specimen of building block has been 
made by a hard-pressed coiupound of sand and 
lime; another by sand, plaster, and blood; 
another of sand and the silicate of soda, ca- 
pable of being naoulded, eitlier porous or com- 
pact. 

The Chicago Magazine says: "A cliemist — 
Professor Hahdinge — has discovered a process 
by which all rock — whether granite or flint — 
can be turned into liquid at the rate of twenty- 
five tons in twelve hours — then colored and 
molded into blocks of any shape or size, for 
building purposes. The material is beautiful 
beyond description, cheaper than common brick, 
and after preparation becomes solid as iron." 
It can not, we trust, be long before some hand- 
some building material can be produced from 
pulverized or liquefied rock ; so cheaply as to 
be within the reach of all. 

Liaborers' Cottages.— There is no 



more reason wliy a farmer should expect to 
board all his hired men than why a manufact- 
urer or merchant should. Why should a farm- 
er's wife alone be made a drudge of, when plain 
cottages can be so cheaply erected for the occu- 
pancy of the laborers who do the work of the 
farm? It is widely felt that the want of do- 
mestic seclusion and comfort occasioned by the 
apparent necessity of "feeding the hired men," 
renders the farmer's home unnecessarily re- 
pulsive to young people. 

Girls, e.specially, must regard with no little 
dread, a prospective life of drudgery in pro- 
viding three meals a day for five to twenty 
hungry, sweaty, and uiicleanly men; in being 
compelled to incorporate them into tlie family, 
to give them a place at the evening fire-side, to 
do their washing and to furnish them with 
room night and day. They know very well 
from observation, that the wives of mechanics 
and shop-keepers often preserve tlie bloom and 
eUisticity of youth, long after farmers' wives of 
the same age have become pale, wrinkled and 
bent, under the accumulated labors of kitchen 
life. 

Rural Affairs says: "Having actually tried 
the experiment of .separate cottages for twenty 
years, we earnestly commend it to others; and 
we are sure that if farmers' daughters, before 
tliey give an afErmative answer to the young 
men who apply for their heart and hand, would 
require the erection of such cottages as a con- 
dition of matrimonial engageiuent, a reforma- 
tion would rapidly take place. There are 
many advantages in hiring men with families. 
They are generally more steady, reliable and 
uniform. They will usually take a portion of 
their wages in provisions for tlieir family sup- 
plies. Their wives, having comparatively little 
to do, can piovide their meals at less cost than 
the same can be done by the hired ' help' of the 
farmer, and consequently such laborers gen- 
erally charge but little more for their own 
board than the actual cost of the provisions." 

No farmer with proper consideration for his 
wife, will, if it can be avoided, introduce his 
hired men as permanent members of the house- 
hold, for it totally breaks up and destroys the 
family relation. The farm-house that should 
be and might be aliappy home, becomes a mere 
boarding-house in which the natural relations 
are reversed, for the husband is steward, the 
wife cook, and the hired men and children the 
independent boarders. The employed become 
the served, and the employers the servants. 
Such a condition of things is intolerable to a 



488 



ARCniTECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD : 



well-bred woman, and quite incompatible with 
the existence of genuine home comfort. 

For the highest personal comfort, the farm 
ought to be just large enough for the labor of 
the owner and his boys, and the farm-house just 
large enough for the occupation of a growing 
family, with a generous margin for hospitality. 

If the farm needs to be larger than this, let 
not the homestead be invaded by " the hired 
men," but let them be housed and fed in cot- 
tages built for them. This arrangement will 
prove infinitely more agreeable to all; and 
more economical, too, for a married workman 
can board himself, in his own way, much 
cheaper than his employer c-an board him, 
while he can also keep the unmarried hired 
men on terms equally advantageous to all. 

While the practice we have deprecated exists, 
we shall not be surprised to see farmers' sons 
rebelling again.st their lot and flying to cities, 
or the daughters of farmers setting their caps 
for merchants, ministers, doctoi-s, lawyers, c;ir- 
penter.s, teachers, tailors, tinkers — anybody but 
their agricultural neighbors. They .see that, 
while their fathers have made money, their 
mothers are furrowed with premature age, be- 
cause they have been drudges all their lives, 
bent to a furious rotation of scrubbing, ironing, 
baking, stewing, sewing — two-thirds of it for 
"the hired men." Mr. TuOMAS says he heard 
a most worthy and intelligent woman, who at 
fifty looked old enough for seventy, remark, 
that at a fair estimate she had cooked at least 
fifty tons of food fur laboring men. What 
wonder that so many women think with a 
shudder of spending a lii'e-time in the role of 
farmers' wives? Is it not high time that agri- 
culture was made pleasant and attractive to 
young people, as it is in its nature, honorable 
and profitable? 

The wretched community system has pre- 
vailed long enough in America, to the amaze- 
ment of foreigners and the disgust of our own 
people; it is high time that every farmer with 
a particle of personal sensibility or indepen- 
dence, or with any respect for the rights of his 
companion, should adopt a better way. Wher- 
ever this system of separation has been tried, it 
has resulted in the increased thrift of the farmer, 
the emancipation of his wife, and an accession 
of comfort and self-respect to the laborer. 

A Few Brief Rules.— The following 
rules to be observed in building liouses, may 
afford some useful suggestions to those about to 
engage in fioh an undertaking: 



1. Keep the cost within the means. It it 
better to have a small, plain house paid for, 
than a large, fine house, with a cupola and 
mortgage on it. Discriminate between rea 
needs and imaginary ones. 

2. Select a convenient location rather than a 
showy one, if you can not combine the two. 

3. Build of such good materials as are near 
at hand. An index is thus afforded to the re- 
sources of the region, with the addition of 
economy over the use of such as are "far 
brought and dear bought." 

4. Prefer lasting to perishable materials, 
even if more costly. A small well-built erec- 
tion is better than a large decaying shell. 

5. Discard all gingerbread-work, and adopt 
a plain, neat, .and tasteful appearance in every 
part. Far more true taste is evinced by proper 
forms and just proportions than by any amount 
of tinsel and peacock decorations. 

6. Where convenient or practicable, let. the 
plan be so devised that additions may be sub- 
sequently made, without distorting the whole. 

7. In all country houses, from the cottage to 
the palace, let the kitchen (a most important 
apartment) always be on a level with the main 
floor. It requires more force to raise a hundred 
pounds ten feet upward, wliethcr it be the hu- 
man frame or an a.ssortment of eatable.s, than 
to carry the same weight one hundred feet on 
a level. To do it fifty times a day is a seriou.'i 
task. Where the mistre.ss superintends her 
own kitchen, it should be of easy access. 

8. Every entrance from without should open 
into some entry, lobby, or hall, to prevent the 
direct ingress of cold air into rooms, and to 
secure suttieient privacy. 

9. Flat roofs should be adopted only with 
metallic covering. Shingles need a steeper in- 
clination to prevent the accumulation of snow, 
leakage, and decay — more so tlian is frequently 
adopted. 

10. Always reserve ten per cent, of cost for 
ornamenting the lawn. A hundred dollars in 
evergreens, grading, turfing, and rustic seaLs 
will add more to the market value of a place 
than thrice that sum expended on the house 
itself. 

Desig'nS- — We present herewith a few de- 
signs for neat dwellings, aiming to select such 
as will be useful to those about to build. Dif- 
ferent styles an<l sizes will be found representeil, 
and also different prices, from the plain and 
cheap to the moderately expensive, omitting, 
however, the very elaborate and ornate. For 



FARM-HOUSES. 



489 



tliese our readers are indebted (with the ex- 
ceptions mentioned) to TvcKEP.'s Rural Affairs, 
Albany, an annual publication of the liighest 
value to the farmer 




This design exhibits a dwelling expressive of 
an air of modest and refined neatness, free from 
any bold or prominent peculiarity of architec- 
ture. Its general air is that of the Italian 
style, presenting the varied outline and free- 
dom from stiffness for which this mode of 
building is distinguished, but without a rigid 
adherence to architectural rules. It is intended 
for a refined family in moderate circumstances, 
either as a farm or suburban residence. With- 
out any attempt at costly ornament, it aims to 
give a tasteful exterior. A profusion of decora- 



tion, or, as conimoiily termed, 'gingerbread 
work," is one of the most common faults in our 
newer country dwellings, generally sluiwing a 
want of architectural taste. 

If the family dine in the sitting or living- 
room, the dining-room given in the plan below 
may be omitted, or it may be pushed back 
twenty feet and divided into a dairy anj wa.sli- 
rooni — the living-room opening upon a small 
veranda. The second floor can be arranged to 
suit the judgment of the builder. 








This cut is given by E. C. Gardner, in 
Hearth and Huvie, as "a cheap dwelling- 
house." The designer estimates that if the 
main bnilding were 22 by 30 feet, wing 16 by 20 
feet, first story 10 feet high, and second story 
9, it would cost, in these high limes, $2,500. 



If the upper roof had a flatter pitch, it would 
represent, pretty accurately, the French-roof 
houses now (1869) so popular in the New 
England States. The annexed cut shows a 
very convenient arrangement of rooms. 

The author says: "Two people dwelling to- 
gether in harmony do not more surely grow to 



490 



ARCHITECTUKE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



look alike than two apartments placed in close 
communication. This is one of the very few 
merits of folding or sliding doors. By ex- 
tending the hospitable table into the large 
bay-window, the sitting-room becomes a capa- 
cious dining-hall. Pantry, cellar-stairs, and 
back stairway are all handy, and, if desired, 
a nort]f«'est passage may be made from the 
kitchen to the bed-room through the closet. 
Upon the second floor, which is of the same 
size as the first, there are four good chambers. 
Of closets tliere are four up stairs, the family 
bed-room rejoices in two — a luxury which one 
side of the liouse will surely appreciate; a 
china closet from sitting-room and cupboard 
from kitchen. Piazza and porches as may be 
needed." 




The Frontispiece and accompanying plans 
of an Ikregular Country IIouse are adapt- 
ed from Cai.vert Vaux's work on "Villas and 
Cottage-s," a very complete and perfect treatise 
on the better class of country houses, and pos- 
Be.ssing the rare merit of combining compact 
and convenient plans with neat and picturesque 
exteriors. In the plan of the first floor, the 
library may be turned into a family bed-room 
and nursery in those country houses where the 
latter seems to be more needed. 

In the chamber plan will be found five bed- 
rooms, and the indispensable bath-room and 
water-closet; and in the wing two bed-rooms, a 
linen-press, and a housemaid's sink. All these 
rooms are supplied with registers for the egresi 
of foul air. In the garret over the bath-room 
is a large well-lighted linen-room , and aa thia 



is planned on the half-landing, it is very easj 
of access from the chamber floor. This house 
can be built in these times for $3000 to |4000, 
according to finish. 




Perspkotive View. 

In this design, George D. Rand, of Hart- 
ford, furnishes the plan of a pleasant country- 
house, neither pretentious nor very expensive, 
but with large, airy rooms, and first-class ac- 
commodations. 




In its exterior this house is somewhat irreg- 
ular, yet so arranged that the parts harmonize 




CBAMBKB FlAN. 



VENTILATION. 



491 



with cacli other, and join together without those 
expensive and troublesome gutters whicli ;ire 
often tlie accompaniment ot' many stvlisli houses. 
The main liall and a portion of the liitclien are 
in a lean-to, which is carried forward far enough 
to form the wide veranda. A corner of the 
dining-room and the adjacent alcove, are formed 
in the same way on the opposite side. The 
remaining peculiarities of the design are read- 
ily seen from the accompanying plans. The 
author says: "This house can be built for 
§•2500"— but that was in 1S50. 




Pleasant Cottage. 

We give one more design of a liouse cost- 
ing some $1"200 or $1500, but which possesses 
several important conveniences. It meets some 
of the wants of refined domestic life, although 
in a small and humble way. 




Ventilation.— If, as Oliver Wendell 
Holmes tells us, we inspire and expire forty 
hogsheads of air a day, rob it of some pounds 
of oxygen, and load it with other pounds of 
carbonic acid gas, we must need a very large 
supply for our daily use. The ventilation of 
our houses, so as not to invite the oppo.site 
peril, draughts of cold air, is easily and cheaply 
accomplished; yet the lack of it is still the 
greatest fault of American country homes. 

It is a notorious and undeniable fact, tliat the 
old-time hardy race of New England farmers, 
who used to drink cider and crack nuts and 



jokes around the old-fashioned mammoth fire- 
places, so vividly engraven upon our mind, 
have passed away and left a puny, pale-faced 
race sitting around the stoves of modern-built 
country houses, close-fitting window.s, and listed 
doors, .shutting out the pure air of heaven, 
while man within, after breathing carbonic acid 
gas for a whole evening, wonders what makes 
liiin feel so languid and unfitted for the enjoy- 
ment of social intercourse with his family; but, 
as he is unable to arouse his spirits, he retires 
to rest in a room heated to the same degree, 
and just big enough to contain himself and 
wife, and children, which he closes almost as 
tight as though it were hermetically sealed; 
then buries himself in the soft embrace of a 
feather bed and pillows, and after ten hours of 
thus tempting death rather than rest, he won- 
ders what on earth makes him "feel so poorly 
of a morning." 

There has been immense improvement in this 
matter within ten years, especially in the cities, 
but much remains to be done. No room should 
ever be constructed without permanent provis- 
ion for ventilation. Open windows are not 
sufficient, even when hung, as they should be, 
with cords and weights. It is to be remem- 
liered tliat one opening will not properly venti- 
late. You can not take air out at one place 
without admitting air at some other place. It 
is known to be impossible to dj;aw water freely 
from a barrel by merely making one opening, 
and it is equally impossible to draw air from 
a room which has but one opening. Therefore 
to ventilate a room, there must be an opening 
to admit air to supply the place of that which 
you wish to remove; if these two openings are 
not provided, the regurgitation through one 
will be an operation miserably inefficient, ut- 
terly unworthy of being called ventilation. 

Moreover, the impure air does not always 
rise; the heavier impure gases settle to the 
floor. Sometimes it is found difficult to warm 
a room, because tKe he.at can not penetrate the 
dense strata of impure air stagnating below. 
Every room, therefore, should be ventilated 
liv an aperture near the ceiling, and another 
through the wash-board, both supplied with 
valves and communicating with the exter- 
nal air. 

It should not be necessary here to dwell upon 
the fact that by the repeated passage of the 
same air through the lungs, it may, though 
originally pure and wholesome, be so strongly 
impregnated with carbonic acid, and lose so 
much of its oxygen as to be rendered utterly 



492 



ARCHITECTURE OP THE HOMESTEAD: 



unfit lor the continued maintenance of the 
aerating process; so that the individual who 
continues to respire it, shortly becomes asphyx- 
iated. There are several well known cases in 
which the speedy, death of a number of per- 
Bon^! confined together has resulted from the 
neglect of the most ordinary precautions for 
supplying them with air. That of the "Black 
Hole of Calcutta," which occurred in 1756, has 
acquired an unenviable pre-eminence, owing to 
the very large proportion of the prisoners — one 
hundred and twenty-three out of one hundred 
and forty-six— who died during one night's con- 
finement ill a room eighteen feet .square, only 
provided witli two small windows. On the 
nigiit of the first of December, 1848, the deck 
passengers on board tlie Irish steamer Ijiiidon- 
derry were ordered below by the captain, on 
account of the stormy character of the weather, 
and although they were crowded into a cabin 
far too small for their accommodation, the 
hatches were closed down upon them. The 
consequence of this was, that out of one hun- 
dred and fifty individuals no fewer than seventy 
were sufl'ocated before the morning, simply by 
being compelled to breathe the same air over 
and over. 

RuUan's System of Ventilation. — The principle 
that pure air can not enter a room until the 
impure air is e.xpelled to make room for it, is 
that on which H. Kuttan's system of warm- 
ing and ventilation is based. Cold air is ad- 
mitted in abundance to the "air warmer," where 
it is warmed (not heated red hot and its life- 
sustaining qualities vitiated) then rises and is 
diffused through the room or rooms, by means 
of tiiinsoms near tjie ceiling; while the cold 
air being heavier, falls to the floor and escapes 
at or near the bottom of the room, passes be- 
neath the floor, and is collected into the foul 
air shaft and escapes into the outer air. The 
accompanying cut will show the arrangement 
of a house built on this plan. 

It represents a transverse section of a build- 
ing through the cellar and two stories, showing 
the mechanical arrangement of the openings 
for the in-coming and out-going air, as ar- 
ranged on Euxxan's system. At a glance 
it will be seen that the cold air is received 
through the shaft A, which passes from thence 
through the \iv Warmer B and Floor Register 
D into the hall above, and into the rooms 
through the Transoms E, thence down under 
the floor through the Open Base F, and in the 
second story, between the floor and ceiling 
(space G), to the Hollow Partition H, down 



under the first floor (space K), thence into the 
Gathering Duct or Foul Air Receptacle M, 
thence into the diimney or Exhaust Sliaft N, 
and out through the Ventilating Cap P, into the 
open air. 




Section of Ventilated Buildino. 
■/..». -A-Cold Air niict. B-Air Wr> 



rister. 
•iling'. 



.vli.oli Smoke 



ud Foul Au p.is.-.a. 

Professor J. A. Sewell, of Normal Universi- 
ty, Illinois, presents this method in the Illinois 
Stale Agricultural Report for 18G6, and com- 
mends it strongly. " In a room thus venti- 
lated," he says, "the air can not become impure, 
because, as we have before stated, the carbonic 
acid exhaled from the lungs, being heavier, 
falls to the lower part of the room and escapes, 
while pure air from without takes its place. 
Here, then, we have a perfect sj'stem of venti- 
lation. We secure a completete supply of pure 
warmed air, but without strong currents being 
established, while the impure air flows out con- 
tinually. Another great advantage gained by 
this plan is the equality of the temperature of tht ' 
air. Actual experiment shows that there is not 
more than five degrees Fahrenheit difference 
between the temperature at the ceiling and that 
near the floor; while, in a room warmed by a 
stove, the difference is from twenty to forty-five 
degrees Fahrenheit. 

"This plan of passing the foul air out at or 
near the floor is emphatically new. The purest 
and warmest air is always at the top of the 
room; while the coldest and most impure is 
always at the bottom. If we make an opening 
at the top of a room, the purest and warmest 



BARNS AND OUT- BUILDINGS. 



492 



a!r will escapo; if at the bottom, the coldest 
and most impure will escape. It would seem 
that it is not difficult to determine which of 
these two plans is the sensible and true one. 
It scarcely seems necessary to claim more for 
this system. If pure air is so absolutely essen- 
tial to physical well being, and if we can adopt 
any means, however expensive, to secure it, we 
n]ight rest satisfied. 

" But it is far from being expensive; while, 
on the contrary, a building, whether large or 
small, can be constructed as cheaply with such 
provision lor ventilation as without it, and can 
be warmed at much less expense than by any 
other Jjlan. The cost, as compared with that of 
heating hy steam, is less than one-third, as I have 
clearly demonstrated by a series of careful experi- 
ments and observations. As compared with the 
ordinary hoi-air furnaces, it is not more than 
one-half. As compared with ordinary stores, it is 
decidedly less. In short, this system seems to 
possess every possible advantage. It is simpler, 
cheaper; and, best of all, it gives what is so 
much needed — a full, complete, and constant 
supply of pure air; and I lionestly believe that, 
when tills .system is generally adopted in our 
country, the rates of mortality will indicate a 
marked decrea.se." 

It is proper to add that some careful observ- 
ers, who have examined Ruttan's method of 
ventilation, expre.ss to us doubts of its uniform 
practicability. It should be adopted with cau- 
tion until its merits are more definitely settled. 



BAENS AND OUT-BUILDIXGS. 

Barns. — We build larger and better houses 
than our grandfathers did; but the improve- 
ment in barns is even more striking. Perhaps 
Pennsylvania exhibits a better aver.age of barns 
than any other State; but in New York, Ohio, 
and some adjacent sections, it is getting to be 
fashionable to have a fir.st-rate barn, and the 
best farmers cherish a growing pride in their 
accommodations for stock. Throughout the 
Eastern and Central States, large and excellent 
barn* have greatly multiplied within fifteen 
years, and many of them are planned and built 
upon principles of sound science and the most 
rigid business economy. 

In the West and South. — Nothing so shocks a 
thi-ifty Eastern farmer, traveling in the West, 
as the general lack of barns and out-houses 
upon otherwise well-improved farms. "And 
these men without stables," he exclaims in 



astoni.shment, "are the nation's beef pro- 
ducers 1 These prairies without barns are the 
nation's granary !" It certainly is a slovenly 
state of things, to be corrected as soon asf 
possible. Barns, in the oak openings of the 
West, were at first dispensed with from appar- 
ent necessity, existing partly in the scarcity of 
lumber, partly in lack of funds, and partly in 
the facility of starting a large farm all at once. 
And thus, stacking out, threshing, and storing 
out the grain in rude shelters, and leaving the 
ne.at cattle to stand in the lee of a rail fence, or to 
fight for the sunny side of a straw pile, assumed 
the form, and, in many cases, the inveteracy of 
a habit. 

It is true that some Western farmers have 
made commendable progres.?, and shown much 
enterprise, in the building of barns, sheds, and 
stables for the proper housing of crops and cat- 
tle; but it is equally true that the many are 
still lamentably deficient in these conveniences, 
and are so accustomed to doing without them 
that they do not know how much they would 
add to their comfort and thrift — answering at 
once the demands of humanity and economy. 

In Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and 
Nebraska, a majority of the barns are simple 
poles or boards, forming a skeleton frame, cov- 
ered with heavy masses of straw from the stacks, 
excluding nearly all light and air from the in- 
terior; and in these horses, cattle, and .sheep lie 
upon their filth, until the whole structure is a 
mass of rotten straw, mold, and reeking damp- 
ness. In some cases these rude hovels are ar- 
ranged with some regard to cleanliness and 
healthfulne.ss of stock, but most of them are 
damp, noisome, and repulsive in the extreme. 
The business of stock-raising in the West can 
never be sufficiently extended or properly re- 
munerative, until more attention is bestowed 
upon barns and cattle-sheds. 

In the South it is a little worse, and only a 
little, wiih no barns or shelter whatevei. In a 
good Winter, in the lee of fodder-stacks, the 
protection of a forest, or the driest hummocks 
of a canebrake, the animal m.ay seek the range 
in a medium condition. 

Says the United States Commissioner of Agri- 
culture: "The attention of .Southern farmers is 
called to the urgent necessity for a better pro- 
vision of forage for horses and cattle. The 
most disheartening reports of weakness and 
death from lack of nutrition have been received 
— in some instances of horses and mules drop- 
ping down exhausted in the furrows. The mill- 
ions lost by such indifference and inefficiency, 



494 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD : 



in the sacrifice of flesh, health, and ability to 
fatten, are scarcely less than the heavy losses 
now incnrrcd by actual disease." 

The Utilily of a Barn. — It seems not to be 
conceded by all that a barn is an essential, or 
even a useful appcndaj!;e to farming operations — 
else why the extensive districts of country, even 
above 40°, where it is almost entirely dispensed 
witli? The amount of waste and loss resulting 
from exposure, is overlooked by careless man- 
agers. Cattle have been found, by numerous 
experiments in different latitudes, to remain in 
belter order and spirits when stabled than when 
exposed, on two-thirds the food — one-third being 
con.sumed in sustaining the animal warmth in 
open air. Jlilch cows, well protected, give 
about one-third more milk on the .same feed. 
For a herd of twenty cows, therefore, about ten 
tons of hay would be saved every Winter, and 
at least twenty-five dollars worth of milk — total, 
one hundred and fifty dollars. That part of 
the barn occupied by their stables would not 
cost more than twice this sum. In other words, 
tlie stables would pay for theiuselves biennially. 
They would, in short, pay $1,.500 in ten years, 
besides interest; or with interest, about 9>2,750 — 
double the entire cost of a fine barn. 

Northern sheep-raisers find that the saving 
of life and the increase in the amount of mut- 
ton and wool, afforded by good shelter, will pay 
for the erection of buildings every two years. 

By continuing these estimates, it will be dis- 
covered that, taking everything into account, 
the farmer who neglects to provide good farm- 
buildings, sinks a handsome fortune every 
twenty years, greater or less, according to the 
extent of his operations. 

Hon. Feei>eric Watts, of Carlisle, Penn- 
sylvania, writes:'' "There is, perhaps, no sec- 
tion of country in the United States where agri- 
culture is pursued with sncli profitable results 
as in the southeastern counties of Pennsylvania, 
inchiding Cumberland, York, Dauphin, Leba- 
non, Lancaster, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, 
Bucks, and Berks, where farms rarely exceed 
one hundred and fifty acres, and upon each of 
which the bank [or basement] barn is deemed 
as absolute a necessity as the plow itself" Cor- 
roborative testimony, showing that it pays to 
have a good barn, is furnished by the best farm- 
ers of every State, and the claim must soon be 
admitted and acted on by all. 

Comfort is the first thing to be considered by 



arn,"U. S. Agricult 



the farmer, and elegance the second — unless 
his means are ailequale to both; in which case 
we propose not to excuse the plain log cabin, 
for the family, or the meaner log barn for the 
dependent brutes, while thousands are ex- 
pended for the acquisition of new and unneeded 
lands. 

No man has a right to keep more stock than 
he can comfortably provide for; such extrav- 
agance is both cruel and unprofitable; and 
this rule has only temporary exceptions — even 
among the frontiersmen who, for a few years, 
may be compelled to " rough it." Every farmer 
ought to have a warm roof where all his stock 
may find shelter, instead of leaving the poor 
brutes unhoused, suggesting the forlorn picture 
of TuoiasoN: 

** 111 awful gaze 
The cattte stiinil, kuiI i.ii the fcnwiins heavens 
(.'HKt a tieploring ey* — by iiiiin tui-3....k, 
Wtio to the crowded cottage hies hiiu fast." 

Locatimi. — A barn should always be located 
lower than the house to which it is an append- 
age, and when practicable, on a southern-sloping 
hill-side, at a distance of ten or twelve rods — 3 
growtb of choice fruit or shade trees between 
It ought to have a basement, windowed upon 
the north, and opening wide to the south upon 
the barn-yard ; and the site ought to be such 
that whatefver drainage there is shall be upon 
the owner's land. It is desirable that every 
yard should have a firm clay bottom, and thera 
should be an excavated basin just below it, to 
catch the drippings and accommodate the in- 
dispensable compost-heap. This basin should 
always be covered. The bleakest yards can be 
made permanently comfortable in a few years 
by planting a tree-belt around them. If they 
were so surrounded, the cattle would keep 
cheaper and be less liable to disease. 

Size. — Fariuers should remember that barm 
are seldom found too large, and that one spacious 
barn is generally thought to be more eco- 
nomical than a small barn, with half a dozec 
rambling sheds and cow-houses adjacent. Mr, 
Watts, describing the Pennsylvania barns says • 
" There is a principle which should enter into 
the construction of every barn, that its size 
should be in its height, while its height slAuld 
not necessarily increase the amount of labor 
requisite for its use; for it will be readily per- 
ceived how much the weight of the grain itself 
must contribute to the capacity of the mow 
which holds it. A few feet of additional 
frame in height adds but little to the original 
cost; while to extend the frame horizontally 
costs the .same, and requires additional roofing. 



BARNS AND OUT-BUILDINGS. 



495 



and the advantage of weight is comparatively 
lost. This heigiit of barn, and economy of 
labor in using it, is attained by constructing the 
inner frame with two sets of floors, one above 
the other, using the upper one to drive into, 
thus reaching willi tlie loaded wagon the height 
of tlie middle oftl'emow, instead of the bottom 
of it, and thus, too, superseding the necessity of 
pitcliing grain to any great height." 

Cleanliness about Barns — There is no reason 
why the barn and its accessories should not be 
cleanly. The yard ought to be a slightly con- 
cave basin, from which the liquid manure 
phould be di^wn off into a vat for its retention, 
already described ; and the solid excrement of 
the stock should be gathered, as often as once 
a day into the compost heap. 

Moreover, barns ouglit to be so constructed 
that all the hay-mows, granaries, stacks, and 
stables shall be easily accessible without passing 
through the yard at all. In this matter, the 
course which is furthest from neatness is also 
the most unprofitable. 

There are men who always travel with the 
odor of the stable clinging to their boots, whose 
approach is announced by a prophetic odor, but 
wliose departure does not remove the evidence 
of their late presence. Their hou.ses, from gar- 
ret to cellar, are redolent of their occupation. 
A cleanly woman, in such a house, is an object 
of pity. Many such women have patiently 
borne what was to them a serious and real 
hardship, rather than, by complainnig, incur 
the charge of discontent with their proper 
sphere of life, as though industry and filth 
were inseparable. 

This is entirely unnecessary. The stables 
may be so ventilated and contrived, and the 
cattle-yards so drained, that this nuisance may 
be avoided, with profit at the barn, as well as 
comfort at the house. To disregard this inces- 
sant disgust of a sensitive woman, becau.se the 
olfactories of her more stolid husband are not 
80 acute, is scarcely less than brutal. 

We copy the following essay from Tucker's 
Mural Affairs, as being a compact and compre- 
hensive treatise on Barn Building : 

Estimating the Capacity of Barns. — Very few 
farmers are aware of the precise amount of shel- 
ter needed for their crops, but l.iy their plans 
of out-buildings from vague conjecture or guess- 
ing. As a consequence, much of their products 
have to be stacked outside, after their buildings 
have been completed; and if additions are 
made, they must of necessity be put up at the 
expense of convenient arrangement. A brief 



example will show how the capacity of the bam 
may be accurately adapted to the size of the 
farm. 

" Suppose, for example, that the farm con- 
tains one hundred acre.s, of which ninety are 
good arable land ; and that one-third each are 
devoted to meadow, p.isture, and grain. Ten 
acres of the latter may be corn, stored in a sep- 
arate building. The meadow should afford two 
tons per acre, and yield sixty tons ; the sown 
grain, twenty acres, may yield a corresponding 
bulk of straw, or forty tons. The barn should,' 
therefore, beside other matters, have a capacity 
for one hundred tons, or over one ton per acre 
as an average. Allowing five hundred cubic 
feet for each ton (perhaps six hundred would 
be nearer) it would require a bay or mow forty 
feet long and nineteen feet wide for a ton and a 
half to each foot of depth. If twenty feet high, 
it would hold about thirty tons. If the barn 
were forty feet wide, with eighteen feet posts, 
and eight feet of basement, about forty-five tons 
could be stowed away in a bay reaching from 
basement to peak. Two such bays, or equiva- 
lent space, would be required for the products 
of ninety well cultivated acres. Such a build- 
ing is much larger than is usually allowed ; and 
yet without it there must be a lai-ge waste, as 
every farmer is aware who stacks his hay out ; 
or a large expenditure of labor in pitching and 
repitching sheaves of grain in threshing. 

"In addition to this, as we have already seen, 
there should be ample room for the sheltering 
of domestic animals. In estimating the space 
required, incUiding feeding alleys, etc., a horse 
should have seventy-five square feet ; a cow 
forty-five feet ; and sheep about ten square feet 
each. The basement of a barn, therefore, forty 
by seventy-five feet in the clear, will stable 
tliirty cattle and one hundred and fifty sheep, 
and a row of stalls across one end will aflord 
room for eight horses. The thirty acres each 
of pasture and meadow, and the ten acre.s of 
corn-fodder, already spoken of, with a portion 
of grain and roots, would probably keep about 
this number of animals, and consequently a 
barn with a basement of less size than forty by 
seventy-five would be insufficient for the com- 
plete accommodation of such a farm in the 
highest state of cultivation. 

" Form of Barn Buildings. — It has formerly 
been a practice, highly commended by writers, 
and adopted by farmers, to erect a series of 
small buildings in the Ibrm of a hollow square, 
affording an open space within this range, shel- 
tered from severe winds. But later experience, 



496 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



corroborated by reason, indicates the superior- 
ity of a single large building. There is more 
economy in the material for walls; more in the 
construction of roofs — a most expensive portion 
of fiirrn structures — and a saving in the amount 
of labor, in feeding, threshing, and transferrin! 
straw and grain, when all are placed more com 
pactly together. The best barns are those with 
three stories ; and nearly three times as much 
accomniodaticm is obtained thus under a single 
roof, as with the old mode of erecting only low 
and small buildings. 

An important object is to avoid needless labor 
in the transfer of the many tons of farm pro- 
ducts which occupy a barn. This object is bet 
ter secured by a three-story barn than by any 
other, where a side-hill will admit of its erec- 
tion. The hay and grain are drawn directly 
lo the upper floor, and nearly all is pitched 
downward. If properly arranged, the grain is 
all ihreslud on this floor, and both grain and 
straw go downward — the straw to a stack or 
bay, and the grain through an opening into the 
granary below. Hay is thrown down through 
shoot.s made for this purpose to the animals 
below, and oats are drawn ofl" through a tube 
to the horses' manger. The cleanings of the 
liorse stables are cast througlf a trap door into 
the manure heap in the basement. Tliose are 
the prijieipal objects gained by such an arrange- 
ment ; and as the labor of attendance must be 
repeated perpetually, it is very plain how great 
the saving must be over barns with only one 
floor, where hay, grain, manure, etc., have to be 
carried many feet horizontally, or thrown up- 
ward. 

How to Plan a Bam. — The first thing the 
farmer should do, who is about to erect a barn, is 
to ascertain what accommodation he wants. To 
determine the amount of space, has already 
been pointed out. He should next make a list 
of the difl'erent apartments required, which he 
may select from the following, comprising most 
of the objects usually sought: 

1. Biiy or mow for hay. 2. Bay or mow for 
unthreshed grain. 3. Bay or mow for straw. 
4. Threshing floor. 5. Stables for horses. 6. 
Stables for cattle, and calf pens, 7. Shelter for 
sheep. 8. Root cellar. 9. Koom for heavy 
tools and wagons. 10. Manure sheds. 11. Gra- 
n:iry. 12. Harness room. 13. Cisterns for rain- 
water. 14. Space for horse power. 

"If these are placed all on one level, care 
should be taken that '.hose parts oftencst used 
should be nearest of access to each other; and 
th.it arrangiiiicnts be made for drawing with a 



cart or wagon in removing or depositing alJ 
heavy substances, as hay, grain, and manure. 
In filling the barn, for example, the wagon 
should go to the very spot where it is unloaded ; 
the cart should pass in the rear of all stalls to 
carry oft" manure ; and if many animals are fed 
in stables, the hay should be carted to the man- 
gers, instead of doing all of these labors by 
hand. 

"If there are two stories in the barn, the 
basement .should contain [this plan to be adapt- 
ed, however, to the predominant work of the 
farm] : 1, Stable for cattle; 2, shelter for sheep ; 

3, root cellar; 4, coarse tool room; 5, manure 
shed ; 6, cistern ; 7, horse power. The princi- 
pal floor should contain : 1, Bays for hay and 
grain ; 2, threshing floor; 3, stables for horses; 

4, granary ; .5, harness room. 

"For three stories, the.se should be so ar- 
ranged that the basement may be similar to the 
two-story plan, and the second story should con- 
tain : 1, Bay for hay; 2, stables for horses; 3, 
granary ; 4, harness room. The third, or upper 
story, 1, threshing floor, 2, continuation of hay 
bay ; 3, bays for grain ; 4, openings to granary 
below. 

" In all cases there should be ventilators, 
shoots for hay, ladders to ascend bays, and 
stairs to quickly reach every part. Every bin 
in the granary should be graduated like the 
chemist's assay-glass, so that the owner may, by 
a glance at the figures marked inside, see pre- 
cisely ho# many bushels there are. A black- 
board should be in every granary, for marking 
or calculating; one in the stable, and a third 
to face the thresliing floor. 

Basements. — It may be laid down as a general 
rule, that every barn should have a basement. 
Its only cost is excavation and walls. The 
building need not necessarily be on a hill-side, 
as a moderate artificial mound and a short 
bridge will a9"ord ready access by teams to the 
floor above. If the basement walls be of stone, 
the security they aflford the sills against moist- 
ure and decay will save enough to pay for ex- 
cavation and constructing wagon way." 

Cost of Barns. — The Atmtuit liegister, for 1865, 
gave the following as a general rule, to be modi- 
fied in diflerent localities, according to the 
price of lumber, labor and economical manage- 
ment on the part of the builder : " A common, 
well-built farm barn, not planed or painted, 
with stone basement, will cost $1, for each two 
and a half to three square feet. For example, 
a barn mea.suring thirty-five by fifty feet, -and 
thus containing 1750 square feel, will cost from 



497 



S5S5 to S700. If planed and painted, and cor- 
respondingly finished, SI will pay for about 
two square, feet; and it would consequently cost 
about $875. Farmers who are about to pl«n 
and erect barns, will find this approximate rule, 
derived from a number of actual bills of cost, 
of ccinBiderable convenience." 

"A Bai-n for Fifty Acres or Less. — The plan 
here given is sufiicient for a farm containing 
fifty acres under cultivation, and yielding good 
crops, with general or mixed husbandry. For 
special departments of farming it must be mod- 
ified to apply to circumstances. The plan of the 
principal floor is given below. Being built on a 
moderately descending side hill, the threshing 
floor is easily accessible through the wide doois 




-Perspective View. 
on the further side, and the wagon, when un- 
loaded, is backed out. These doors should be 
each at least five feet wide, so as to give an 
opening of ten feet ; and about twelve feet 
high, to allow ample space to drive in a load 
of hay. The door 
. — Ll^: " = at the other end of 

■ la the floor is about 

five feet wide, and 
is used for throwing 
out straw. A nar- 
row window on each 
side of this door, 
and one with a row 
of single horizontal 
saddle, ijgiits over the large 
doors, keep the floor 
traw and well lighted, when 
F. T,a'°°,.'r'to bay ^f°''"'y weather re- 

v, Viutiiator and hay shoot. quires the doors to 
B. Stairs to basement. be shut. The bay, 

on the right, will hold at least one ton of hay 
for every foot of height, or some twenty or 
twenty-five in all. By marking the feet on one 
of the front posts, the owner may know, at any 
time, with some degree of accuracy, how many 
tons of hav he has in this bay, after it has be- 

32 




for b; 



E. Trap door for 



come well settled. The upright shaft, V, 
serves at the same time to ventilate the stables 
below, and for throwing down hay directly in 
front of the cow stables. It should be made 
of planed boards inside, that the hay may fall 
freely, and for the same reason it should be 
slightly larger downwards. It should have a 
succession of board doors two feet or more 
square, hung on hinges so as to open down- 
ward, through the openings of which the hay 
is thrown down for the animals. When not 
in use, these doors should be shut by turn- 
ing upward and buttoning fast. A register 
should be placed in this shaft, to regulate the 
amount of air in severe weather. Thi.s may 
be a horizontal door at the bottom, dropping 
open on hinges, and shut by hooking up closely 
or partially, on.diflerent pins. 

" The Granary eight by thirteen feet, con- 
t uns three bins, which have a part of the 
liont boards moveable or sliding, so that when 
dl are in their place they may be filled six 
leet high. They will hold, in all, about three 
hundred and fifty bushels. The contents of 
etch bin may be readily determined by mea.s- 
uring and multiplying the length, breadth, and 
depth, and dividing the number of cubic feet 
thus obtained by fifty-six, and multiplying by 
lorty-five. The result will be bushels. It 
will, therefore, be most convenient to make 
each bin even feet. 

" The Basement. 
Til's needs but little 
explanation. The 
cows are fed from 
th'' passage in front 
of them, into which 
J the hay-shoot dis- 
charges, in front of 
which a door opens to the shed, for the ready 
feeding of animals outside. The two inner 
stalls, shut with gates, serve for calf pens 
wlien needed. Coarse implements, as sleds 
in Summer, and wagons and carts in Winter, 
may occupy the inclo.sed space adjoining, en- 
tered by a common gate. If a lever horse- 
power for threshing is used, it may be placed 
in the 'shed' in the ba.sement; but it wouhl 
be better to use a two-horse endle.ss chain 
power, which may be placed on the floor 
above, and used for threshing, cutting stalks, 
and other purposes. The farmer may thus do 
his own threshing in Winter, and on stormy 
days, with the assistance of a hired man, not 
only thus saving much expense, but turning out 
a fresh supply of straw whenever needed. The 




498 



ARCHITKCTCRE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



cost of this barn, if built rougli, would be 
about $500 ; planed and painted, $600 or $700. 
"Barn for Serenly-Five to a Hundred Acres. 
This barn stands on a slight declivity, and is 
BO constructed that a wagon may be driven 
through it, obviating the necessity of backing 
out. Its size is forty-two by sixty feet. (Its 
capacity may be increased to any extent b}' 
greater length.) The main floor is lighted by 



_IZL 




A. Tr.ip door and shoot for .stnuv and chalV. 

G. Granary. 

VV. Ventiliitor8 and hay shoots. 

8. Stairs to basement. 

a long horizontal window over each double 
door; the trap door for straw turns down and 
buttons up under the girth; if desired, two 
more may be placed outside the ventilators. 
A stnooth planed shoot below allows the straw 
to slide freely in the root and straw cellar 
below, and a cart of roots is dumped down 
this shoot. Boots will keep finely if a foot of 
straw is first thrown down, then several feet of 
roots, then a few additional feet of straw or 
chaff to protect them from freezing. 

"The plan of the basement nearly explains 
itself. There are a number of sliding board 
windows in the rear of the cow stalls, for 
throwing out manure, and over a part of them 
glass windows for admitting light. It will be 
observed how accessible the roots, straw, and 
hay are in front; and that the manure in the 
rear is easily drawn oft' by a cart, without the 
necessity of resorting to the wheelbarrow, ex- 
cept it be in cleaning the cow and calf pens. 



" There are over three thousand square feet 
of surface on the roof, and about two thousand 
barrels of water fall annually upon it, in the 
fo»in of rain, affording five or six barrels daily 
for watering cattle, if watered by it, all the 
year round. The cisterns should, therefore, 
hold not less than five hundred barrels. (This 
size will not be needed if there are other sup- 
plies of water — or if the herd is not large 
enough to consume so much.) If the.se are 
each twenty-five feet long and six feet wide, 
they will hold this amount. They should he 
well built, of masonry and water-lime, and 
arched over the top like a stone culvert, so 
that there will never be danger of the embank- 
ment falling in. A good well in the middle of 
the passage, with a pump, would obviate the 
necessitv of these cisterns. 



n STRAW & ROOTS 



PASSAGE 6XC0 



cow STABLE 12X50 

EHED8<MANURE 
11)^60 



A. A. A. A. Boxes or pens for calves and cows with calf, 

6 by 10 feet each. 
C. C. Cisterns nnder the M'agon-way or abutments, from 

which water foi" cattle may be drawn through a 

Click. 

"The cost of this barn, built with rough 
boards, would be about eight hundred or nine 
hundred dollars ; planed and painted, eleven 
himdred to twelve hundred dollars."- 

Attention is called to the fact that an enlarge- 
ment of this barn, by increasing its length, 
would provide accommodations for any addi- 
tional amount of land. All the principal 
doors should be suspended on rollers, instead 
of hung on hinges. 




Professor J. W. HoYT, for many years Secre- 
tary of the Wisconsin Agricultural Society, 
gives the above perspective of a model battened 



barn with plan. It is large but admits almost 
any reduction. We have modified the plan to 
give each part a more definite purpose. 



499 



















OB 




CAl 


— r^ 


YARD 









VE 




t? 


C3 
00 




T0( 


1LS 


HOUSE 


woIkk 


TOWER 









[z 


> 




-< 




l/l 


,J. 


ROOTS 


— 


11(111111/ 


- 



HORSE STABLE 



COOI<;iNG 

RObM 



There are many wlio prefer this arrangement 
of the farm buildings in a liollow square. By 
fuch an adjustment the main part may be built 
first, and the wings be added as they shall be 
needed. Every part of the sheds is entered 
from the barn and the lawn by the open alley, 
vvhich passes around the entire length in front 
of the animal, instead of by wading through 
the manure of the yard. 

Says Professor HoYT : " True, a barn after 
the above model, with roomy bays, and stalls 
contiguous, with separate apartments for imple- 
ments such as plows, harrows, planters, cul- 



Plan. 

tivators harvesters, corn and cob mills, etc., 
with spare rooms also for the sick — a thing 
quite as important, proportionally, as that we 
have them for ourselves — and, withal, sur- 
rounded by sheds provided with mangers, and 
with 'lofts' for fodder can not be built with- 
out much labor and a considerable sum of 
money ; still, if the farmer will wisely plan 
the operations of the year, economize time and 
retrench all unnecessary expenditures, there is 
not one in ten, who could not, in two years, sur- 
round himself with these convenient essentials, 
and feel that he has made so much clear gain." 




This cut represents the barn of T. S, 
Gold, the efficient Secretary of the Con- 
necticut Agricultural Society. The barn 
is 50 by 60 feet, IS feet posts, and a base- 
ment, with manure shed 14 by 36 feet. Its 
length is east and west, basement open- 
ing to the south; land inclining to tlie 
southeast. The basement walls are two 
feet thick, and laid below the frost. 
Stone pillars, besides these walls, sup- 
port the barn. The biirn is covered 
with matched ceiling, and painted two 
coats of light yellow; roof, matched 
spruce ;ind slated. The frame is heavily 
timbered, the roof having two sets of 



[CARRIAGE ROOM 
18X24- 



GEO0ND Plan, 




BABEaiENT, 



500 



ARCniTECTUEE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



purline plates, the upper ones 
supported by posts standing on 
each side of the barn floor. 
There are three grain scafTolds 
over the floor. The storage 
capacity for liay and grain 
amounts to over 80 tons, at 600 
cubic feet per ton. The stables 
will hold 23 head of cattle, be- 
sides the open part of base- 
ment, 18 by 48 feet. The whole 
was built of the best material, 
and in the. most thorough man- 
ner, and cost $2,600. 

Tlie above is a cut of a barn built by Mr. 
Morris, near Fair Haven, Connecticut, who 
says of it: 

" The arrangements are entirely ray own, 
and I think very convenient. AVhen you are 
in at any door you are prepared to go into any 
part of the building without going from under 




W. J. MoRuis' Barn. 

cover. The barn-yard is exactly south of the 
barn — contains 4,800 square feet — the barn cel- 
lar 3,200 square feet. The barn-yard wall is 
built of stone, 60 by 80 feet, with gate on each 
southeast and southwest corners — is 4 feet high, 
18 inches thick at top, 30 inches at bottom, laid 
in lime mortar, the top cemented." 




-VR.— a. hen houBo— 


h, rftif pen— c, root, bin 


iid^^r caniHpe I. una 




ctnvatalls, with sti 


HL-bioua — 1/ (/, pig peus- 


tie fudder. 





Prixcipai, FLiinB.— o. hirizi' tools aii.l implennMito— 6, 
room for i-nttiii° fei'rt— c, bav— rf, sniHlI tools— p. caip<-Dtei 
sliop— /■, threshini! lloor— i;, siain bins— fi, wuter closut- 



The annexed cut, from 
Rarut Affairs, represents 
the .barn of Alfred M. 
Tredwei.l, of Morris Co., 
Xew Jersey. His fondness 
for horses and thorough- 
bred neat cattle, led to the 
erection of this barn, which, 
however, was not com- 
menced until he had care- 
fully inspected many of the 
best farms of Pennsylvania 
and other States. He was 
his own archilect, and per- 
sonally superintended the 
work from its commence- 
ment. The cut fairly indicates the situation. 

General Dimensions. — The barn is 64 feet 
square. The first story, 8 feet high in the 
clear; second, 10 feet; third, IG feet, and roof 




Tiiree-Stort Barn. 



inches in thickness, the second story 14 inches, 
and the third 12 inches. 

Materials. — -The walls are of concrete — a 
mixture of broken stone, cement, sharp sand 



16 feet. The walls of the first story are 20 and water, and are built from the ground up- 



501 



ward without any special foundation ; and 
strange as it may seem, the buihling has never 
settled perceptibly one quarter of an inch. A 
slight trench of the exact widtli of the wall is 
dng, the mixture is poured in, and the building 
is commenced. This hardens within a few 
hours, when boxes or frames are attached to 
the wall just completed, and another layer of 
concrete is poured in. While this is in turn 
hardening, the wall is started upon another 
side of the building, thus occasioning no delay. 
The proprietor saj's it is cheaper than wood or 
brick. 

First Floor. — The first story of this barn, al- 
though nominally a basement, is nevertheless 
free from the disadvantages generally connected 
with cellars, as it is wholly above ground, and 
separated from the surrounding bank. The 
floor of this story is of concrete — readily 
cleansed, and never decaying. 




/ 



.T. 



B. B.B. -Cattle-stalls, V 

tn fi feet fi in<-he-, 

vided with ordinary- CHttl-'-chains; tlie ifm;tinder 

have upright Bhiftini,' stanchions. 

C. C. 0.— Stalls for farmhois.s, with eiitianceat P., thus 

separating tliem eutin-ly from the horned stock. 
n. I). D.— Hay and straw shoots. 
E.— Stairway connectiiij; first and second stories. 
I'\ P. K.— Passaeeway in front of stalls. 
G. G. G.— Passageway in rear of stalls. 
11.— Feed bin for horses. 
I.— Water trough. 
.T. .1.— Pillars suprorting rear of building. 

, K.— Root cellars, each ll>4 bv_20 leet, with 10 feet ceil- 

I building and root 



2; total capacity 3.312 bushels 
L.— Covered passageway betw 

cellars. 
M.- Cistern for liquid manni 

shell A and yaril beynnd. 
N.— Penstock, delivc-rini; water from 
O. 0. 0.— Iloors lor horned cattle. 



g drippings from 
ighboring spring. 



Second Floor. — The chief feature of the second 
story is its horse stable. The dimensions of 
the .stalls, as indicated in the plan, are unusual ; 
but long experience, and at times a very expen- 
sive one, has convinced Mr. Tredwell that a 
stall four feet wide will invariably prevent a 
horse from casting him.self, although giving him 
ample room to lie comfortably, and that one 
eleven feet deep renders it very difficult, if nnt 
impossible, for horses, properly tied, to kick 
each other. As a farther precaution, when the 
horses are all in for the night, a strong rope is 
passed through rings at the back of each stall, 
four feet from the floor, thus efTectually boxing 
each horse, and, in case any become untied, 
preventing their leaving their own stalls and 
molesting their neighbors. 




Second Floor, 



B.— Covered t 

('.—Stairs leading to basement. 

D.— Harness r..om. 

E.— rioor rirlijirni-psing and unharnessing horses. 



G. 


-Gr 


i,:m l.i l,v :m l.'ft, with 1 

1(1 n)l^ .1 IrV IJM':MlSOfa.<;h 


ns (.. b, 
)ot fri.ii 


h, ofvariou 
above, wh 


8 sizes, 

ere the 


H 


— ,M 


'l""_' ,,"'"..'',';- r,,|„,| 


-,. -n>l. 






K 
L. 


I, .1 
K. 
L- 




-> k horses. 

i..;,imr.>. 

Uich empty grain 

third story. 




N 
0. 
P. 
Q. 


from floor above. 
-Pump. 

O.-Bays for hay-filled from 
— Piissagewiiy to side door. 
—Stairs to third story. 





Third Floor. — In the third story (whose plan 
is too simple to require illustration), the great 
floor, 32 by 64 feet, with immense bays on 
either side, is a prominent and exceedingly val- 
uable ftature of the whole establishment, and 
furnishing ample room for many farm opera- 



50:; 



ARCIIITECTIKE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



tlons, wlilcli, for lack of suitable shelter, are 
ufteiitiiiics iiecessai-IIy peiformed during ex- 
treme weather out of doors. Here are a rail- 
way horse power, a threshing macliine, a cir- 
cular saw, a grist mill, fanning mill, Daniels' 



Donald G. Mitchell, 
author of "My Farm at 
Kdgewood," contributes to 
liural. Affairs the elevations 
and snbjoine<I plans of a 
mil!; barn — in large part an 
ada|)tation of existing build- 
ings. It meets tlie most niod- 
pin requirements of feeding 
and care. 

Mr. Mitchell says;, in 
his description: "The boiler 
and fire room, it will be ob- 
served, are entered only by 
an exterior door, and steam 
is conveyed to the cooking 
tank through the wall. A 
manure cellar is under the 



hay cutter, a cornstalk cutter and masticator, 
and scales. By nailing strips to posts support- 
ing the roof, more or less of tliis floor, as the 
requirements of the season demand, can be 
converted into mows for storing hay or grain. 





eastern half of the stable, extending from a 
point indicated by the dotted lines on either 
side. A tram-way is provided, leading down 
the center of the stable, for the distribu- 
tion of food, and for the transport of muck 
from the cellar, partitioned from the root cellar 
for that purpose. The tram-way car should be 
lurnished with a movable box for cooked food, 
auuther for muck, and a third and larger open 
frame for the reception of green fodder dropped 
through from the barn floor above. Water 
should pass in a trough — indicated by tho two 



^□« 



1 I 



1 [ 



□ 



CUTTING ROOM 



irnTTCi 



Eza 



1 

OPtn SHED I 

fORCARTsI 

E.TC 

_ -J 



503 



lines with.n the feeding boxes — completely 
around the stalls. Tliis trough should be cov- 
ered to exclude dirt, and provided with traps 
against every manger — which traps the cows 
will easily learn to lift with their noses. The 
gutter for liquid manure may be made to dis- 
cliarge at any desired point into the cellar 
beliiw. The upper floor is simply arranged, 
and will explain itself, when examined in con- 
nt'Ction with the basement and the elevations. 

"The farther trap upon the floor is for the 
discharge of chaff or muck, if desired, directly 
througli the stable to the cellar below; on either 
side, under each bay, are indicated openings, 
through whffih the hay, when necessary, can 
drop immediately into tlie feeding trough; the 
two farthest to the east, and the two westero- 
nujst, serve also as ventilators, being joined 
at the peaU, for connection with the exterior 
ventilators .shown ahove the roof. 

"An exterior communication with the work- 
shop above the boiler room, i.s not shown in 
this elevation, but indicated in the ground- 
plan; it would be better, however, for the stairs 
to descend upon the north side. 

"The western front may be made much more 
efifective, architecturally, if desired. I have 
consulted simplicity and economy only in the 
plans. Thespacetothe rightof thehorsestable 
(marked ' open shed ' in the ground plan and hy 
error represented with door in the elevation) 
might, if desired — by glazing its southern front 
— be converted into an admirable poultry house, 
communicating with the open cellar below; or 
the cellar itself, with its southwestern frontage, 
would serve well for such purpo.se, while a por- 
tion of the space above could be reserved for 
nests or roosts. 

"If a bull is kept — and unless a near one is 
available, such animal should be kept — quarters 
might be provided for him in the horse stable, 
or in the cellar under the southern wing. There 
is no provision for young cattle, .as none are 
supposed to be reared. Indeed, the plan has 
been arranged simply in view of the ordinary 
wants of a uiilk-farmer. I by no means pre- 
sent it as a model plan, but as offering a great 
many conveniences — securing great economy 
of labor — great compactness and opportunity 
for fill I and free examination of all the animals." 

The ground plan below represents the milk- 
barn built by the Welles brothers of Wethers- 
field, Connecticut. It is worthy of study. The 
ground on which it is built slopes moderately 
toward the east. This decline makes the 
manuie-shed two or three feet lower than the 



concrete floor of the stable. Before this barn 
was erected the cows were stabled in the root 
cellar, the basement of the hay barn. By care- 
fully noting the decrease of milk from various 
causes, these farmers were convinced that the 
noise of the usual farm industries carried on 
over the stable, was the cause of csmsiderable 
daily lo.ss. When threshing, the falling off 
was as much as a quart to each animal. .This 
showed them the advantage of keeping their 
dairy in a separate building. 




Milk Bah.n of Welles Brothebs. 



KooT Cellak.— No. 1, Engine. No. 2, Boiler. No. 3, 
Tauli lor Mush. ^o. 4, Chimney. Ko. 0, Wiiter Tiuugli. 
.Su. II, liii.\ loi- Steaming. No. 7, Hanuro Uutter. No. S, 
sialile. No. «, U ater Xroush. 

Mr. Welles says that in arranging his dairy- 
barn, he bad five ends in view : 

" 1. We desired to economize labor in all the 
various operations incident to the storage of the 
fodder and care of the stock. 

" By referring to the plan it will be seen how 
well we have succeeded. 

" 2. To secure perfect quiet for the cows. 

" This is done by giving them a room where 
they are not disturbed by any business except 
the necessary attendance at morning, noon, and 
night. 

"3. An abundance of light and fresh air, by 
means of large windows on three sides, three 
ventilators, and making the room ten feet high 
'between joints.' The beat from the animals 
keeps the temperature up to '46° above zero in 
the coldest weather. 

"i. The buildings must be kept perfectly free 
from all odors arising from the manure. For 
this, the floor is of cement, the droppings aie 
every day mixed with dry peat, and a shed 
built for the reception of the compost. 

"5. As the use of lanterns is necessary in the 
Winter, the dfcger from fire, by accident or 



504 



AllCIIITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD : 



carelessness, is reduced (o a niiniiiumi bytiiking 
away all necessity fur going into ihe hay barn 
with a light, and by the cement floor." 

The cow barn is 80 by 32 feet, with 22 feet 
posts. The upper floor is used, in Winter, for 
storing meal and corn; in the Summer, for dry- 
ing garden seeds. The basement is ten feet 
high, with a covered driveway, twelve feet wide, 
on the west side. The north and east sides are 
lined, and the space tilled in with shavings. 
The floor is of cement throughout. The stalls 
are thirty-two inches wide, five feet, five feet six 
inches, and five feet nine inches from the gutter 
to the manger. The gutter is one foot wide and 
ten inches deep. The mangers are two feet in 
width. 

The partitions extend from the gutter to the 
front of the manger, thus keeping eacli cow 
separate. Water is supplied in cast-iron bo.xes, 
tlirough galvanized iron pipes, one box serving 
two Cows. > 

By employing farm liands to do the rough 
work, and purcha,sing their materials at mod- 
erate prices, they were able to put up this 
structure for something over §2,500. 

Basement Wall. — A correspondent of the 
Prairie Farmer writes: "After much botliera- 
tion and examination of authorities, I came to 
the following conclusions, and built accord- 
ingly : A wall against a bank eight to ten feet 
in height, requires a drain under it from two 
to three feet in depth, with proper inclination, 
and filled with small stones. B.ase of the wall 
three to four feet, and battened on the outside 
to width of the barn-sill at the top; laid in 
lime and mortar, with a little — say one-fourth 
part — of water cement mixed with them, other- 
wise if the hill above is pretty steep, the water 
will ooze through the earth and the wall. It 
did so to mine, and I had to dig the earth 
again from the back of the wall, and cement it 
all over. See that the back of the wall is laid 
up smooth, as well as the front, so that the 
frost won't get hold of the uneven edges of the 
stones, and use them as a lever' to pry up the 
wall. To further protect the wall and keep it 
dry, and the occupants from sutl'ering from dis- 
ease produced by dampness, put a drain the 
length of the wall five or six feet above it, to 
carry off" the water from the hill. Have win- 
dows in every side, double on the north and 
west, and the inner ones arranged to lift and 
hook up." 

Modern Improvements. — A writer in the Rural 
yew Yorker, in view of the invention of ma- 
chinery for pitching liay and grain by horse 



power, advocates the building of higher barns 
than those of the old style, which were built 
low on account of the diflSculty of pitching to 
the top of a mow with a hand fork. With the 
power fork, height is said to be no objection, 
but rather a convenience. Fourteen to sixteen 
feet was the usual height of posts for a hay 
and grain barn, and with this height it re- 
quired a tall and stout man with a long han- 
dled fork to "pitch over the beam," and great 
scrambling of the boy on the mow to stow 
away so as to fill up under the roof. W^ith the 
power fork the product may be carried to any 
desired height with a trifling additional eflort. 
For a large barn, it is more convenient to 
have two floors across the barn, than one floor 
through the length of it. You can drive in 
and out with more facility, especially when 
you are carting with two or tliree teams, and 
you have more convenient sized mows. It is 
not so well to have very large hay mows, and, 
as on most farm.s, there is considerable variety 
in the quality of the hay, we want it put into 
several different mows, for the diflferent kinds 
of stock, and to be fed out at different times in 
the Winter. Also, on a fiirm where grain is 
raised, one floor is for threshing, and a part or 
the whole of the other can be filled with hay 
or other fodder, if necessary, after the rest of 
the barn is filled. 

It is very important that you have conveni- 
ent passage through every part of the build- 
ing; no groping, no crawling through narrow 
passages, no climbing naked posts, no narrow, 
dark staircases. There should be plenty of 
doors and gates, easily opened from either side. 
It is desirable to be able to go from the house to 
the barn without going through the cattle yard, 
and also to go by a dry, clean walk. 

Stables should always be built high — especi- 
ally horse stables — for ventilation and safety 
from injury. Low doors and low beams in sta- 
bles are the most frequent cause of poll-evil in 
horses. With a low stable, some injury to the 
horse's head is almost sure to follow. 

Ventilation. — If a barn be not well and 
thoroughly ventilated in its bay, floor, and sta- 
bles, it does not answer the purpose of its con- 
struction. A shed, loosely slabbed, and open 
on one side, is better for cattle than an air- 
tight stable in which carbonic gas and ammonia 
accumulate, rendering the air fetid. Cattle and 
their execrenients exhale gases unfit to breathe, 
and it is only when there are open windows or 
other ventilation enough to carry these off, that 
the stock can remain in health. Ventilation is 



505 



as essential as warmth, and it is not difficult or 
expensive to combine tlie two. In England a 
temperature between 55° and 60° lias been 
found most conducive to the liealth and fatten- 
ing of animals. The stables must also be kefit 
dry, admit no dripping water through the walls. 
Cattle will do better out of doors than in a 
damp basement. The surface of the ground 
should slope away on every side of the build- 
ing. There should be plenty of windows on 
the wall side, as well as in front, for light and 
ventilation. The wall should be pointed — at 
least the upper part — that no currents of air 
get through. 

Light. — Mr. WllLARD pleads for light in 
stables: "The ill effects of excluding the light 
from horse stable-s, as is known by the sad ex- 
perience of many, ha,s caused blindness in valua- 
ble animals, and yet farmers are often ignorant 
of the true reason, and keep on in the same old 
routine. The fact is beyond di.spute, that sun- 
light has an important influence on the health 
of the human as well as the brute creation. 
Even vegetable life that is excluded from tlie 
sun's rays, is puny, sickly, and will not fully 
mature. In Paris, diseases of various kimls 
are successfully treated with sunlight alone. 
The hospital is constructed with glass roof, so as 
to secure a full share of the sun's rays, and the 
patients are stripped and lie exposed to .sunlight. 
They call it taking a "sun-bath ;" and however 
simple this treatment may seem, it has effected 
some remarkable cures. AVe need not stop to 
inquire into the mysterious agency of sunlight, 
or its potency in preserving health. The facts 
and the law are plainly indicated, and it is for 
us to make use of them in such way as will 
contribute to our happiness and prosperity. 
We believe, therefore, that the health of ani- 
mals will be promoted by having a large share 
of sunlight, and that stables should be con- 
structed wiih this view." The London Horse 
Book insists upon the necessity of plenty of 
light, with much earnestness. 

The Largest Barn in New York. — X. A. Wil- 
LARD, of the Utica Herald, gives the following 
description of a barn recently erected on the 



barn floor. The mows on either side of the 
drive floor have capacity for holding six hun- 
dred and fifty tons of liay before you get above 
the level of the barn floor, and it i."! proposed 
to have machinery driven by water power for 
catching up the whole load and dumping it 
into the bays at once. The .stables in the base- 
ment will hold two hundred head of cattle, and 
near by is an immense muck bed, where any 
amount of this material maybe readily had for 
mingling with the manures or using in tlie sta- 
bles to absorb the liquid manures. There are 
thirteen ventilators running from the stable to 
the top of the building, the height of which to 
the peak is eighty feet. In the basement it is 
proposed to have a root cellar and machinery 
for doing all the work of threshing, cutting 
roots and feed, carried by water power which 
is conveniently near. This barn co.st in the 
neighborhood of §12,000, and when completed, 
as to machinery, etc., will probably be the most^ 
interesting barn structure in the State." 

Horace Greeley's Barn. — Mr. Greeley says: 
" My barn is a fair success. I placed it on the 
shelf of my hill, nearest to the upper (east) 
side of my place, because a barn-yard is a 
manufactory of fertilizers from materials of 
lesser weight, and it is easier to draw these 
down than up. I built its walls wholly of 
stones gathered or blasted from the adjacent 
slope, to the extent of four or five thousand 
ton.s, and laid in a box with a thin mortar of 
(little) lime and (much) sand, filling all the 
interstices and binding the whole in a solid 
mass, till my walls are nearly one solid rock, 
while the roof is of Vermont slate. I drive 
into three stories — a basement for manures, a 
stable for animals, and a story above this for 
hay, while the grain is pitched into the loft or 
scaffold above, from whose floor the roof rises 
steep to a height of .sixteen or eighteen feet. 
There should have been more windows for 
light and air; but my barn is convenient, im- 
pervious to frost, and I am confident that cattle 
are wintered in it at a fourth less cost than 
when they shiver in board shanties, with cracks 
between the boards that will admit your hands. 



farm of Lyman li. Lyon, at Lyon's Falls, | No part of our rural economy is more wasteful 
in Lewis county. His farm consists of eight i than the habitual exposure of our animals to 
hundred acres of cleared lands, and he keeps a pelting, chilling storms, and to intense cold, 
dairy of ninety cows. "The barn is two hun- j Building with concrete is still a novelty, and 
dred and twenty feet long by forty-eight broad, was far more so ten years ago, when I built my 
It sits upon a wall twenty feet high, which con- ; barn. I could now build better and cheaper, 
tains a thousand yards of masonry. The drive- but I am glad that I need not. I calculate that 
way is thirty feet above the bottom, and twenty- this barn will be abidingly useful long after I 
one wagons can be unloaded at once from the ' shall have been utterly forgotten ; and that had 



50G 



ARCHITECTURE OF TUE HOMESXEAD : 



I chosen to have my name lettered on its front, 
it would liave remained there to honor me as a 
builder long after it had ceased to have any 
other significance." 

PIg-Pens. — -Every man who keeps a pig 
needs a pig-pen, and every pig-pen wants a 
building attaclied to it, large enough to house 
the pigs in "cold and stormy weather," to set 
a kettle for cooking their food, and to store 
their corn, roots, etc., overhead. (It seems 
hardly necessary to say that grain for family 
use, or for market, should never be stored where 
it can absorb the effluvium of the pig-pen, but 
some farmers still indulge the filthy habitj. 
The cooking may be economically done witli 
Pmndle's Cauldron, 
or any other that is as 
good. The accompa- 
nying cut represents a 
convenient pig-sty; but 
there should be a pen 
outside, where the ani- 
mals may disport in 
pleasant weather. 
A farmer in Nilcs, 
ri,AN OF PiouEBT. Michigan, writes: My 
troughs are one foot wide, by eight or ten 
inches deep; and in front of each trough is a 
ladder-like arrangement, with spaces twelve 
inches wide between each round, for each hog 
to pnt his liead through to eat; (hogs when 
weighing 250 or 275 pounds, can easily eat 
through a twelve inch space; if heavier than 
this, would probably need more room). This 
plan I have tried for some years and find it does 
well, preventing all fighting during feed time, 
and giving the weaker ones an equal chance 
with the stronger. On each ladder is swung a 
trap-door, whicli may be fastened down with a 
bolt or button, to keep the liogs out until the 
feed is in tlie trough. In the corner of each 
enclosure is a box made seven feet square, and 
about seven inches high, for them to lay in, in 
which, if straw is put, they will always keep 
clean. I have used a pen something on the 
plan of this, but it is now too small for my 
purposes. This will easily accommodate forty 
hogs. 

I will add this rough estimate of the cost of 
such a building in 1865: 




2,lf^0 fept two-inch plank for flonrins, at $20 $43 20 

1,320 feet incli boards, for sidin;;^ at $20 2t» 40 

S5 ppr the 



S*heetins-T>oard8, rafters, and joists 2:t 40 

Carpenter's work, including hewing limber 60 00 



I The cast-iron pig troughs are a great im- 
provement on the common mode of construction 
of wood ; they are indestructible by teeth of 
time or hogs, are easily kept clean and always 
"right side up." A plank or stone floor is es- 
sential for the sleeping apartment at least, for 
the sake of cleanliness and ease in throwing 
out the manure, a "chore" which should be 
attended to daily. 

Com-CrlbS.— It is common, throughout 
the younger States of the West, to leave corn 
all Winter without proper housing, exposed to 
the elements. The Prairie Farmer thus speaks 
of the practice: "Tlie condition in which a 
large portion of the corn crop of 1S64 reaches 
market should convince all that it is a useless 
waste of money to leave corn exposed to the 
snow and rains of Winter and Spring. Make 
a water shedding of some sort for the corn- 
cribs. Even if corn is at a low price it makes 
a material difTerence whether it sells for No. 1, 
flr stands No. 2 and rejected. One of the most 
absurd things in farming is to labor the season 
through to produce crops, and then throw 
away a large share of their value by thought- 
lessness and negligence." A good corn-crib is 
almost' as necessary on a farm as a good barn. 
It should be so constructed that the corn will 
not be at all exposed to storms, and also so that 
it will not mold, when not thoroughly matured. 

A thrifly farmer writes to the Country Gen- 
tleman : " I give you a rough sketch of a corn- 
house, built three j'ears ago, and there has not 




been a rat or mouse in it yet. You will see it 
is not connected at the bottom — consequently, 
we use the gravel for a floor to drive in on — • 
the only way a crib can be built rat and mouse 
proof. It stands on 8 pillars, 4 on each side. 
They are 8 inches diameter, 2 feet 10 inches 
long — 16 inches upper end is tinned — standing 
on stone blocks 2 feet square by 6 inches thick. 
On top of eacli post are saddles. It stands as 



CORN-CRIBS DAIRY ROOM. 



507 



firm as if it were on a wall. Tlie ends are 
boarded up and down, with small rib .slats over 
each crack. Tlie sides are covered with slats 
2J- inches wide, with J-inch crack.?. They are 
put on up and down, from the projection to the 
under corner of the sill. Inside slats run the 
other way, liorizonlal. There is a door in the 
center of each crib, made of slats, to put corn 



\ [^IIIIIIIMJML^jlL^M ttJ^^IIIIIIII^I[/ 



WAGON, way: 



/ [[aiiiiH^ii'^Hi^ii^iH c^Mi^iiiiiiiiA 



in, to the depth of 5 feet. Then it is handed 
up from the wagon through the scuttle in the 
center of the upper floor, which is laid with 
slats except one end 9 feet square, which is 
a tile floor for a bin to hold .shelled corn. Tlie 
cribs extend np to the roof, with 3 doors to 
empty the corn (three on each side.) Stairs 
hung with a hinge so as to swing up and fasten ; 
when down the lower end rests on the walk. 
The corn will not mold, if the floor is laid with 
slats 3 inches wide, put down with f of an inch 
open space between each, to allow a free cur- 
rent of air upward. Such a house, 20 feet 
long, 7 feet wide, and 7 high, will hold five or 
six hundred bushels in the ear. 

A Dairy Room.— A farmer asks the 
C«((ira(or how to build "a milk room cheap, 
that will give the most cream in hot weather." 
That journal replies that the cheapest milk 
room, in the long run, is one where the tem- 
perature may be so completely controlled that 
the cream may have sufficient time to rise, and 
by which the largest amount of butler may be 




lines on each side under the shelves, are the 
openings from ihe cellar, and the ventilators 
consist of boards with hinges, closing or open- 
ing the spaces precisely like a trap-door. 
They should be about ten inches wide. Over- 
head tliere is another ventilator, closed by a 
imilar trap-door, six or seven feet long and a 
foot wide, opening upward to allow the heated 
air to pass out, which it does by its specific 
lightness. At the same time the cold air flows 
upward from the cellar to supply the space, in 
the .same way that water rises to fill a pump 
when the air is drawn out above. Elevating 
sticks with holes or notches enable the attend- 
ant to raise or lower these ventilators to any 
desired degree. If the cellar is not sufliciently 
cold, keep a small vessel of ice in it, which 
will reduce the temperature as low as neces- 
sary. A ventilated space of one or two feet 
wide extends around three sides of the room 
and prevents the heating so often resulting 
from confined air in the walls. The double 
entrance door is placed in the fourth side, the 
outer one being tight to exclude the hot Sum- 
mer air, and the inner of wire gauze for the 
ingress of cool night air when necessary. The 
shelves are not flat boards, but formed of two 
narrow strips of inch boards on edge, thus ad- 
mitting free circulation of air on every side of 
the pans. The accom- 
panying cut shows the 
shelves as completed. A 
space is left between them 
for the side windows. The 
strips are about one by 
two inches and eight inches 
apart, or with six inches 
of clear space between 
them. 

The same paper gives a plan for a convenient 
cheese house. The annexed cut shows the 




obtained from a given quantity of milk. The 
figure given above exhibits the pi ^|, of a 
dairy room for a moderate farm. The dotted 




ground plan : Where V is the vat or heater, 
P tlie cheese-press, E the elevator for carrying 



508 



ARCUITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD : 



the cliccse to tlie curing room above, S tlie 
stairs, and B the cistern pump. The phin on 
tlie riglit is the upper or curing room, 
being the openings with \vicl<ets, C the chim- 
ney, E tlie elevator, D door lor delivering the 
cheese, A alley three feet wide, and W win- 
dows. The plan was furnished by X. A. WlL- 
LARD, who had a dairy of twent)--five cows on 
a good hundred acre farm, averaging four 
acres to each cow. The product in 1861 aver- 
aged G50 pounds per cow, and in 18G2, COO 
pounds per cow — that being a less favorable 
season. 

Poultry House.— The cut below repre- 
sents the elevation of a pretty and convenient 
poultry house, for which we are indebted to 

" Tke American Poulterers' Companion," pub- 
lished by the Harpeks : 




Octagon Poultry House. 
It is designed to accommodate from twenty- 
five to thirty common-sized fowls. The octa- 
gon was preferred on account of economy, as 
it takes less materials and labor to enclose a 
given number of feet in an octagon than in a 
square or oblong form. Where different vari- 
eties of fowls are to be kept separate, the 
apartments may be enlarged, and the yards ra- 
diating from each square of the building. The 
object of placing it on piles was to prevent the 
encroachment of rats, mice, and other vermin. 
Rats are particularly annoying, as they not 
only devour the grain, but suck the eggs and 
kill the young chickens. AVhere fowls were 
fed from a trough on the ground, we have 



known rats to contend with and even drive the 
fowls from (heir food. 

This building is ten feet in diameter and six 
and a half feet high. The sills are four by 
four, and the plates three by four joists, halved 
and nailed at the joints. It is sided with 
inch-and-a-quarter spruce plank, tongued and 
grooved, the joints battened on the outside. 
No upright timbers were used. The floor and 
roofiug are of the same kind of plank. An 
eight-square frame, eighteen inches diameter, 
supports the tops of the rafters, leaving an 
opening of ten inches diameter, over which 
the cupola is placed for a ventilator. In place 
of the cupola, a vitriolized stone chimney, such 
as are used sometimes on cottages. The piers 
should be either cedar, locust, or chestnut, and 
at least two feet high, and set on flat stones. 

The internal arrangement is as follows : A 
post may be set in the center, under the cupola, 
for one end of the roosts to rest on, the other 
end to the wall. The first or lowermost one 
two feet from the floor, and the others eighteen 
inches apart, and rising gradually to the top 
in a spiral form, sis. feet from the floor. Un- 
derneath these roosts is a board floor, on an 
angle of about forty-five degrees, to catch and 
carry down the droppings of the fowls. This 
arrangement renders it much more convenient 
in cleaning out the manure, which should be 
frequently done — at least once a week. The 
space beneath this floor is appropriated to 
tiers, 18 inches wide, 18 inches deep, and 18 
inches high. 

A correspondent of " iJuctt/ .4^air8" furnishes 




Section of Hen House— Twelve Feet Square. 



A. A.-.Toistf. rlm-cii rnttc 



B. B. 



iliiih iiupport thenestBa 
' also l>i-iiig seen endwisi 
■J chirks. 



n which 
this eec- 

xa.etc. ; 



lid the roosts B. B, 

.„ „.. .half feet. 

Thi' »p. hetween the neet-fl niirl the roof is six feet.) 
C. — Glafis uoor for entering beneath the roosts, lor clear- 
ing out puuno, etc. 



ICE HOUSE. 



509 



D. D.-Tlacns of rln 
sidu. TlicwM 
iinil alsocMiiLi 



ihe lorcguing design for a poultry house. He 
snys: I built one last Summer, of brick, on a 
hill-side, with an eastern aspect, having an un- 
derground room, which is cool in Summer and 
warm in Winter, and wliich my fowls having 
tested and highly approved, I now recommend 
as just tlie thing, I have seen more expensive 
and curious arrangements, but they proved to 
be inconvenient or were wlioUy rejected by the 
fowls. By constructing tlie nests in this man- 
ner, they may be easily reached, and setting 
hens and young chicks cared for as they should 
be to insure success. I have a dove-cote in the 
roof, which is also convenient and approved by 
the pigeons. 

Ice House. — Ice houses are no longer 
expensive luxuries. They now belong to the 
cheap comforts of every householder, and no 
farmer should be without his Summer supply. 
It is .etpially valuable to keep the meats and 
dairy sweet, to make ice cream, to cool our 
drinks and our custards. Ice can be made a 
famous auxiliary to the comforts and luxuries 
of the table of the rich and poor, especially in 
the rural districts, where other luxuries are not 
so plenty as in cities. A glass of iced milk is a 
greater luxury and more wholesome Summer 
beverage than the choicest wine, or the best 
distilled cup of tea or coffee; an absolute im- 
provement, in fact, upon pure cold water. 

The ice house should be located within two 
or three rods of the house, where it can be con- 
nected with the diary — by partitioning off a 
little room for the butter, if not otherwise. The 
drippings will furnish an unfailing supply of 
water for the poultry, if they have no other 
convenient resort. The building may be made 
an ornamental appendage, by surrounding it 
with morning glories, or some perennial climb- 
ers, lo run up and help to shade its roof. 

Many farmers deprive themselves of the ad- 
vantages of ice in Summer from the supposed 
expense of constructing hou.ses to hold it, and 
the difficulty of preserving it. Such should 
understand that there is little expense " d no 
mysiery about it. A good ice house ' _' be 
the very cheapest structure. A board or slab 
shanty will answer au excellent purpose, and 



with a good supply of sawdust, can hardly fail 
to keep ice well. 

A building of twelve feet square and eight 
or nine feet liigli, is sufficient for the wants of 
the most exacting family. It may be a frame 
building, entirely above the surface of the 
ground, and better if supported on posts ele- 
vated a few inches, to be certain of good drain- 
age, and to allow a free circulation of air under 
it. We have never seen ice better protected 
than in just such a rude building, without any 
internal shell. The square blocks of ice — and 
it is necessary that they be sawed square so as 
to fit tightly — were laid up in a solid cube in 
the center, on a foot of sawdust, and a space of 
a foot all around the sides closely packed with 
sawdust. The top was similarly covered, an 
opening of several inches in the horizontal 
boarding around the upper part of the building 
serving for thorough ventilation. 





Ice UonsB. 
The above engraving represents a build- 
ing of a similar character, intended to be used 
for this purpose. The ice is passed in from 
the loaded wagon or sled through the door at 
the end. 

Pian of the inte- 
rior, showing theice 
in blocks surround- 
ed with sawdust, D 
being the door at 
the end. A rough 
loosely laid floor is 
i.i;'kn;. I'LAN. best; allowingcom- 

plete drainage tlirongh the stratum of sawdust 
which rests upon it. A house of this kind, 
large enough to keep ten or twelve tons of ice, 
may be built for $12 or 515 where the price for 
lumber is moderate. 

An Iowa farmer keeps ice the year round by 
very simple protection. When lie began, he 
selected the north side of his barn, threw down 
a fool of cornstalks and trash fifteen feet square, 
and covered with a foot of sawdust. The ice 
was hauled out of the river and placed up ten 
feet square, eight, feet li'gli, pounded ice being 
filled in the cracks. The pile of ice was left 



510 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



standing out a month. He Ihen built a frame 
of rougli two by four incli sills and plates, board- 
ing it up rough, leaving two feet space all round, 
which was filled with sawdust. A shed roof, 
with some prairie grass thrown on it, to keep it 
perfectly tight, was put on, and between it and 
the ice filled with sawdust. The whole did not 
cost ten dollars, and has answered admirably 
as an ice and milk liouse and place for keep- 
ing fruit and butter. The same sawdust will 
answer for years. 

And, finally, here is a still simpler way: 
Take two or three sugar hogsheads, always to 
be had of the merchants at half tlie cost of the 
material composing them, and selecting a con- 
venient place, place them close together upon 
bearings laid upon si.\ or eight inches of straw 
or coarse litter. Now, during the freezing 
weather, as leisure occurs, pour in a few inches 
of water at a time and let it freeze solid ; then 
pour in some more, and continue to replenish 
at intervals until the hogsheads are full and 
frozen solid. Then form, with a few stakes 
and strips of board, a roof and a side entrance, 
covering the whole with a load of clean straw 
or forest leaves, packing closely. As the ice is 
needed during the Summer it can be chipj)ed 
out with a sharp pointed iron and a mallet. 
The farmer who tries this once will not be likely 
ever again to bo without the cheap luxury of 
ice in .summer time. 

Cisterns, Pumps, etc. — Every house 

and every barn, where much water is used, 
should have a cistern and an eflective pump 
attached, driven either by hand, horse-power, 
or windmill. In the driest parts of our West- 
ern prairies, enough water falls in the course 
of a year on the roofs of the farm buildinj;s, to 
meet the average aggregate wants of both fami- 
lies and stock. 

Size. — The quantity of water that falls annu- 
ally on a given area of roof is usually under- 
estimated. More than four hundred hogsheads 
fall every year on a thirty by forty foot roof; 
and the one hundred feet .square of aggregate 
barn-roofs which many farmers own, will furn- 
ish seven thousand barrels. A hogshead holds 
about si.xty-four pail fuls, and so the four hun- 
dred hogsheads that would fall on the thirty 
by forty foot roof would be sufficient to water 
twenty head of stock the year round, even if 
they should obtain no water elsewhere, allow- 
ing to each four pailfuls a day. If a cistern is 
to be drawn from daily throughout the year, it 
need not, of course, be so large as if intended 



for filling in the rainy season and using only in 
time of drought. 

Having fully settled the capacity required 
for cisterns, it is next desirable to ascertain the 
required dimensitjns. The following is a sim- 
ple rule for this purpose: Find the depth and 
diameter in inches; square the diameter and 
multiply the square by the decimal .0034, which 
will give the quantity in gallons for one inch 
in depth. Multiply this by the depth, and 
divide by 3H, and the result will be the num- 
ber of barrels the cistern will hold. By this 
rule it will be found th.at a cistern ten feet in 
diameter will hold 18'> barrels for every foot in 
depth, and if ten feet in depth, it will hold 
over 180 barrels. 

For each foot in depth, the number of barrels 
answering to the different diameters are: 
For 5 feet dinmeter 4.r.6 barrels. 



By the rule above given, the contents of barn- 
yard cisterns and manure tanks may be easily 
calculated for any size whatever. 

Mo<le of Conslvuctlon.— X house cistern should 
have a filter, for it is cheap, and on some parts 
of the prairies almost indispensable. . The 
most inexpensive may be thus constructed: 
The cistern may be divided by a partition-wall 
of soft, porous brick through the middle, and 
near the bottom of the wall a box ot sand and 
charcoal for the water to filter through. Into 
one of these apartments the water should be 
conducted from the eaves, but should be drawn 
out as used from the other; the one into which 
the water falls being a few inches deeper, that 
all impurities and sediment m.ay settle to the 
bottom, and not be allowed to get into the 
other apartment, by which process there will 
always be clear water for drinking, culinary, 
and all domestic uses. 

Or, the filtering cistern may be made as in 
the annexed plan, with a partition wall (a) 
pierced at the 
bottom with sev- 
< eral apertures. — 
', A wall (i) on 
each side of the 
partition affords 
' a space to be 
filled with pure 
broken charcoal, 
alternating with clean gravel. The water first 
enters one compartment of the cistern, and is 
punvjied out of the other. A level is, of course 




HOUSE CISTERN. 



511 



maintained on both sides, without a violent 
current tlirough, the filter, or danger of over- 
flow in heavy showers. But it is difficult to 
change the charcoal or to restore il, if dis- 
placed, e.xcept when the water is low. A plan, 
better on some accounts, is to have the rain 
enter the cistern through a cask or box, sunk 
in the ground, having a pipe from its bottom, 
the orifice of which is covered by wire gauze, 
or a coarse sponge, with charcoal kept in place 
by gravel over it. 

Or, the whole may be made a little more 
substantially, as shown in the accompanying 
cut. The Cound-y Gentleman says : " We would 
not recommend plastering on the earth, but 
greatly prefer building a good stone wall, or 
one of hard-burnt brick, laid well in the mor- 
tar, and afterward plastered with three coats." 
A cistern requires the very best quality of hy- 
draulic cement, and the cleanest, sharpest sand; 
and it should be laid on by the be.st mason, 
paid by the day. 




IIOUSE CiSTRRN. 

ATater ii? sometimes filtered by laying a net- 
work of porous cement pipes in the bottom of 
the cistern. When the filter is efiective, the 
water comes up cold, clear, and sparkling, as 
from a common well, and as much better as 
can well be imagined. 

Tlie most important argument in favor of 
the habitual use of cloud water, next to its 
being accessible where no other water exist.s, is 
to be found in its healthfulness. Hard water, 
for cooking and drinking is bad. Rain water 
is both a restorer and preserver of health, as 
well as a preventive of many diseases. This 
important fact will not be unheeded by the 
wise and thoughtful in arranging and furnish- 
ing comfortable and tasteful dwellings, whether 
in city or country, in destitute or watered sec- 
tions, in shop or stable; for in this respect, as 



well as for convenience, it is everywhere alike 
valuable and pleasant. 

Protection from Frost. — When a cistern for 
stock is provided for Winter use, it should be 
placed, if convenient, under the barn and sunk 
well into the ground, and always arched over, 
and a neck turned like the neck of an enor- 
mous gourd, so that it will admit of no drain- 
age from the stables or yard; and if necessarily 
out of doors, it should be well banked over 
with refuse hay, straw, and coarse manure from 
the stables, to keep the water as much above 
the freezing point as po.ssible. And the pump 
may be efTectually kept from freezing by build- 
ing a large box or crib around it, reaching 
quite over the top and filling it with coarse 
manure, leaving an opening in one side, just 
sufficient for the handle to play in, and adding 
a continuation to the spout through the pro- 
tecting mass. Freezing may also be prevented 
liy winding the pump with hay ropes, or by 
letting the water out of the pi|)e when not in 
use, below the level of I'rost. If the cistern is 
built in the bank by the side of the barn, its 
position will generally obviate the necessity of 
a pump — the water being conveyed to the cat- 
tle troughs or stalls in a pipe kept above the 
freezing point. 

Introduction of Spring Water. — Frequently 
the farm buildings are so located that water 
may be brought in a covered pipe from a w»ll 
or a spring, or a stream, that comes to the sur- 
face on higher ground. In this case the con- 
ductor may be made of round tiles well ce- 
mented at the joint.s, or of lead pipe, or a con- 
tinuous tube may be cheaply made of cement 
that will last an age. S. E. Todd describes 
the manner of making such a conductor: 
First he dug a narrow ditcli about four feet 
deep, terminating in a bottom only four 
inches wide. Then he made the material of 
hydraulic cement and sharp sand, in the pro- 
portion of one part cement to three parts sand. 
.i turned stick, one and a quarter incites in di- 
ameter and five feet long, very round, smooth, 
and straight, was required to make the water- 
course. The prepared cement was laid in the 
ditch about two inches deep, the rod laid on 
and pressed carefully down into it about half 
an inch, and covered an inch or two with ce- 
ment and troweled ofi' smoothly. The rod is 
allowed to remain a few minutes, for the ce- 
ment to harden around it. About four inches 
has been left extending beyond the cement, to 
enable a person to grasp it and draw it nearly 
out of the first section, when another section is 



512 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



formed around the rod', and so on to tlie end. 
As the cement sets rapidly there is little danger, 
if care is observed, that the orifice will be 
closed by the settling of the upper side. The 
rod may be turned in the orifice from time to 
time, to keep it detaclied. The earth must be 
carefully returned to the ditch, so as not to in- 
jure the pipe by dropping stones on it. Such 
a conductor will be fo\uid very cheap and 
durable. 

U.'ie of a Syphon. — Water may be carried over 
a small hill by the means of a syphon, without 
a pump, except temporarily to start it. The 
end of the pipe that delivers the water should 
be a little smaller than the rest. If the pipe be 
of good size, the water will probably move with 
force enough to keep the bend free from a col- 
lection of air; if it be small, or have slight ve- 
locity, J. P. Jay, of Mason county, Kentucky, 
recommends the adjustment of a vertical branch 
on the highest part of the bend, supplied with 
a funnel and two stop cock.s, as shown in the 
engraving. 




A STpnoN Relief. 

To .start the syphon, slop both ends and fill 
with water through the vertical branch; then 
turn the cocks so as to cut otl' communication 
with the air; open the upper end of syphon 
first, and then the lower end, and water will 
run freely. Now when air collects in the bend 
of the syphon, by opening the cock B the air 
will ascend in the pipe at C. Then close B, 
open X, and pour in water to fill the part C. 
In this manner the air can be taken out with 
little trouble. Care should be taken in joining 
the brancli to the .syphon that the end does not 
go inside at all. In case the branch might 
freeze, it may be joined at D with a screw so as 
to be removed. 

The Drive or Tube Well. — This is an Ameri- 
can invention, and has already wrought quite a 
revolution in some sections, in the methods of 
obtaining water. It consists .simply of a gas- 
pijie, or similar iron tube, sharpened at the 
lower end and perforated just above it, driven 
perpendicularly into the ground, and attached 



at the top to a pump. Considerable soil is 
drawn up at first, which leaves a cavity, or 
well, around the lower extremity of the tube, 
which remains filled with water at once clear 
and cool, of course below the level of frost. 
To protect the pipe against too great an en- 
trance of earth, the perforated terminus is gen- 
erally covered with a layer of wire strainer, 
and that covered with zinc, pierced with holes 
to coi-respond with the holes in the pipe, and 
soldered down tight. The pipe is driven down 
with a sledge-hammer, and a piece of tough 
wood is held on the top of the pipe to prevent 
crushing the thread. 

The length of the pipe required will of 
course depend on the location and the soil — 
varying from five to thirty feet. In .some 
places, as in quicksand, the drive-well .seems 
to be almost entirely impracticable. If rock 
ofiers an impediment, the tube can be with- 
drawn in a few minutes, and tried elsewhere. 
On the whole, the drive-well is one of the most 
economical and convenient of our recent labor- 
saving contrivances. 

Carrying TFu^er Up a Slope. — Water may be 
carried up a moderate slope, either by force or 
suction, by driving or drawing. The hydrau- 
lic ram is one of the most popular and econom- 
ical agents, and is now used in every State for 
tills purpose. In .some places water is thrown 
a mile by it up a grade of a hundred and fifty 
feet — one-eiglitli of the water that run^ through 
the ram being lilted by the other seven-eighths. 
The hydraulic ram is adapted to almost any 
place, where there is a slight fall, and cost from 
S8 (for a ram adapted to a brook furnishing 3 
quarts to 2 gallons of water per minute — hav- 
ing a J-inch drive-pipe, and |-inch discharge) 
to §150 (for one adapted to a flow of 25 to 75 
gallons per minute, having a 4-inch drive-pipe 
and 2-inch discharge). B. DoUGLASS' is one 
of the best. 

Water may be drawn up a small ascent by a 
suction pump, as illustrated by the following 
cut — the .syphon being used to collect it in a 




Suction Pump, 



reservoir, beneath the pump. Erplanalion. — 
Lay the pipe in the direction A B C D, or in 



FENCES — TIlKIll COST AND CONSTRUCTION. 



5i; 



any other direction touching A C D. C being 
lower than A, water will not flow back to it. 
Lay belnw frost. A, .spring — D, pump — dotted 
line, level. 

How to Cleanse a Cistern. — Many persons who 
know how annoying the stagnant and odorons 
water of cisterns sometimes become, will be 
glad to know that it may be purified in a few 
liours by the use of two pounds of cauiilic soda. 
Concentrated lye may also be used with a good 
result. Kither may be obtained of any drug- 
gist, and used moderately, the water will not 
injure clothing. 



FENCES— THEIR COST AND CON- 
STRUCTION. 

The Liaw of Fencing. — During the 

last fifteen years, our must intelligent farmers 
have earnestly agitated and debated the question, 
"Can not roadside and division fences be dis- 
pensed with? Am I bound to fence againsi 
otiier people's stock?" An affirmative answer 
lo the first inquiry would effect vitally the farm- 
ing interests of every State; it would cause a 
complete revolution in the methods long prac- 
ticed in all sections of the country. 

Cost nf Fences. — Since the examination began 
Tiuicli light has been thrown upon the question. 
Farmers have been startled to discover that 
Iheir fences cost more than all their other ex- 
penses, including taxes. A writer in the Illi- 
nois Agricultural Report for 1864 says: "Tliat 
the fences of the United States have co.st 
more than the houses, cities included; more 
than (he sliips, boats, and vessels of every de- 
scription, which sail the ocean, lakes, and riv- 
ers; more than our manufactories, of all kinds, 
with their machinery; more than any onecfass 
of property, aside from real estate, except, it 
may be, the railroads of our country." Tliis 
may seem like an exaggerated .statement, but a 
little estimate will show that it is not so extrav- 
agant as would at first appear. 

Tlie first cost of the fences of New York 
Slate was between one hundred and one hun- 
dred and fifty million dollars. EoBlNSON 
gives it as S144,000,000. Assuming this to be 
approximately correct, and estimating the first 
cost of the fences of the other States on the 
same basis, we have, as the total first expense 
of the fences of the whole country, the vast 
sum of $1,296,000,000! 

This requires to be renewed once in ten 
33 



years— giving $129,600,000 as the annual cost, 
to which should he added, however, at least 
half as much more for repairs, making the ag- 
gregate of $194,400,000 as the annual national 
expense — a sum, we believe, below the actual 
figures, yet quite beyond comprehension. Nich- 
olas BlDPLE estimated that the "fence tax" 
of Pennsylvania was ten million dollars a year. 
General James T. Worthington, of Ohio, says 
that there are 18.000,000 acre.'s of land in Ohio 
enclosed with 4-5,000 miles of fences, at a prime 
cost of S115,000,000, and at a yearly expense for 
for repains, etc., of $7,680,000. 

If roadside and boundary fences can be dis- 
pensed with, half the cost of fencing will be 
saved. That cost is now an annual tax of $1 50 
on every acre of improved land in the United 
States — the "fence tax" being twice or thrice 
as great as tlie aggregate of the State and local 
taxes combined. 

Why can not a large portion of this outlay 
he saved for some profitable investments? 
Every dollar rescued from fences may be added 
to productive wealth. Fence-s are dead capital; 
they pay no interest, and are a constant drain 
upon the pocket. As Mr. Gkeeley says: 
"We poison our land with fences; they are a 
shelter for weeds, as well as a vast and useless 
expense." The indirect waste which they in- 
flict is almost as great as their direct cost. A 
Virginia zigzag fence occupies five acres for 
esery hundred encloseil — thus imposing a five 
per cent, lax on the m:irket value of the soil — a 
tax that would be felt to be oppressive if it 
was for the payment of the national debt, in- 
.stead of to shelter a growth of weeds. 

Shall We Fence Stock Out or In? — There is 
no doubt that our people now expend fonr times 
;is much money to fence stock out as would be 
required in fence it in. Our j)rcsent custom, 
which commands universal fencing, is the worst 
blunder the practical American people ever 
made. Enterprising and original in many 
matters, they are here following slavishly, gen- 
eration after generation, the habit of the earli- 
est English colonics — following it, though very 
expensive and very inconvenient, because it is 
"the good old way." Europe h.as learned a 
more rational method. There are ten times as 
many fences in. Illinois as there are in Ger- 
many; and Duchess county, in New York, has 
more than all France. In France, Germany, 
and Holland farme'rs hold their lands in com- 
mon, with only narrow paths between. 

The continental system of having few or no 
fences is evidently the best ; and even exclusive 



il4 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



England is slowly adopting it. America will 
inevitably follow, for economy, taste, thorough 
tillage, fair play, and good sense command it, 
and tlie time will come, before many years, 
when the absence of farm fences will be a sign 
of progressive culture. 

The immcTise cost of sustaining fences; the 
inconvenience of having them always in the 
way of thorougli tillage, and of easy ingress 
and egress to the premises; the impassable 
snow-drifts accumulated by them ; the shelter 
they afford to weeds and briars; the protection 
they afford to many of the worst animal pest 
of the farm, and their unsightly appearance 
generally throughout the country, as the recep- 
tacle of stone heaps, piles of brush and dead 
trees, to say nothing of the countless acres 
rendered worse than useless by their occupancy, 
would sceni^ sufficient reasons for disposing of 
fences wherever not indispensable for purposes 
of pasturing. 

JEffcct on the West. — The necessity of enclos- 
ing with a fence is the bane of Western farm- 
ing. A man buys a quarter section, and is com- 
pelled to make either one or two miles of 
fence — the quantity de|)ending on the circum- 
Btance whether he "joins fences " or not. lie 
may wish to raise wheat and keep no stock; 
but he is compelled to fence just the same, to 
defend himself against his neighbors' cattle. 
If they have not more than fifty head, it will 
be cheaper for him to go upon their farms and 
enclo.se their pastures, than to build his own 
boundary fence. 

The squatter finds to his amazement that his 
fence will cost five times as much as his land 
did — not less than four hundred dollars a mile. 
He has team.s, tools, and boys sufficient to raise 
fifty to a hundred acres of wheat, but not hav- 
ing money enough to fence it, is driven to the 
alternative of renting of others, and letting his 
own rich land lie idle. Farmers can about as 
well afibrd to pay ten. dollars per acre for a 
farm, and be obliged to fence only enough to 
restrain their own stock, as to pay five dollars 
per acre, and be compelled to fence against the 
stock of the State. 

Many men rent all their live-s, who would 
buy hind and pay for it, were it not lor the se- 
rious expense o:' fencing. The writer in the 
Illinois Report, already quoted, saj's : "About 
three-fourths of all the ' cussin' ' in Illinois may 
be fairly charged to the practice of fencing 
crops, rather than stock. Had Illinois passe<l 
a law thirty, twenty, or even ten years since, 
that stock should be fenced, or otherwise taken 



care of by its owners, I do not believe there 
would be an acre of good prairie uncultivated 
in the Slate. I know this is a strong statement 
when we think how many acres of the best 
land in the world are yet 'lying out,' but those 
who have lived in the State but the last ten 
years have seen miles of prairie come under 
the plow right around them, even under the 
crop-fencing incubus. During the wheat mania 
of a few years since, a large portion of the 
prairies of central Illinois would have been 
turned bottom-side up, had it not been for the 
expense of fencing. * * * We have spent 
millions of dollars in Michigan pine to keep 
our corn and wheat from going off our farms 
to prey on our neighbors' hogs and cattle!" 

Under a uniform law compelling every man 
to take care of his stock, and insuring him 
again.st harm from his neighbors, it is certain 
that the population of the Western States would 
have been some millions greater than now, 
while their wealth would have proportionately 
increased. Moreover, the farms would have 
been better cultivated, the houses better built, 
the barns larger and more comfortable, and 
the average stock of purer breed and higher 
quality. Let every legislature say to every 
settler, " Take care of your own stock, and we 
will see that jour neighbor takes care of his," 
and two farms will be opened along the frontier 
where one now is. The West seems to be per- 
versely blind to its own interest in this matter; 
but it will not much longer be "the poor nuin's 
asylum," unless it shall open its eyes, and, by 
relieving him of the onorous "fence tax," place 
the virgin soil witliin his reach. 

Injustice of the Present System. — The proof of 
the bad economy and the bad policy of our 
present sy.stem of fencing, has suggested, also, 
its inj\istice. To compel A to fence against B's 
cattle, is morally and socially wrong. It in- 
verts the relation of things. It takes property 
from A without rendering to him an equiva- 
lent. Corn, wheat, oats, fruit trees, vegetables, 
stay at home quietly, trespassing on nobody, 
and interfering with nobody. Shall we put the 
onus of fencing on stationary or on locomotive 
property? Shall we burden with the cost of 
fencing the man whose property stays where it 
is put, and can not get away ? or on the man 
whose property has legs, horns, and grinders, 
with a graniverous appetite? 

The writer in the Illinois Report asks: ''Is 
there any good reason why one man should be 
compelled to build from one to ten miles of 
fence to protect his crops from his neighbors' 



FENCES — THEIR COST AXD CONSTRUCTION. 



515 



Rtnck, when such neighbors miglit (h) it willi 
onc-tentli tlie fence? Can any one give me :i 
good reason why the law shouUl be that a man 
shall stand guard over his one hundred and 
sixty acres of grain, rather than his neighbor 
over his one cow? Does, or does it not, seem 
right that every man shall take care of his own 
stock? On this hinges the whole question. 
My idea is that every man shall take care nf hin 
oii'ii stock; and, as a corrollary, that he shall be 
eompelled to tnake only so much or so little fence a.t 
ts necessary to do that thing." 

The Law of Fencing. — " Law," says Bl.\ck- 
STONF, "is 11 rule of society, authorizing what 
iji right and forbidding what is wrong." So we 
shall not expect to find the law, in the present 
case, commanding what has been shown to be 
flagrantly unjust. We are not disappointed. 
Tlie common law does not require any man to 
fence against stock. Its spirit is to make every 
owner of stock responsible for all depredations 
that it shall commit. 

liif/hway Fences. — The land occupied by a 
highway is still private property in most if not 
all of the State-s. If a public road is opened 
tlirough a farm, the public acquires no right 
except to make and repair a road and travel 
the same. The owner reserves all rights not 
incompatible with the public right of way, and 
may mainkiin trespass for cutting timber, carry- 
ing off stone, or pasturing catlle on such road — 
for his land is asses.sed and taxed without any 
reference to the thoroughfare through it. He 
ran also, in most of the States, maintain tres- 
pass and collect damages for animals entering 
his field from the highway, without being re- 
quired to show that it is fenced at all. If a 
statute law were enacted authorizing A's cow 
to enter upon B's garden and devour liis vege- 
tables, unless she were kept off by B, it would 
be taking one man's property and transferring 
it to another — an act opposed to the funda- 
mental principle of law. 

There is no law requiring a fencing or au- 
thorizing a pasturage of the highway, except 
the law of custom, unless it be some "town 
vote," which, as it is not generally authorized 
by any statute law, and is directly opposed to 
the letter and spirit of the common law, is null 
and voiil. The law protects property; cattle 
and hog,s upon the street are plunderers and 
pirates, and the owner is no better than his 
brutes. It is high time for the prominent 
farmers of every county to unite and co-oper- 
ate, in comiielling custom to conform to law. 

Boundary Fences. — Most of the States have 



enacted absurd laws requiring division or 
boundary fences between farms, and throwing 
half the expense on each of the adjoining pro- 
prietors — with the result that lias been already 
seen. Some States have gone so far as to re- 
quire highway fences also, and then to prescribe 
what .shall be considered a "lawful fence." The 
usual "laws regulating enclosures" any sane 
man would have entitled "An Act to Authorize 
the Trespass of Cattle on Neighboring Proprie- 
tors, and to prevent any Indemnification there- 
for." By such a law, the whole State is de- 
clared a common, except such portions of its 
arable surface as has a line of fortifications 
around it. 

Even if he faithfully complies, the farmer is 
not guaranteed against loss; lor ad milting that he 
can construct a fence, every yard of which he be- 
lieves to be sufficiently strong to withstand high 
winds and storms, and to defy the most perse- 
vering assaults of breachy cattle, whose ener- 
gies are quickened by famine — yet despite of 
his eflbrls, trespassing stock do make their way 
into his corn. What is his recourse? He brings 
a suit; obtains from a magistrate an order for 
the survey of his fence; the owner of the stock se- 

[ cretly makes gaps in it, and the owner of the corn 

j is beaten, and adds the costs to the first damage ! 

j Our fence laws are laws to encourage pillage, 
and they ought to be repealed, or else be culled 

I by their right name. The great West, espe- 
cially, ought not to delay action in a matter so 
vital to its own interests. As soon as the op- 
pressive fence laws shall be abolished, there 

Will be hundreds of thousands of poor men 
who will slake out their claims on the prairies 

land fearlessly put in their crops. The State 
that shall learn wi.sdom first, will receive the 

! greatest accession to its population. 

It is objected by some that highway fences 

I are indispen.sable for the accommodation of 
drovers. Even if this were so, what justice 
is there in compelling the farmer to build them 
for the drovers' sole benefit? But thev are not 
indispensable. Drovers have no great trouble 
in France or Germany. Experience has dem- 
onstrated that there is less danger of trespass 
by such stock where there are no highway 
fences than where they exist; and drovera 
know that they have less trouble in getting 
droves securely past farms where there are no 
highway fences than where there are such 
fences with an occasional gap. 

The advantages of the proposed .system are 
numerous and obvious. It would not only save 
millions of dollars every year to every Stale, but 



516 



ARCHITECTURE OP THE HOMESTEAD: 



it would improve immeasurably the character of 
ftoek and secure purity of breeds, by preventing 
contact witli scrub bulls ; it would enable every 
farmer to regulate the time of calving, thereby 
greatly increasing the numberof animals raised ; 
it would enable him to avoid the losses sustained 
by animals straying; it wouUl give a delightful 
sense of security, saving to every farmer many 
anxious days and sleepless nights, and finally, 
it would do much to promote good neighbor- 
hood. Fences make more rustic quarrels than 
whisky does. The former would not need 
necessarily to fence his stock; he could herd it, 
Boil it, or stake it out — any way to restrain it. 

It is believed that great good would result if 
each State would pass a law providing that 
every man be responsible for all damages done 
by his cattle without regard to fences, and pi-o- 
hibiting any farm stock from running at large, 
under a penalty. 

Some of the most enterprising farmers in New 
York, Wi.soonsin, and othei- States, have clubbed 
together in a number of towns adjoining, and 
entirely removed their highway fences, holding 
Btock-owners responsible for all trespass. They 
have been sustained by the courts in every case 
where litigation has resulted. We trust they 
will per.severe in their work of reform. The 
public apathy on this subject is incompre- 
liensible. A tax not one-hundredth part as 
oppres.-^ive as this fence tax, nor half as inex- 
cusable, lighted the flames of the Kevoliition, 
and separated the American colonies from Great 
Britain. But for the present, fences will be 
built, and we must tell how to build them. 

Varieties of Fence. — There are five kinds of 
material used in this country for making fence. 
a."! follows: 

1. Stone, in some Stales. 

2. Earth, thrown from a ditch and raised into 
a regular embankment on one side. 

3. Wood, of various construction. 

4. Iron wire. 

5. Hedges. 

The location of the farm and its resources, 
will indicate the kind of fence most desirable 
to build. A good fence is always to be pre- 
ferred to an imperfect one; it will generally 
save the extra cost, and twice the amount in 
vexation. Poor fences make breachy cattle. 

Stone 'Walls. — Over large sections of 
New England, the stone wall is about the only 
fence seen. In those locations where surface 
atone abounds, especially if it appear in the 
form of boulders, or manageable fragments. 




"Wall Badly Laid. 



stone fences, broad and high, are the most du- 
rable, while they are at the same time the mo.st 
economical. They should be set a foot below 
the surface of the ground to be secure against 
the action of frost, and then they should be well 
built. No other sort of fence is so valuable as 
a good stone wall, or so worthless as a poor one. 
To begin with; the surface of the ground 
should be reniuved, and the foundation stone.s, 
broad enough to reach across the wall, should 
be laid on solid earth. If, as is generally the 
case, the wall is built of small, irregular stones, 
they should 
be bound to- 
gether by Z3i^ 
large flat _^^ 
St on es, or 
ties of some 
tough wood, laid 
acro.ss at intervals. 
The builder should 
be careful to break 
joints well — that is, 
to make one stone 
overlap another — as seen in the cut of the wall 
well laid. Where this precaution is not at- 
tended to, as is seen in the cut of the wall 
badly laid, in which long perpendicular seaius 
appear, the weather will soon tumble the 
structure to the ground. It is common, where 
stone is not so plenty as to be an incumbrance, 
to lay up the wall some three feet, inclosing 
posts at convenient distances, and adding two 
rails to the top. Stone fences, in most of the 
States, are wholly impracticable from lack of 
material. 

Ditclies are not much relied on. In the 
first settlements, to secure the crops, the ilitch- 
and-sod fence has been somewhat used in the 
deep prairie land; but the friable soil crumbled 
under the action of frost and rain, and the 
treading of cattle, and it proved an expensive 
and perishable structure. 

■Wooden Fences.— A great majority of 
the fences in this country are of wood. Of 
these, there are several kinds. 

Zigzac] Rail Fences. — The first fences built in 
America were doubtless zigzag rail or log fcnoo; 
because these are the simplest, and, where wood 
and land are abundant, they are still the cheap- 
est and best. This kind of fence costs in con- 
struction only, including the cutting, splitting, 
hauling, and laying it up, when the rails are 
within half a mile of the fence to be railed, at 



FENCES — THEIR COST AND CONSTRUCTION. 



5i; 



the very least fifteen dollars per thousand: or, 
for a twelve-foot rail with a five-foot worm 
(and six is better), seven to eight rails lush, 
with two rails for lock at each corner — thirty 
cent"? a rod. Then the young timber must be 
added to the cost, and this depends entirely 
upon its market value where the fence is located. 
Season for CuH'mg Rails. — From August to 
October is the best time (or cutting rails or any 
timber that is to be e.xposed to the weather. 

** Wh'-n Autiiliin comes, and leaves ave dry, 

And rustle iiu tlie «raiinit. 
And thilliiig win.lsgo whistlina by. 

With nioanina pensive sound," 
Cut tinib'T tlieii tor posts and liennis and mils, 
For tongues and thills, forwhiffletre.s and stales." 

Edward Todd, in his Young Fanner's Man- 
ual, says: "Late Autumn is tlie best time for 
cutting timber for almost any purpose." Albu- 
men hastens decay, and there is less in timber 
at that season than at any other. They ought 
to be split as soon a.s cut, and set up at once, or 
piled to season for the Winter. The Cultivator 
says: "The best time to cut and split rails is at 
midsummer, as we have learned by repeated 
experiment; the softer woods, as basswood for 
instance, lasting more thtm twice as long before 
decay sets in, as when cut in Winter or Spring 
We have therefore preferred paying a higher 
price for the work in Summer that at other 
seasons." 

Moore's Rural New Yorker says: "It is a 
pretty well established fact, that timber is more 
durable, cut in the Autumn or early part of 
Winter, than if taken from the stump in the 
Spring when every pore is full of sap." John 
Y. Smith, a good authority, differs from the 
Cultivator, for he says: "Cut your rail and 
building timber, your hop poles, and even your 
bean poles in the Winter. Nature has favored 
you by making the most convenient time the 
best time." We think Fall is the best time for 
almost any timber. If the reader is in doubt, 
let him experiment. 

How to Make Rails. — Rails should be twelve 
feet long, unless the log be black ash, elm, but- 
ttmwood, peperridge, or some other tough wood, 
compelling shorter cuts. It is quite a " knack " 
to split logs enconomically inlo rails, posts, etc. 
The wedges should alwaj's be first entered at the 
smaller end, and it is generally better to follow 
old check.s, if there are any, than to split across 
them. If the log is very perverse, it is advi,sable 
to slab it, lather than to try to bring all the rails 
in triangles IVom the center. Kails should be 
peeled as soon as split, for if this is neglected, 
the hark becomes the nest of worms that greatly 
promote decay. Alw;iys remember to build 



the zigzag fence up hill, in.stead of down; this 
will leave the rails more nearly level, and the . 
fence will stand much firmer. 

There are some obvious objections to zigzag 
fences in the older settled and sparsely-wooded 
Slates. They are oflfensive to the eye in a cul- 
tivated landscape. They require more wood 
than any other fence. They are obtrusive, oc- 
cupying a strip of land twelve feet wide around 
every field — soitte two or three hundred thou- 
sand acres in the State of Pennsylvania. This 
is a severe tax — not less than two per cent, on 
all incl ised land. 

Straight Rail Fences. — A straight rail fence is 
cheaper than the zigzag, requiring a little more 
labor to construct it, but saving nearly half the 
rails. It is made with parallel stakes driven 
into the ground, as represented in the follow- 
ing cut, these being set just far enough apart to 
admit of laying the rails between them. Each 
pair of rails is laid on a block of wood or a 
stone, as shown in the figure, a larger stone be- 
ing set for the foundation. The posts are fast- 
ened together with a pin, or with a band of 
wire at the top This is the cheapest fence that 
can be made, and one of the most durable and 
efficient. It is neat and strong and requires 
little room. 




bTBMGHT Ra 



A straight fence is sometimes economically 
made by hewing the ends of the rail to a 
wedge and nailing them on the opposite sides 
of a single line of posts. This is less durable 
than the last mentioned. 

Then there are the pole fence, the side-hill 
fence, the stake-and-rider fence, the post-and- 
bar fence, the leaning fence, supported by stakes, 
and other varieties, all of which are clumsy 
and inefficient, or else like the bar-post fence, 
too expensive for general adoption. 

Board Fences and Posts. — Board fences cost 
from one dollar to five dollars a rod, and are 
used chiefly for the inclosures immediately ad- 
joining the house. In selecting material for 
posts, it is a good rule to take the timber that 
you have the most of and can spare the best. 
Of course, other things being equal, the most 
durable should always be chosen ; but other 



ns 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



tilings are nnt equal, for red and wliite cedar,* 
locust and wliite oak, sometimes bring a high 
price for other purposes, and can not be spared 
for posts. Chestnut is generally used in New 
England and the Middle States. When it i.s 
practicable, fence posts sliould be set in well- 
drained land, as they will last longer than on 
wet fields. For this reason good fence-builders 
no longer fill the post holes with stones — for 
these give free passage to wate^jand hasten de- 
cay. It is better to pound the earth firmly 
around the post, adding only a few inches 
at a time and using an iron-shod rammer to 
liardeu it. 

A great variety of "portable fences" hare 
been patented, but they are generally quite too 
portable, being carried off by a good strong 
wind. 

Posts for boMnl fence should be set eight 
feet apart, and the boards should be si.xteen feet 
long, four and a half or five inches wide, and 
an inch thick. Five boards high, with a cap 
or roof-board, are ample for a good fence. 

How to set Posts Firmly. — Take equal quan- 
tities of waterlime and quicklime, and mix 
with sand as usual; put two or three inches of 
mortar and coarse gravel in the bottom of the 
bole, so that the end of the post will not come 
to the ground ; then set the post in, top-end 
down; fill in several inches of coarse gravel; 
pound it down ; then mortar and more gravel, 
and .so on until the cement is raised above the 
ground several inches around the post. Slant 
it away from the post in every direction, so as 
to turn off the water ; then take coal tar and 
a brush, paint around the bottom of the post, 
and fill the interstices between the post and the 
cement with coal tar. Only mi-x enough mor- 
tar for one hole at a time. The post will be as 
solid as if set in stone; it don't heave out with 
the frosts and sag around and pull the boards 
off, as the water and air can not get to it. 

Charring the lower end of the post will add 
to its durability. Imbedding in ashes, char- 
coal, or lime will also have a good effect, and 
salt has great preservative power if it be con- 
ceal eil in an auger-hole and plugged in,' so as 
to be out of the reach of hogs, sheep, etc. 

Kyanizing posts consists in soaking them 
in some mineral solution, such as sulphate 
of iron, blue vitriol, creosote, etc., until the 
wood is saturated. The process keeps wood 
perfectly sound for a long time, and has been 



»A Marylandjomnftlsnys: "At tbe head of one of tljp 
graves in •01.1 .St. MarjV,' there stands a cedar ."lab, 
whicti, as the inscription indicateu, was placed tliere in 
1717, and is still pcrfectljr eound." 



found, in many instance."!, to pay the expense, 
especially for sills, bridge timbers, railroad 
sleepers, etc. 

Experiments prove that the ends of posts 
and stakes dipped in hot coal tar and then 
covejed with coarse sand, are rendered quite 
indestructible for a long time. Wood put in 
crude petroleum, and allowed to remain in 
it a few hours, is said to become exceedingly 
durable. 

Gates versus Bars. — Every field on the farm 
should be entered by a good .self-shutting and 
self-fastening gate. A proper inclination in 
hanging will secure the former requisite, and a 
good latch, properly constructed, the latter. 
Each field should be numbered, and the num- 
ber painted on the gate-post. Let the farmer 
who has bars instead of gates, make a trial of 
their comparative convenience, by taking them 
out and replacing them without stopping, as 
often as he does in one year on his farm, say 
about six hundred times, and he can not fail to 
be satisfied which is cheapest for use. 

Remedy for Sagi/ing Farm Gales. — Have two 
latches, or rather one latch above and a sta- 
tionary bar below projecting like a latch, which 
rests on a support cut in the arc or a portion 
of a circle, that is secured to the post in same 
manner as the catch of the latch. When the 
gate is swung to, the stationary bar on the 
gate strikes on the circular support on the post 
and raises the gate to its place, and supports it 
so that there is no bearing or strain on the latch 
or hinges. 

Wire Fences. — It now seems quite pos- 
sible that these may become the general sub.sti- 
tute for other fences. A wire fence can be con- 
structed for a dollar a rod, or less, and, con- 
sidering its durability, it is now one of the most 
economical fences for these who have to buy 
their materials and pay for the labor. The 
price of wire, moreover, is decreasing year by 
year, and will probably become much farther 
reduced, whereas all other kinds of materials 
are becoming scarcer and higher, as settlement 
becomes denser. 

Wire is especially effective on lawns as a de- 
fense for evergreens and hedges. Even small 
sizes will serve an excellent purpose. 

The accompanying cut repre- 
sents some of the different sizes 
of wire, the largest, No. 3 wire, 
being exactly one-fourth of an 
inch in diameter, and No. 11, one- 
eight. 




FENCES — WIRE. 



519 



Wire fences are as substantial as those of 
any otiier material ; yet in hundreds of in- 
stances where they have seemed to be well 
built they have proved an entire failure, and 
the experimenters reported that such fences 
could not be relied upon for protecting cul- 
tivated fields from unruly cattle. Solon Eob- 
INSO.V a.iys "the wire fence has not proved a 
Kucccss. It made cheap, it is not eli'ectual; if 
m.ide elleclual, it is nut economical." We be- 
lieve that this opinion is not well founded. 

Pioperly erected, they are at once economi- 
cal and impassable. The first mistake is in 
nialvins; such barriers exclusively of wire. 
When three fir four wires are strung up across 
a field, looking "like the shadow of nothing," as 
a farmer expresses it, with no top rail to notify 
stock of an obstructiou there, young animals 
may plunge and dash against them, and some- 
thing must give way. But if a good deep fur- 
row be turned up against the posts on either 
side, and a stout rail be pinned along their 
tops, tl'.e line will be so thoroughly marked 
that no cattle, unless they be absolutely wild, 
will attempt its passage. 

Wire purcha.sed by the farmer is generally 
annealed ready for use; if it be not, let liiin 
build a bonfire, tlirow the coil on, and heat it 
to a red heat. This will make it tough and 
pliable. The size of wire to be used depends 
on circum.stances. The price increases with the 
size. Todd advises against the use of No. 3 or 
4 wire, and similar large sizes, for ordinary 
fences. " For fencing against small peaceable 
animals, like sheep," he says, "No. 12 or 13 
wire is sufficiently strong; and No. 9 will turn 
horses and anything that wears horns. Any 
animal that will thrust into a fence, when it is 
properly made, with force enough to break a 
sound No. 11 wire, should not have liberty in an 
open field." Two sizes of wire may properly 
be used in a fence; the smaller at the bottom. 

In fastening the wire to posts, either at the 
ends or intermediate, sharp corners should 
be avoided. At the terminus it may be put 
through the post and fastened; being attached 
(o other posts by staples, or let into a notch 
and held there by a strip of wood nailed .across. 
Or, the wires may be threaded through boles 
in every post. Tlie posts may be made smaller 
tlian for a board fence; but none should be less 
than 3 by 4 inches at the lower end, and 2 by 
3 at the top. 

Someakill and ingenuity are essential to the 
construction of a good wire fence; yet the 




method is simple enough when once under- 
stood. A single reach of wire should never be 
more than fifty rods — thirty is better. At one 
end of this should be the anchor post, where 
the beginning of the wires is fastened; at the 
other, two firmly .set straining posts, twice as 
large as the intermediate ones. At the end of 
every reach of wire should be the permanent 
straining posts. Mechanical appliances are 
nece.ssary to draw the wires to a uniform ten- 
sion, after their ends are strung through two- 
inch holes in the straining post; these appli- 
ances consisting of a round two-inch stick of 
tough wood ior each wire, turned in the holes 
of the second post, at right angles with the 
wire, with a wrench applied to its square end. 
The wire is wound 
upon this stick as 
upon a small reel, as 
shown in the accom- (| 
nying cut, strained by 
means of the wrench, 
and when perfectly 
laut, the stick is driv- 
en into the square 
hole in the side post, 
and thus the wire 
kept permanently stretched. The illustration 
represents the lower wires stretched, and the 
upper wire undergoing the process. The side 
post may be dispensed with, if square staples 
are driven firmly into the main post to hold 
the straining stick. 

In warm weather the wires expand with 
heat, and they should then be drawn tight; 
but they should be loosened a little in the Fall 
to allow for the contraction in Winter. The 
wires may be fastened at every post by driving 
the staples tight or plugging tlie holes; but it 
is generally considered better to fasten at every • 
eighth or tenth po.st. To prevent animals from - 
putting their heads through between the wires, , 
they are sometimes stayed with small well- 
annealed wire, bound up and down midway 
belween the posts. 

A tree at .each end of the reach of wire is 
much better than posts; it U very difficult to 
make posts sufficiently firm. In applying the 
wire to the fence, unroll it by trundling the 
coil along, this will prevent kinks. Wire 
fences of this kind can be made for twenty-live 
cents to one dollar a rod. Hon. H. F. Fkenoh 
made seventy rods, which proved effective, be- 
tween his corn and pasture fields, of No. 9 wire, 
at twenty-three cents a rod. 



520 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HOMESTEAD: 



Ded§rej«. — Araonj tlie most picturesque, 
<lnnil)le, and ecnnnmical fences, are hedges 
ni;ide of living plants, usually of thorny varie- 
ties, disposed to grow in a close and impervious 
manner. Hedges form one of the most strik- 
ing features of the European landscape, fre- 
quently dividing the estates from each other. 
In the moist English atmosphere tliey attain 
a deep green, which they never exhibit in this 
country, and the hawthorn and buckthorn be- 
come remarkably tougli and sturdy. 

It is asserted and wi<lely believed that hedges 
have proved a total failure in this country; 
but, while it is known that there are thousands 
of miles of heilges that will efTectually turn 
every kind of farm stock, the fact will be con- 
sidered worth at least as much as the theory. 
There are thousands of farmers who are certain 
that hedges make the very cheapest and most 
durable fence in tliose sections where stone and 
wood are scarce. The causes of the numerous 
failures generally lie either in the choice of a 
hedge-plant not adapted to the latitude, or in 
an improper treatment at the time of trans- 
planting, or insufficient care afterward, neglect 
lo cullivale, tiruidily in pruning, impatience to 
wait four years, and scarcity of labor. 

The English thorns generally fail as hedges 
in this country. Evergreen hedges of arbor- 
vitae, red cedar, or Norway spruce, are best 
adapted for shade and ornament here, but they 
are not so well calculated to resist stock as the 
deciduous thorn hushes, the Osage orange, honey 
locust, thorn locust, barberry, privet, etc. 

The Osage Orange, or Madura. — The Osage 
orange is the hedge plant of the United States. 
It has often failed; but the failure has usually 
been tlie fault of the hedger, not the plant. 
With proper culture, it will, in three or four 
years, grow a hedge so compact that no stock 
will pass it. William Neff, of Cincinnati, 
Ohio, one of the pioneers of hedging, affirms 
that "if rightly managed, it makes the best 
and cheapest fence in the world, without any 
special objection whatever." In the beauty of 
its foliage and fruit, its habit of spreading near 
the ground, the quickness of its growth, the 
stubbornness, elasticity, and density of its 
branches, the sharpness of its thorns, and im- 
munity from insect attack, it is unrivaled. It 
is tolerably hardy, but winter-kills in the lati- 
tude of upper Wisconsin and Minnesota. 

The Iowa Homestead, of a recent date. Bays : 
" A million Osage orange plants were sold and 
delivered in Madison county last fall. There 
are upwards of two hundred miles of Osage- 



orange hedge set out in that county alone, dur- 
ing the last three years, and there is a good 
prospect of seeing a hundred miles more set 
out this Spring." In Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, 
and Ohio, there are five times as many miles 
of Osage orange hedge as of all other sorts put 
together. Fifteen Osage orange plants, costing 
thirty cents, will make a rod. C. W. Marsh 
states in the Prairie Farmer that, si.xteen years 
ago, he set out two thousand plants, making 
eighty rods of fence. A proof of the good 
manner in which the work was done is fur- 
nished by the fact that all are growing to-day 
except two. He says he has exercised the 
same care that he should give in raising a 
good crop of corn. In five years an efficient 
hedge was formed, and it is now eleven years 
since the line was turned out as a fence, and no 
horse or horned animal has ever been through 
it in that time. One end has been used for the 
last three years as a fence for hog pasture, since 
which time no hogs or pigs have ever been 
through it. The cost has not been twenly-five 
cents per rod. 

The Honey Locust {Three-thorned Acacia.) — 
The honey locust is indigenous lo this coun- 
try, and is hardy, being somewhat introduced 
for hedges north of the line where tlie Osage 
thrives. It is common in the Western forests, 
and iittains the height and size of a tree if left 
to its own habit. It is armed with long ugly 
thorns, and when properly dwarfed and com- 
pacted by vigorous pruning is impervious to 
stock. As Dr. Warder says : " Vineyards 
and orchards enclosed with the three-thorned 
acacia would need little guarding against dep- 
redators." It grows very rapidly and strongly, 
survives the most relentless trimming, and 
tends to stout laterals, armed with menacing 
spikes. Timidity in pruning has been the chief 
cause of failure with the locust hedge — as, in- 
deed, with all others. But it is doubtful if any 
plant, whose natural growth is from twenty to 
fifty feet high, can be kept down within the 
bounds of an ordinary hedge, and retain a 
healthy state. 

The Barberry. — This is a natural dwarf, and 
is one of the very hardiest of wild shrubs, 
adapted to the extremities of our northwesttrp 
climate. It is highly ornamental, and bears 
crimson berries that make a grateful acid jelly, 
grows freely, is easily propagated from seed, 
does not sucher from the root, is sufficiently 
thorny, cattle will not eat it much, juid mice 
and insects not at all. It is recommended lor 
hedges by the Wisconsin Horticultural Soeiely, 



FENCES — HEDGE. 



521 



and is being tried in that State. It will not 
grow so compactly as the Osage hedge, but 
will probably make a good ?iib>itilute in the 
higher latitudes where that fails. The Wis- 
consin i'ajnie)' says : "The several e.xaniples of 
barberry about Lancaster, fioin five years old 
up to fourteen, are, so far as we know, the best 
in the Northwest, as indicating what it will 
amount to for usefulness. The lots, fourteen 
years old, are about ten feet high, and would 
defy all the stock in the country', and we can 
hardly see how a regiment of infantry armed 
with bayoneted muskets could break through. 
The lots five to seven years old, about seven 
feet high, aA hardly so impenetrable as the 
elder, but would certainly turn any kind of 
slock. Perhaps the best method of starting a 
barberry hedge would be, to plant the young 
stools three feet apart and fill up by layering 
between." 

The Oneida Circular says : " We have a bar- 
berry-hedge on our grounds at Wallingford, 
Connecticut, twenty-five rods long, and nine 
years old from the seed. This hedge has been 
clipped a little two or three times, to keep it 
even, and is now six to ten feet high, with a 
firm, compact base, perfectly impervious to the 
smaller animals, and stout enough to turn cat- 
tle." The canes of each stand ultimately number 
seventy to one hundred, thrown from a single 
center, just as the twenty to thirty rye straws 
proceed from a single grain. These canes rise 
in a curve at first, then assume a perpendicular, 
the top of the common stand rising each year, 
till a height of eight to ten feet is attained, 
after which there appears no further increase 
of the height. 

P. Allvn, of Benton Harbor, Michigan, 
writes : " t)ne fact is worth half a dozen guesses. 
Four years ago I planted ten rods of small bar- 
berry plants for a hedge on my place. That 
hedge now appears much like a perfect fence. 
Man or beast would try more than once before 
passing through it. Two years more of such 
growth as it had last year would make it hog- 
tiglit, horse-high, and bull-strong. I do fully 
believe tliat the barberry is yet destined to be- 
come the great hedge plant of America." 

The new American Cyclopedia, in speaking 
of the barberry, says "it lives for centuries." 
This is probably the hardiest plant now used in 
America for hedges. 

The notion that the barberry communicates 
fungus o^other diseases to wheat, wliicli has 
prejudicea many farmers against it in the West, 
is a ro'olisb fiction, without a shadow of founda- 



tion in fact. It is one of the healthiest and 
toughest of plants. The fungus that sometimes 
grows on it, is not communicable. 

Other Kinds of Hedge. — The English haw- 
thorn is said to make good hedges in Canada; 
but being a native of a more humid clime 
than ours, it usually sheds its foliage iu our 
dry Summers, making it much less attjactive 
and protective. The cockspur has been used 
to some extent ; not enough to test its general 
adaptation to our needs. There are certain 
black thorns, native to the Western States, that 
make a good hedge when properly trimmed 
and cared for. The buckthorn succeeds well, 
and is considerably used; it bears close prun- 
ing, and is possessed of remarkable vitality. 

Taking all things into account, the American 
arborvitse is the best evergreen hedge plant. 
No matter how old it is", it has always a ten- 
dency to keep furnished with foliage to the 
ground, wliich is essential to a good hedge 
plant; and as it grows slow, and conically, it 
can be kept in trim with little care or cost. 
The Norway spruce makes an admirable pro- 
tective evergreen hedge, if allowed to have 
about four feet of a base, and trained to a 
truncate form, as indeed, all evergreen hedges 
should be. 

The Cherokee rose has been extensively 
grown for hedges in Georgia, Alabama, Missis- 
sippi, and Louisiana, thriving as far north a.s 
Memphis. M. W. Phillips, the veteran edi- 
tor of the Southern Farmer, says: "The Chero- 
kee rose is a pure white fragrant flower, single, 
with bright yellow center, and the foliage is a 
rich bright green." 

It is an easy matter to get a fencing of this 
rose started. Take the runners, cut them in 
pieces about a foot long, lay these in a furrow, 
with one end protruding, and tread the earth 
down. They will be almost certain to grow. 
In four years you will have an impenetrable 
fence, which fire only will be able to destroy. 

Says Mr. Phillips: "My plan is — I throw 
up a ridge with four or six furrows of the turn- 
ing plow, having laid off a row to bed to; I 
then barrow down fine with an iron-tootli bar- 
row ; I then stretch a line, make holes slanting 
under the line with a dibble, and then insert 
the cuttings some six inches deep, and press 
the earth firmly on tliem. My plants are put 
in about one foot apart." Out of a mile of 
hedging set out, nine out of ten cuttings lived. 
The great difiicuhy with this rose for hedging 
is to keep it in due bounds. 

Cultivation of Hedgee. — In planting for the 



522 



ARCHITECTUKE OK THE HOMESTEAD: 



Osnge orange, great care sliould be taken to 
select good seed. Tlie bpst nietliod of spront- 
ing tlie seed is as follows: Soak tliein in warm 
water from thirty to forty hours; then put them 
into shallow boxes not more than four or five 
inches deep; to every quart of seed adil a pint 
of sand, then mix thoroughly, keep in a warm 
place, and wet it as often as twice a day with 
tepid water. Seeds attended to as above, would 
sprout sutriciently in eight days to sow in the 
ground. If it is preferred, however, plants can 
be purchased at very reasonable rates. 

Much care should be taken in the selection 
of tlie ground for the seed. It should be fertile, 
and as free as possible from the seeds of grass 
and weeds. It should be mellow and incline 
to moisture, but not subject to bake. 

In removing the plants — in Spring or Fall — 
a subsoil plow should be used, the share of 
which should be steel, quite large, and a.s flat as 
possible The plants should be cut off eight or 
ten inches below the .surface of the ground. 

Preparatory to setting a hedge, the ground 
should be thoroughly broken up to the depth 
of twelve to fourteen inches, the "lands" being 
at least eif;ht feet wide. By setting the plants 
in the center of the " lands," there would be 
left spaces four feet wide on each side to culti- 
vate. After the ground has been fully pre- 
]iared, the row should be staked off and a line 
stretched along its length to work by. The 
lioles for inserting the plants may be made 
with a stake about two feet long, rounded and 
sharpened at the end. These holes should be 
about nine inches apart for the smaller plants, 
into which the quicks should be inserted about 
an inch deeper than they grew in the nursery. 
Tills being done, the eartli should be well 
packed around the roots. Next comes the 
operation of cultivating, hoeing, plowing, etc. 
The spaces on both sides uf the hedge require 
thorough cultivation, and the ground kept 
clear of s:rass and weeds during the season. 

No plants should ever be set in a hedge 
nearer than nine inches apart, while the red 
cedar should be twenty inches, and the honey 
locust three feet. Overcrowding has spoiled 
many he<Iges. It is better to set the Osage 
orange in two parallel rows, a foot apart, and 
the plants eighteen inches apart in each row, 
having a quincunx arrangement, thus: 



SuEL Foster, of Iowa, remarking that 
shading is absolutely necessary fi»r the young 
plants, says that at Douglass' nursery, at 



Waukegan, tlii-ee modes are adopted: 1. Strips 
of building lath are nailed on two narrow 
strips of boards, so as to make screens four feet 
square, which are easily handled — the spaces 
between the lath admitting only one-half or 
one-third of the sun's ray.s. 2. Cross board.s 
are nailed horizontally, seven feet high, on tall 
posts, and brush worked in below the cross 
boards. 3. Brush is stuck up at the south side 
of the beds. 

Mulching is also resorted to successfully in 
the West; even the most careless hedger should 
throw down some refuse straw on the north 
side of his youn^ hedge to catch the snow. 

A hedge, lo be of any practical use, must 
be thick at the bottom, and therefore should 
be closely cut back while young, and often 
pruned, in order to force out lateral shoots 
near the ground. Conical forms are now gen- 
erally sought fur hedges. 

The next Spring after transplanting the 
plants must be cut off near the ground, below 
all the buds, just above the top of the roots. 
The roots then swell and put out a number of 
strong shoots. The hedge needs cultivation 
until the middle of June, when it should have 
another trimming, within two inches of tlie 
first. The second Spring it should be trimmed 
eight inches above former cutting, and in June 
eight inches higher. After this it needs but 
trimming once a year. 

" In March, before your hedge is three years 
old, plash it, i. e. cut half off close to the 
ground every first and second plant, leaving 
each third one standing, trimming the limbs 
off" of the third, leaving it like a stake, then 
take the top of the plants that are cut half off 
and bend them lengthwi.se with the hedge, 
weaving them together on allernate sides o£ 
the uprights, after the manner of basket-making. 
By this method you can have a fence that will 
turn any kind of stock at fouryears from plant- 
ing, by taking proper care of it." Dr. Warder 
thinks "plashing is a barbarous process, to be 
practiced only under a pressing necessity." 

It is strongly recommended by some experi- 
enced hedgers to apply the shears to tlie yoiMig 
hedge during the year of planting, but Dr. 
Warder deprecates this, and thinks that 
"great risk will be run of injuring the strength 
of the plant, by commencing the decapitation 
too soon." 

We ought here to say that the first and most 
imperative step for any man to take who is 
about hedging his lands, is to procure the ad- 
mirable work on Hedges and Evergreens, by 



FENCES — HEDGE. 



523 



Dr. John A. Wardek, of Cincinnati, editor 

of the Western HortlcultumI Jleoieiv. To tliat 

complete treatise our readers are indebted for 

some of the best suggestions of tliis article. 

We copy from Mural Affairs the accompany- 

. ing illustrations of the growth of 

y^r t hedge plant, and methods of prnn- 

5. Y^ — ni. It from the lime of transplant- 

-— J^ 11 , until it arrives at the perfection 
■^^?^ ol I complete hedge. 

Ihe dotted lines which we have 
rirsi im- , , , . 

Tkvn ii\\i indicated across the immature 
ID ijiii-K. plants show where the clipping 




June of Sk(( 
should be done at tlie 
different stages of 
growth. The angle 
gef, in the cut of 
"Spring of Fourth 
Year," and the angle 
ghf, in tlie cut of 
" End of Fourth 
Year," also repre- 



sent the lines of trinnjjiiig as the plant ap- 
proaches maturity, while the final trimming 
brings it to the desired form of the Gothic 
arch. The pruning, as indicated, must be re- 
lentless, or the result will be an unshapely 
hedge. The lines of pruning are a'.l repeated 



in the out " End of Fourth Year." This 
method of pruning, which is also recom- 
mended by Dr. Warder, does not contemplate 
tlie operation of " plashing," which is not 
adapted to all hedges. 

During this year, or the next at latest, the 
protective fence may be removed, and the fence 
may be turned out to cattle and all farm stock. 

Even after this time the hedge must receive 
attention and an occasional day's work. If a 
point gets weak, it must be protected by a 
fence while new quicks are set, or the old 
plants shorn off at the ground and trained 
anew to fill the gap. 

The operation of "plashing," or lopping a 
hedge, already described, may be practiced with 
excellent eflect in tlie renovation and recon- 
struction of a hedge whose proper pruning has 
been neglected — and of these there are hun- 
dreds of miles in the West. There are, in 
every State, hedges six to ten feet high that 
have practically had their own way, and now 
long rows of trees, a barrier against cattle, but 
no obstruction to the smaller farm stock. These 
ought immediately to be plashed — very early 
in Spring — by cutting the jjlants half off and 
bending them down with a pitchfork, length- 
wise of the hedge to an angle of 45°, or 
even lower. Kew shoots will soon grow from 
the stock and push up through the old top.s, 
forming an impenetrable hedge that should be 
rigidly pruned according to the method already 
given. 

Cost of Hedging. — Professor J. B. Turner, 
of Jack.sonville, Illinois, has his farm of a hun- 
dred and fifty acres surrounded and subdivided 
with four miles of hedges of the Osage or.inge, 
and he declares he will never allow anolher 
board or rail to be brought on his land for 
fences He estimates that ordinary rail fences 
would co.st S300 a mile, while hedge would not 
cost " more than $25 a mile." This would give 
a clear saving of $1,000 — whose annual interest 
will hire a man to attend to the hedges. To 
add to the comparative value, the-fences would 
all the while grow poorer, while the hedges con- 
stantly grow better. E. Miller, of Waverly, 
Illinois, says that "a good fence can be grown 
on good ground at filty cents per rod," and 
Henry Shaw, of Tazewell, says; "Had I time, 
I would agree to fence the whole Missi.'Jsippi 
Valley for twenty-five cents a rod for one kind, 
and fifty cents a rod for the other kind of 
hedge — to perfect them in three or four years." 
It will pay for an unskillful farmer to employ a 
professional hedger. 



THE WORKSHOP: 



Tools and Implements — What Kinds to Get, and How to Use Them. 



The Home W^orksliop.— Every 

owner of a house, wlio has much use fur tools, 
should have a workshop or room wliere ihcy 
may be stored and repaired, and where in lei- 
sure liours he can, if he be ingenious, mend 
tools, renovate broken pieces of household fur- 
niture, and even construct rustic chairs and 
lounges for the lawn, or footstools, ottomans, 
camp-chairs, picture-frames, and other articles 
of household use and adornment. 

As an Educator. — If lie have children, wheth- 
er boys or girls, lie should include in their edu- 
cation some instruction in the handy use of car- 
penter's tools, for such knowledge will he of real 
service during their lives; and the best legacy 
any man can leave to his children is to shoio 
litem liow to help themselves. Then, if they are not 
well served, it will be their own fault. Rural 
Affairs thus concludes: "A young man, who.se 
natural ingenuity is so developed by practice 
that he can at any moment repair a rake, adjust 
a scythe, fit in a new hoe-handle, set a clock in 
running order, sew a br(d<en harness, make a 
door-latch fasten easily, set a gale in good 
swinging condition, sharpen a penknife, give 
edge to a pair of scissors, mend an umbrella, 
repair a cistern pump, whitewash a ceiling, 
paper a room, stop a kaky roo'', make a, bee- 
hive, bottom a chair, and cobble and black his 
own boots, will pass through the world more 
comfortably to himself, and profitably to those 
around him, and be far more \TOrthy of the 
hand of the finest young woman in the country, 
than the idle and sluggish pretended gentle- 
man, with pockets full of cash earned by his 
father, and who is obliged to send for a me- 
chanic for all these services, which he is too 
helpless to perform liimself." 

As a Convenience. — Every farmer wortliy of 
the name, will .say "amen" to the last para- 
graph; and if the son follows his father's foot- 
steps, with such a workshop as we suggest 
always accessible, he ought soon to be able also 



to set an ax-Iielve, make a saw-horse, construct 
a harrow, strengthen a plow with a new beam 
or handle, hew out bar-posts, supply an o-T- 
yoke with bows, hoop or head a barrel, and do 
a hundred other things that demand immediate 
attention on every farm, and that rainy days 
furnish the opportunity for doing. 

Garden Tools. — Every dweller in city or vil- 
lage, who has a garden, especially if he al.so 
have something of an orchard attached, should 
provide himself with a decent set of horticul- 
tural implements of approved kinds. One 
great reason why gardens are so wretcliedly 
cultivated, why weeds are permitted to out- 
grow and smother valuable plants, why fruit 
trees become barren and decay, is the want of 
a good set of horticultural implements with 
which to guard against these evils. 

How frequently does the gardener in a lei- 
sure hour ob.serve the wants of a favorite tree, 
that it needs pruning, that his hedge needs 
trimming, that a favorite fruit should be bud- 
ded, or a hundred other things which should 
be attended to but are not, because the suitable 
tools are not within reach. 

The work of the garden may be greatly 
lightened and facilitated by the use of tools of 
the best materials and construction. A spade, 
with a sharp edge, or better still, a spading 
fork with stiff' steel tine.s, is all-important in 
the early processes of the garden. A pointed 
shovel with a long handle, saves a good deal 
of back work in transplanting shrubs and fruit 
trees. A sharp steel hoe, with a light, smooth 
handle, or what is better for many kinds of 
work, a prong-hoe, such as is often used for 
harvesting potatoes, is indispensable all through 
the season. The former is preferable for cut- 
ting off the stems of large weeds and hoeing 
corn and potatoes, the latter for covering the 
same at planting, as it loosens the soil to a 
considerable depth with ease and rapidity, and 
is not liable to clog in moist ground. 



■WORKSHOP — CONSTRUCTION AND OUTFIT OF. 



525 



For weeding, where the ground is not too 
rocky or uneven, a scuffle-hoe is advisable. It 
goes hy pushing, instead of drawing, as the 
common hoe. There are several new varieties 
of this kind of hoe. 

Another inpleraent, always in requisition in 
garden work, is a steel-tooth rake. The teeth 
should be pretty close together, and not of great 
length, as they are liable to break. Such a 
rake may be used, not only for raking off seed 
beds, and clearing them of weeds and stone.s, 
but also for destroying small weeds when they 
are just peeping above the surface. It will be 
found as well adapted for this purpose as is the 
brush harro^ in field cultivation. 

Hoes and spades should be kept sharp. They 
may be ground on the grindstone, or sharpened 
by a ra.sp or file. The latter may be carried 
witli you in the garden, and used as occasion 
requires, just as the rifle to whet a scythe. Thus 
treated, they may ncit last as long as if never 
sharpened, but if one will make the trial of a 
dull bee and of a sharp hoe, he will be sur- 
prised at the difference. No wonder it has 
p:isse(l into a proverb, "As dull as a hoe," 
when the operator never had wit enough to 
gixe an edge to it tin a-grindstone. The short 
lime and slight expense required for sharpen- 
ing a hoe, not less than a scythe, if it enables 
one to do more and better work with the same 
expenditure of strength, are not to be named in 
comparison with the benefit. 

Construction and Outfit of fVork- 
sliop. — To a farmer, sucli a workshop as we 
have suggested is well-nigh indispensable. It 
may be a building erected on purpose, or par- 
titioned off from the carriage-house, the corn- 
liouse, wood-house, or barn. Let it be neatly 
made, and not unpleasantly .situated, for it 
should be attractive and not repulsive to those 
for whom it is intended. It should be tight 
and light, and furnished with a small stove, so 
as to be comfortable in Winter. It should not 
be less than fifteen feet square — twenty is better. 

Along one end should be hung, on pins suit- 
ably adjusted, the farmer's smaller tool.s — his 
hammers, hatchets, buck-saw, grafting tools, 
trowel, axes, etc., each one in its place, where 
the hand may always be laid on it in a moment. 

Along one side of the room should the coarser 
tools of the form be similarly arranged. Nearly 
every tool can be hung on a spike or a pin, or 
between two. If hung perpendicularly, they 
will be most accessible, and will occupy the 
least room. The following cut shows how these 



tools will look when thus neatly and com- 
pactly stored. In order that each implement 
may always be in its place, the plan devised 
by TowNSEND Shakpless, of Philadelphia, is 



c/^ 




the best. Hang each tool in its position ; then 
draw its outline accurately on the board-wall 
with pencil or chalk; then, with a brush dipped 
in some dark-colored paint, make a distinct 
representation of the shape of the tool. These 
outlines will not only show where the tool 
should be put, but show at a moment if any 
has been left out of place. The consciousness 
that there is such a tell-tale in the tool room, 
will stimulate any careless laborer to return 
every thing which he takes ont. 

Every man ought to be willing to lend a tool 
to a neighbor, in a pinch (excepting his tooth- 
brush and razor), but the borrower should be 
given to understand that its prompt return is 
expected. If he fail to bring it back, the 
owner should go for it the moment it is due, 
and express his unwillingness to have it out of 
place. If this is done with decision and kind- 
ness, it will probably insure punctuality next 
time. 

With such a room, properly kept in order, 
the farmer will be saved hours of searching, 
many weary steps, and much vexation every 
year; and, besides this personal wear-and-tear, 
he will save greatly in the increased durability 
of his tools. 

On the opposite side of this room, under the 
window, should be the principal feature of the 
shop: 

The Work-Bench. — This should be ten to 
twelve feet long, two feet and a half or three 
feet wide, and about two feet nine or ten inches 
high — this last depending on the average height 
of the persons who are to use it. Any farmer 
can make one if he knows how to use a saw, 
plane, and chisel. The top should be made of 
three-inch plank of some hard wood; and the 
frame of timbers morticed solidly together and 



526 



THE ATORKSnOP : 



braced. The vice should consist of two jaws 
of hard timber, four by five inches sqnare, hav- 
ing a hinge near the floor, and extending six 
inches l\igher than the bencli, tlie tops being 
jirotected with iron caps. The bencli .slioiild 
also be furnished witli a sniall iron dog, or 
plane-hooli, movable, to catch the end of a 
board and hold it while it is being dressed on 
its side, and also a rest to hold it firmly on its 
edge. 

Back of the bench, on wooden pins, should 
be hung three different-sized planes, a saw-set, 
graduated augers, and hand-saws, a drawing- 
knife, a mallet, a wrench, a square and a tri- 
square, and a brace, below which there should 
be a to(d rack, for holding a variety of chisels, 
bits, files, gimlets, scratch-awl, etc. Kvery 
chisel, file, and bit should have its place; so 
should the screw-driver, and the jilaces never 
should he changed. There should be drawers 
under the work-bench, or against the wall at its 
end, or a large box with a bow-handle, subdi- 
vided for nails and screws of various sizes, nuts, 
bolts, rivets, brads, tacks, etc. Here should be 
found whitewash, paints, oils, and brushes; ce- 
ment, pruning, and grafting tools; syringes for 
irrigating plants; glass, glue, nails, screws, 
putty, glazing tools, whetstones, and, indeed, 
every article that may be required in keeping 
the premises and apparatus of the farm in a 
stale of complete repair. 

A part of these tools will be sufficient to be- 
gin with; indeed, the bench can be decently 
fitted up for from ten to twenty-five dollars, 
and other things can be added, when conve- 
nient, from time to time. If the farmer have 
many hoop-poles to make, a shaving-horse for 
using the drawing-knife will be requisite. It 
will also be desirable to have an anvil; if he 
can not purchase an old one, any heavy piece 
of iron will answer. 

Value of a Worl;shiyp.—\l is alwa3'S perplex- 
ing and unpleasant, and not unfrequently a 
cause of much expense, to be compelled to run 
to the carpenter or blacksmith every time a 
hinge is replaced, a wheelbarrow injured, or a 
strap broken. A little skill in the use of tools — 
and this any person of moderate capacity can 
readily acquire — will enable one to save many 
dollars annually, besides furnisliing pleasura- 
ble and profitable employment for many an 
otherwise idle, and, perhaps, painful hour. 

One of the component parts of a good farmer 
is mechanical ingenuity. Some lose half a day's 
valuable time, for want of knowing how to re- 
pair a breakage which an iogenious person 



could do in five minutes. A team and two or 
three men are sometimes stopped a whole day, 
at a critical season, for want of a little mechan- 
ical skill and a few tools. 

.\fter a brief e.vperience at the bench, an en- 
terprising farmer will repair some of his imple- 
ments better than a mechanic would. But he 
mu.st learn not to be satisfied with botch-work. 
Better never have a work-bench, even if it were 
given to him, than to use it, as some farmers 
do, in patching their implements cluniaily. 

Oct the Best Implements. — Every farmer should 
not only aim to provide a complete set of farm- 
ing implements, but that set should be of the 
most approved construction and the best quality. 
It is wretched economy to place awkward, un- 
wieldy tools in the hands of laborers, when 
light, convenient, and equally durable ones may 
be had for the same price. Even if the besi 
cost a third more, they are almost alw.ays 
cheapest, for they not only spare the backs of 
the workmen, but secure a greater amount of 
work. With what care should the farmer select 
his plows ! How earnestly endeavor to procure 
those of the lightest draught and easiest man- 
agement! The comfort of his horses demands 
this, and the extra amount of time and money 
expended in the selection will be more than 
repaid by the better condition of his horses or 
oxen, and the superior manner in which the 
work is done. No sign denotes a good farmer 
more certainly than the pattern and condition 
of his implements. Especially is there an in- 
fallible test of his thrift in his 

Care of Tools. — Every teamster who is 
fit for his business, when he puts up his team 
after a day's drive, will take care not only to 
see that they have a suit.able supply of feed and 
water, but will rub them down, clean and dry, 
and make them externally comfortable, because 
he knows it to be essential to their health, 
vigor, and continued usefulness. The engineer, 
when he stops his engine, will pursue much the 
same course with the iron muscles of his ma- 
chine. He will rub them dry and bright, and 
forestall the mischievous tricks of old oxygen 
by oiling every part exposed to air or water. 
The carpenter does the same with the imple- 
ments of his art, and the mason never lays 
down his trowel for a single hour without first 
wiping it dry and putting it in a dry place, or 
thrusting it in and out of the mortar, and thus 
giving it the defense of the lime. 

Of all the implements of human effort, none 
are so commonly and so sadly neglected as 



CARE OF TOOLS. 



527 



thnse of tlie farnipr, while none need more 
vif,'il:int cure in order to secure tlieir durability 
and efficiency. Very coniruonly the lioe is left 
witli llie blade covered with damp earth and 
resting on the ground lor days and perhaps 
weeks together, and the same v.-ith the spade 
and shovel. The plow is left at the end of the 
last furrow in the field, half beam deep in the 
ground, or thrown out beside the fence, or left 
out in the barn-yard, until it is next wanted. 
Scythes and pitchforks, and even reapers and 
mowers, drills and cultivators, wagons and 
carts, too often fare similarly, and their me- 
tallic portions are left to oxydize, and the wood 
parts to cracft in the sun and rot by the moist- 
ure to which they are exposed, and when next 
wanted, are in wretched condition for use. We 
have seen an expen.sive reaper standing two 
feet deep in snow in midwinter. It wa.s safe 
to infer that the owner's farm was mortgaged, 
or else that he worked unnecessarily hard to 
keep out of debt. 

Let any one take a hoe or a spade, for in- 
stance, that is black and rust-eaten, and work 
with it for an hour, and then try one that has 
been kept bright and clean, and he will see the 
difference. When an implement of this kind 
has once become rusted over, it may be par- 
tially recovered by scouring in use at a great 
expense of extra labor, but it will never be 
wliat it once was. A .saw or a trowel, when 
once badly rusted, is as good as ruined. You 
may scour it as long as you will, it will never 
ag:iin work smoothly and easily as one will 
that has been kept bright and free from rust. 
I; is just so with any polished metallic surface 
used in farming. It is eaten full of little cavi- 
ties which will secrete dirt and moisture, and 
keep up a corrosion which defies all efforts at 
arre.sting or rubbing it out, and it is a heavy, 
dragging tool forever afterward; no matter 
whether the surface be that of a hoe, a spade, 
a plowshare or a journal and box, it will ever 
be a diag on man or beast. Everything of this 
kind should be cleaned and wiped dry every 
night when in use, and not left exposed even to 
the dew of a single night without being first 
nibbed over with fresh grease, and when done 
with for a time, should be oiled and stored in 
a dry place. 

Especially is it unpardonable to leave the 
nioie expensive kinds of machinery exposed to 
the weather. They are liable enough to injury 
by unavoidable exposure in use, but when they 
are left to stand out for months, exposed to sun- 
shine and rain, it is a reckless waste of money. 



The wood and unpolished iron work of all val- 
uable machinery on the farm should frequently 
receive a fresh coat of paint, as from the nature 
of the service it is liable soon to wear oil', and 
an occasional coat of yellow ochre — which is 
cheap and durable, and will not cause the wood 
to warp — will save its small cost many times 
over. Whenever a machine is laid by for the 
season, every journal and box should be care- 
fully cleaned and supplied with fresh oil. An 
occasional coat of linseeil oil upon hoe, fork, 
spade, and shovel handles will have nearly the 
same preservative efl'ect as paint, and add much 
to their agreeableness to the hand. 

Linseed oil is not used freely enough by 
farmers or even by mechanics. Every farmer 
should have a can of oil and a brush at hand, 
and whenever he buys a new tool should .satu- 
rate its wooden parts well with the oil, and dry 
it in by the fire, or in the sun, before using. 
By this treatment the wood is toughened and 
strengthened, and rendered impervious to wa- 
ter. Wet a new hay-rake and dry it, and it 
will begin to be loose in the joints. If we oil 
it the wet will have slight effect. Shovels and 
forks are preserved from creaking and crack- 
ing in' the lop of the handle by ailing. The 
wood becomes smooth and glossy by use, and is 
far less liable to blister the hand when long 
used. Ax and hammer handles often break off 
where the wood enters tlie iron. This part 
particularly should be toughened with oil, to 
secure durability. Oiling the wood in the eye 
of the ax will jirevent its swelling and shrink- 
ing, and sometimes getting loo.se. The tools on 
an extensive farm co.st a large sum of money. 
They should be of the most approved kinds. 
It is poor economy, in times of high prices of 
labor, to set a man at work with old-fashioned 
implements. Laborers should be required to 
return their tools to the convenient place pro- 
vided for tliem, after using. They should be 
put away clean and bright. The mold-boards 
of |)!uws are apt to get rusty from one season to 
another, even if sheltered. They should be 
brushed over with a few drops of oil when put 
away, and they will then remain in good order 
till they are wanted. 

Presermtion of Wood. — The following appli- 
cation is used in Germany for the preservation 
of wood : Mix forty parts of chalk, forty of 
resin, four of linseed oil, melting them to- 
gether in an iron pot ; then add one part of 
native oxide of copper, and afterward, with 
care, one part sulphuric acid. The mixture, 
while hot, is applied to the wood by means of 



r.iiH 



■IIIK WllUKMIIIll- 



It lirilHli; wlii'ri dry, It fiiiiiin n viiiiii.ili Imiil iih 
(•limit, 

'I'llll ClplloHillK in Irl'MlllllKIKlnl liil llry-lill ill 
lillllll'l', nij ih< In liilll<i^ ll illili'itli'lll'liliil! Iiy 

Wilier: Mi'll lui'lvi' Kiiiiri'H III' ii'..iii in mi irmi 
|iiil; mill lliii'i' KitlliiiiH III' I ruin ml, iiiiil lliri-it 
or iKiir iiilln III' lirliiiMliiiii'; wlii'ii lliii liiiiii- 
ulnni' iiiiil ri'Hiii iiri- iiirlli'il iiiiil lii'i'iiini', lliin, 
mill IIH iiMii ll S|iiiiiinli lit'iiwn, iii' iimI iiihI yi'llnw 
rii'lili', III liny iilliiT rnlnr ii'i|uiir(l, lirnl uriiiiiiil 

lllIK Hilll 1M„n.' nil, III. will yWr ll.l' wlinjll It 
hIiiiiIi' III III.' a.{illi iHi'li'iii'il; llirii liiy i|. iin 
Willi II linii.li MX linl mill lliiii an |ini.Hilili' ; hiiiiii' 
llliin nl'liT llii' llrnl. nml ih ilrii'il, kIvii h ll nir- 

(lllll. TIliH |ll'l'|ilirillillll will IHI'hlTVI' pIllllliH 

for IIKi'i, lilxl l.i'i'|> IIk' Wi'lilliii hum ililvili;{ 
lliriiiiKli lii'irk wni'K. 

I'.iUhIiIn,, rimim. Kll.nw k''''""i'i lil"'nilly ii|i- 
plii'il, iiii^lil III Ki'ip II jiliiw friiiii I'liHliiiK iiiiii'li; 
lilll nil I'liniiiiK IVnlii llir lii'lil I'vci'y |ilnw nliniilil 
111' liilli'lii'il ii|i wllli KiMiii. nnri, iil' frcHli ki'I'Uhi'. 
A inlxllli'i' III' llii'i'i' |iiiilH liiril iinil nim purl 

ri'Hill, llli'lli'il In^V'llirl, I'nrl Ill' nl I lir IlI'Mt 

CiiiitliiKH r.ir III! nli'.'l ..I iinii iiii|ilii.i.'nli.. Tim 
llinl UlllKi'M III!' ri'xill Kiill, whilr llir InlliT in ll 

Hiini pri'Vi'iilivi' iikiiIiihI iiiMtliiK. 

lint KIIIIII'lillll'H, ill till. Illllllirt III' ll CIII'I'IcKH 

or II liiXY IIIII11, II pinw will Ki'l niHly; llicii it 
nliiililil III' I'li'iini'ii ininii'iliiili'ly. 

Till. /•'iin» .limriuil hiikhi'iiIm IIiiiI il' tlinHc wlin 
wIhIi III Hpiiir lliniiHi'lvi'K III!' Iiniilili- nl' pnliHli- 
lli|{ II rilnly iiiiilil-liniiiil, will liiivi' I'l'iiiiii'iir (ii 
iilliriiilii' iiriil qiiilii a clii'iip ailiciU' - limy will 
find that llm iiciil will imt Imii'li llii. inm, bill, 
will ri'iiili'i' llic ninl Huliililr anil I'liHlly rriiinvi'il, 
Nil I'liriMi'i' nIiiiiiIiI iillnw llii' Hiii'liiri> In ri'iiiiiin 
iiinlNt Willi any ai'lil I'nr Iwi'iily-rniir liniiri*. 
Miirir,:lc mill will ilnllir wnili ill llvi. iniiiiili'i', 
mill hIiimiIiI U. I'lllmi' wanlinl nil', iir rlraimnl liy 
niiiiiInK iIu'iiiikIi llii'xnil, willmni ili'lay. 

Nailn, rut or wrniij^'lit, iiiiiy In- rrii.lcri'il al- 

IIKiHl iiiipi'i'iKliiililr, liy linillii;; llirii ally I'l'il- 

liiil in II llri'-nliiivi'l, anil llini ilrnpplii); lliciii 
lull) II ^!la/.ril vi'xm'l i'niiliiiniii>: liain nil. Tliry 
iilmnrli rimnKli nil In I'lialilr llii'iii piii'iiiiiiirntly 
III ri'«i»i riiBl, Or nit iiiiIIh niiiy lir pioporly an- 
nriili'il liy liralillK ri'il-lint, ami I'nnliiiK uriiilli- 
iilly in till' lire uIiIIk it liiirn» ilnwn ami )^w* 
mil. (111.' iMcli miil, wi-ll .•linrliiil, will lir 
wnrlli, I'nr ini'inliii;; iinpliiiii iili., liiiH' ii .In/.rn 
iiniiniii'iili'il. 

ToHiuvlnin: IIi'Ul il In a wliilr lii'al, pill il 
In n vici', anil ll will huw nfl' lilui wmul. 

Utinij iif n Wrntrh. 'riniNii wlm wmilil lirrp 
(lielr IiiikkI^''* i»>>I I'lirrlaKCH, nr I'Vi'ii tliL'ir lU'liI 



iniicliilii'H, iiiKniiil nrilor, hIiiiiiIiI pliirii ;i wri'lii^li 
nil I'Vciy lint at li-iint niiir a imiiilli. 'I'liix will 
Hiivi' lililH, navi! Iiiillx, ami pii'vint lalllltiK, ami 
wi'iir mill liiiir. 

Wf liavil Hnllli'limri. luinWIi lllll>< nll I lil'i'»liinK 
imii'liiiii'H, oirrnlar hiiwh, I'lr., in lii' Imiml hii 
iIkIiI tliiit nil wi'imrli wniilil riiiinvi' llii'in. 'I'liia 
wan lirraiiHi' llii'y liail lirni lirlil in llir liiiml, nr 
llm pnrlii'l, till llii-y lii'i'iimi' warm, ami liiUiK > 
tlii'ii appliiil In viry inlil unirwa in WiiiliT llii'y 
I'lintriii'lcil liy I'linling nl'lrr mi, ami llnni In-M tlm 
ccriiw Willi UN iiniiinv:ilili' Ki''ii'p. Alwaymivniil 
piilliiiX a warm mil nn a rnlil xriiiw ; ami, ti> 
ri'iiinvii il, apply a. \nv\!,f liralnl irnii in rnnliiiil 
Willi llii' mil, nil IIH In liral ami {'.ipaiiil il, ami il 

will liKiHi'ii at mil ' a rinlli » .1 will. Iiiilliii){ 

wali-r will iiri'nmplii.li I In' i.a piiipni..'. 

ir ynn liiivii a Hcrrw ninli'il iiiln wnnil, or 
a mil nil II linll tliat will nnl ri'.iillly liirn, pour 
nil it a lillli. Ui.niHi'iii' iiml lit it ri'iiiain. In u 
liltlii wliilii (III' nil will pi'iii'lriiki tlm intin'HliocH 
nn lliat lliii Hi'i'i-w nr nut ran In; I'linily Htarlcil. 
A nnl tinit will nut yirlil In tliv Ivvi.niKi* of tlio 
wrriirli, iiiiiy Hniiu'liini'n lie nlarli'il by a huiIiIuii 
blow witli ll linmiiii'r ii^'iiiiiHl nnc rnrni'r, wliilo 
mi iix-lii-ail in pii'nnril iiKiiiiint llm rni ri'n|ioml< 
iiiK niili' III' Ihi' nirni'r iliiiKniially iippiwili'. 

Cnn- nf llariivm. Tlm Itiiml World HiiyH : 
"llnw lilll.' rare in Iii'hIiiwi!iI iipnii liiirnCHHl 
llnw il in llirnwn iiliniit iinywlii'i'ii mill itvory- 
wbiTi'l II in mil nilnl nr wanlu'il Irmii nni' yciir'n 
I'llll tnaiinllii'r. t 'min.'ipii'iil ly, llir Irallier mioil 
bni'oiiii'H I'litli'ii, ami llir liiirnrnH win IIiIvhk, 
IliiriiiwN In now vny IiikIi, ami it bi'liniivi'n liiriii- 
I'l'H III tiil(i< llin lii'Ht nl' rari' nl' il. ll iii'i'iln but 
litllii oiliiiKor Kri'iininn— nlii' nr Iwn appliraliiinii 
n yi'iir lii'iiiK I'liniiKli. Ilnti'Viry twn nr tlirco 
wi'i'kn it hIiiiuIiI III' wanlii'il wllli HiriiiiK riinlilu 
nnap-nmln. Tlinv in i'IhmikIi nil in llm nniip to 
K.'.'P llii' liMnii'i.i^ in Koixl I'lmilillnn. It nil 
in applinl iii'iiI'h Innt nil in I'niiMiil.n'il llio 
IiI'kI — ll nliiiiilil III- nni'il alh'r wanliiii); lliu 
liariii'nn willi llio ranlili' nnap, nay a rniiplu 
111' linnrn arii'rwaril. Ilavi' a nirii nnim plili'O 
in wlii.'li In liiiii^ y.iiir lianii'xn; ami alwayii 
put il in ill plar.', h« lliat ynn ran put yniir 
limiil on il at iiiKlit aH will an by ilay." 
'I'llll J'rairie lutrmrr Hiiyn : " Al'lrr niliiij{, llll ll 
npniiKK wllli till- wliili' III' I'KK". ><>nl iiKiiiii rub 
llll' I'lilirn barnrnn; lliin will impart a )(liiwi 
Hi'iiri'i'ly allaiimlili' in any olIuT way williniit 
injury In llm Inilliir." 

llll Hlirii anil rnvrr llir bilM nf yniir bri.lK'H 
Willi li'iitlirr. In pri'v.'iil llir Iriml 1111111 maUiiiK 
lliu nioillliH 111' vniir limni'H nnrr. It in iliiwii- 



fillAHI'KNINd KIHIK 'I'DOr.H. 



r.'>!) 



rij-lil, criii'lly (o |iiil Mii ij'.m lill iiiln ;i li.jr>i''M 
lliiilllh nil :i i'mM niuiliin-. II' ynli iloiilil iljiil 
yDlirhclr Willie I-., Ill (l;iy wllfll llli' uliTiMliy 

hIuiiiIh Iii'Iimv /.I'll.. 

SIlill'iK'llillK KiIk<''I'ooIN.— Mori' limn 

iini-liiiir or all III,' u<';ti' iimiI l.'iii', anil limilt'- 
aK(^ mill liiillicr of iliill IoiiIh coim'H IVoiii ii lank 
of |ii(i|M'r kiiowh'd),'!' and |niii'lici! in KfiniliiiK. 
(ii)o(l IoiiIh iii'i- iIic oIlKprinK of a ({ood Ki-jrid- 
nton(- and Hkill in iiKiiiu it; a poor k''"''' 
nl<in» in an aliiiiiHt inrallililc Hynilml of a liail 
farnii'i'. 

The. ijrilHUlmic Klimdil niiiliiT Ih' Iuo Imrd nor 
li.o Hoft iijioff ilH |,m|ii'i' nr\\. ili'|ii'iid ilH flll- 
cicnryMiiildiiiiilnlily. Ii.hIiimiIiI lie lliinly Iiiiiik 
on a loiiK Hliiin, willi I In' ci'ank al Inixl I wo I'itL 
rriini tin; Hlnnc, ho n» nol lo Inli'i'fi'i'c! willi lint 
opcralion of ({I'inilinK an ax, Hcyllic, or linifr 

of a cnllrr. h hIioiiIiI inn inTl'i'dly tini-. Ifjto point, uh mIiowo in 
(lie Hliafl 1)0 nol, piTclwly in ilH (•cnlci', im' l)i' til" animxrd (Mil, rep- j; '" 

not cxaclly a( i'i({lit anKleM lo lliii plane of tlie reKenlinx a Herlion of %/,////■ 

Hlone, it '.vill lie inipimxiliUi to ^lin'l pi'opi'rly'a well-Kronnd Heyllic, r 

oi'iaMilyn] il. AftiM' liilnx acniralely ImiiK, I "ii''i'"''l"l'''""ll>' ''*''''•■ / 

llicHtone Hlionid lii' Hliellei'ed, lor llie weal In'i' 1 ili'd. Tin: Hrnitelie» on ^/ "" 
will Kieatly all'cet il« (|naliiy. tlie Kid<' are pi'iidnced 

'I'arnnij Ike. SUine.- VVIien your )irind»loni: Ih l>y K'"i'i'lii'Ki "'n' ii'nn!t ' 

of a jierli'i'tly Hlniinlit fiife acroBH llic »(( , ; in the lini^ leelli viMilile ii(. Hie lop or edj(0 

l;i!(i' II lillle Kood lar, mid make a rin;; around of Hie ld:ii!e. 'I'lie li'ller a indii'MleM Hie end 
Hie Hloiie In (lie eenlii, .'iinl il will eiiiine II li, I'lWard Hie pojiil. In {{rindinK II Heyllie, hold 



'I'JKM'dne of IooIh llmt eiil willi a I'liiihiiif,' 
ntroki) Hiionld nHiiiilly lie i^'roninl keener and 
on a more ohlnHir mi^'.le; while Hie eilf^re of 
IooIh Ihat eiil. willi a HlidiiiK nlroke miiy III! 
('oamer and Hiinner. 

Tim tool willi a HlidiiiK Htroke really enU hy 
Hdmini/, and ih nnmt elll'elivc^ when ilM thin ('iIk" 
lii'iirn a hIIkIiI Hin'ralnre or indcnlalioii, Heiireely 
viHilile lo (lie Milked eye^ hill Hlmidiiit( oiil iini- 
foriiily under a inii'roHeope. 'I'lieHe denlielcH 
hIiohIiI lean, al a nlixlit alible, in the tlire.ellini the. 
liml in 1.0 Mide in enllin;/, liki^ llie leelh of a well- 
Mel MltW. 

'I'o M'ellle Ihiiwdue, nil ididill),' Ioi.Im idiollld 
he applied lo Hie Hlone ohliipiely, ho that Ihe 
iieralehcH of th« Ki'it Hliall appear diagonally 
iii'roHH Hie hiiHil of Hie hiade, and thnn liiy Ihe 
Herralnrc in Hnil dinelion. In a Heyihe, Hie 
\lfK hIioiiIiI he );roiii>>l diagonally from Inil 




,l;.e np 



Ihe llliihlle, >.o IlH lo he 



Ihe heel raiiliei,i from yon, and II I^e lowiird 



veiii.nl for urindiiix a |ierh'i'l ed^(; on a lool. lyon, and iipjily Ihe hlade mo Hial llie HlCiiie will 
Yon need not lell your carelenH iieiKhhor lo ' n'Volve (owiird the eil(,'e, IiihIi'ImI id' from it. 

pleaxe to 1,'riiiil on Hie i'd|.o' of ihi' Hlone, lor lie] Il reipiireH iiIiiiohI iih n Ii care and idiill lo 

e.ua mil K'ind in Hie einier the Im will pii- wliela Hcyllie wi'll iih lo Kiind il well. The 
vent him from I'.oii-in;^ out Hm' middle and 
leavin;^ Hii' faee irri'unhir. 

llnm In llnid Ihe. Tn„l . The linililii-r of liolil- 



rille Hhoiild he of line ^'ril, e«pe.'i:illy If yonr 
hlade in a litlh' Hofl, mimI il idmuld he liandled 
dirxli-ronnly mid hiiil jiul „ii Ihr himit at every 



inx Hie lool on Hie Hlone ih'pindH, of eoiirhe, on Hiroke. iJon't wliel loo olleii, or your neinh- 
Ihe kind of tool, ami Homewlial, almi, upon ilH hoi'H will ri;;li(ly eoncliidi! thai your lool Ih poor, 
li'inpi-r. Wliellier it hIioiiIiI liewjnari!, or diiiK- '""i "i'"'" lili'dy, thai yon are cither nnHkillfnl 
onally auroHH till! Htoiie, in held to depend iilto- in wliettinx or indolent in mowing, iidlcr 
;{etlier on wlietliiir il in inlended to cm wiHi a , wear rml yonr Hcyllui with Ihe ki'uhh Hiaii with 
direct or an ohiiipie ntroke or, leilinieally, llie rillc. 

willi a criiHliiiiK or UHlidiii)- Htroke. MechanieH ! Wi) have iihciI the Hcylhe for our illilHtration, 
w ho arc ailcpl ill the art of grinding, hold Hipiiire notwitliHlandiiiff lliat it Ih liecomiii^ rapidly 
acroHH llicBlont! tlioHii impli'iiii^nlH thai cut with dlwolclc, IxicanHC it in a icprcHcntativc of otiior 
a (M'liHhiiiK Htrokti, and apply dinKonally IIiohu uiIk<! tiioU that i'ci|iiii'c Himilar trcalnienl. 
which cut willi a Hlidin){ or drawiiiK Hlrokc. | The Anijle of the. h'lhje. The iiiikIc to wliicli 
The HlliliiiK Hiroki! i'l far more en'cclive, and the cd^c of IooIh Hiionld he drawn, dcpenilH, aH 
heloii^'H lo tiiu Hcytlie, nickle, and riixor, and already inlimalcd, upon whether they liavu 
piirtially, iiInii, to till! ax, HliaviiiK-knife, iioi:ki;l- llie HiidiiiK or criiHliiiiK Htrokc. 'i'lic Yoiiii)( 
knife, und Htraw-cnttcr. 'I'lic criiHhiiiK Hiroko I<'arnic-r'H Mannal, a hook which v.vny farmer 
helon^H lo (lie iiiortiHiiiK (diinci, plane, linger, oliglit lo HHpiru to own, HlatcH the ohvioUH fact 
lolil cliimd, mower and reaper-iaillciH, HlieaiH, that " the more acute the niiKlc of the hiinil Ih, 
and many other co nmon imiilemenlH. the Ickh will he the force rcipiired to make il 

:a 



530 



THE WORKSHOP: 




cut," and represents that "the angle of the basil 
of a scythe is usu- 
ally about five de- 
grees — very acute," 
the angle of a cold 
chisel fifty degrees, 
the angle of draw- 
ing-knives and 
Biraw-cutter knives 
twenty degrees, and 
framing-chisels, plane-irons, and mower and 
reaper-knives, twenty degrees or a little more. 
Scissors should be ground at an angle of sixty 
degrees ; as should also all tools that are to 
cut iron, for this is "the angle of strength." 

VVe have no room for instructions in sharpen- 
ing mower and reaper-knives, chisels or augers, 
or in filing or setting saws. The farmer, if he 
be ingenious, will readily acquire skill in 
either. 

Sharpening Tools Chemically. — The following 
is translated from a German scientific journal, 
for the benefit of mechanics and laborers : "It 
has long been known that the simplest method 
of sharpening a razor is to put it for half an 
hour in water, to which has been added one- 
twentieth of its weight of muriatic acid, then 
lightly wipe it off', and after a few hours set it 
on a hone. The acid here supplies the place 
of a whoUstone by cori-oding the whole surface 
uniformly, so that nothing further than a 
smooth polish is necessary. The process never 
injures good blades, while badly hardened ones 
are frequently improved by it, although the 
cause of improvement remains unexplained. 
Of late this process has been applied to many 
other cutting implements. The workman, at 
at the beginning of his noon spell, or when he 
leaves off in the evening, moistens the blades 
of his tools with water acidified as above, the 
cost of which is almost nothing. This .saves 
the consumption of time and labor in whet- 
ting, which, moreover, .speedily wears on the 
blades. The mode of sharpening here indica- 
ted would be specially advantageous for sickles 
and scythes." 

Old saw tiles may be renewed by cleaning 
them of grease and putting them in a dilution 
of sulphuric acid — one ounce to a pint of water, 
till the acid has brought the teeth to an edge. 

l.ist of Farming- Tools.— We give 
here a list, prepared by J. J, Thomas, of the 
principal implements and machines needed to 
furnish a hundred and fifty acre farm devoted 



to mixed husbandry, and their approximate 
cost: 

3 plows fitted for work (stcrl plows are bmO »34 00 

I subs.iil plow; 1 double Miclim;ui plow 24 0(1 

I one-horn? plow ; 2 cultiviit.iis 22 00 

I harrow, S12; I roller, Sl" 22 00 

1 corn-pliintnr; 1 seed-drill 15 00 

1 wheiit-drill, $r.5; 1 fanniiiii-iiiill, *.'.'. 90 00 

1 root-slieer; 1 strato-ciitlir 20 00 

1 horse-nik.' ; 2 h;,nd-rHki-^ 10 00 

2 lain, w^.koik; 1 nne.l,,,i s, , ;ii I lOO 00 

Hay-i;i.-k ■ Ikm. I., Inriail 33 00 

1 sl./d ......I iiNrn,.-, .^;o; 1 ,-n,„l,j 1 mower and 

ri-ii|~ 1 153 00 

2scyth.- )_ .■ I .il -00 

Isliuxl I ... |. -1...... i , _' .|«'d..s 5 00 

2 iri.Mnii' : I I h II I ...1. - 6 00 

II..- :. ! I . I, . , 'i., ! |... I -'.......I, SI 11 00 

I I I I .. ., i. I 3 00 

...,,.,. I, , -., .,1 . 5 00 

L.it. . ,11,. I ...) .11 -.■.,.!., ,..-,- .; I:.ill-l.ii-h..|. SI 4 (K) 

1 iiKuil iui.l ui-ili;..s; I'ax; I «ood->ii« 4 00 

I wli. ill.,iii-.iw ; I srindstone S 00 

Haiid-lioi'.H. b.iskets, stablci lunl.rn. . nn m ..,,il.. 

hiiMnii.r. ete 5 00 

1 eildlefSS-ehaill liorso-powel" IhresUiug-liiacliiiie 

and fopaiatof 160 00 

I cireular»aw 30 00 

Plalforui scales fur weigbing Cttttlo, hay, elc 100 00 

Total SWS 00 



Modern Inventions. — We have said 
that the scythe is becoming obsolete. So are 
many other tools familiar to every adult 
farmer, and only a few years ago, deemed by 
him quite indispensable. Nothing shows pro- 
gressive agriculture in a more striking light 
than the rapid change in farm implements. 
More labor-saving machinery has been in- 
vented and brought into practical use upon the 
farm during the generation in which we write, 
tlian in all the previous history of the world! 

Compare the old wooden mold-board bull- 
plow with the modern self-polishing ca^t-steel 
counter-draught, or with the rotary plow that 
seems likely soon to hold the field against all 
rivals; the old-fashioned fiail with the horse- 
power threshing-machine; the clumsy methods 
of sowing with the improved drill ; the ancient 
scythe that could lay two acres a day at the 
expense of considerable cider and a lame back, 
with the mower that cuts ten times as much; 
Maud Muller's drowsy r.ake, with the revolv- 
ing horse-rakes that are driven by farmer's 
daughters across the prairies, sweeping up the 
windrows like the wind! An all-absorbing en- 
terprise and a brisk utility seem to be driving 
meditation from modern life. If there is any 
pastoral poetry left, it is laughed out of pro- 
priety by the patent-tedder skipping glibly 
about the field like an industrious grasshopper, 
or drowned in the hum of the reaping-machine 
that 



The following cuts represent some of the an- 
cient methods of sowing and harvesting, among 



TOOLS — THE BEST ARE THE CHEAPEST. 



531 



the Normans, the cut being made from 
lineation in an old manuscript : 




Throshing. Whetting Scythe. 

Norman Agricultdue. 

Without tlie improved machinery of the 
present day that performs the labor of so many 
men, it would be quite impossible to gather the 
harvests of this year. The farmers of New 
Kngland, compelled to till rocky and rugged 
land, and accustomed to small holdings, are 
not. generally, aware of the complete revolntion 
wrought by improved machinery on the great 
AVcstorn prairies. " Now," says S. E. Todd, 
" tlie infirm and the invalid, the lame and the 
hizy, who could never plow the fields, harvest 
tlie grain, or make the hay of a small farm, 
can ride to plow the land ; ride when putting in 
the seed; ride when scattering their fertilizers; 
ride when cultivating the growing crops; ride 
when mowing or harvesting ; ride when raking, 
and ride in an easy seat and accomplish more 
hard work in one hour than could be done in 
ten hours a few years ago, even by laboring 
with all the might of a strong man." 

We saw recently a corn-field on the Grand 
Prairie, in Illinois, in the plowing, planting, 
cultivating, and harvesting of which no man 
walked a step. A rotary spader, drawn by four 
liorses and driven by a man upon the box, 
plowed the field to a uniform depth of eight 
inches, and gave such thorough tilth that it was 
not necessary to use a harrow at all. A corn- 
planter, drawn by two horses and driven by a 
man upon the box, next planted the seed. A 
cultivator, drawn by two mules, one walking on 
each side of the knee-high corn, and driven by 
a man upon the box, completed the culture of 



a row at a single operation. In the tool-house 
lay another machine, also to be driven by 
horses, which was to cut down the corn when it 
was ripe, and still another machine to do the 
luisking at the rate of fifty bushels an hour! 
What were the dear old fairy stories to this? 

When it is remembered that the farmer who 
follows a common plow, or cultivator, during a 
long Summer's day, performs a march of from 
ten to fourteen miles, it will be seen what a 
boon is the machinery which relieves him from 
this toil. 

The farm of which this corn-field was a part, 
had seven hundred acres in a single field of 
timothy. Of what use would this be if it had 
to be cut by hand? But half a dozen harvest- 
ing machines suffice to cut it all in good time, 
and will do, without groaning, the work of 
half a regiment of men; patient horse-rakes 
gather it up; and two hay-presses upon the 
place compress it into bales fit for transporting. 
Seventeen and a half miles of board fence in- 
close a little more than litilf of this farm, which 
has, as part of its furniture, comfortable sheds 
for ten thousand sheep, a corn-crib, rat-proof, 
holding fifteen thousand bushels of corn, and 
extensive stabling for horses. 

The Best Tools are the Cheapest. — The best 
farm implements are always the most profitable 
to buy ; to express it paradoxically, the dearest 
are generally the cheapest. The amount of 
cajiital invested in them by our citizens is be- 
yond comprehension ; J. J. Thom.VS, in an ex- 
cellent essay in the United States Agricultural 
Report, for 1862, put it at five hundred million 
dollars! How.much of this is invested in poor 
tools ? and all poor tools are a bad investment, 
because they result in a loss equal to ten times 
their cost. 

The best steel hoe, light and well hung, may 
enable a laborer to do a fourth more work than 
a heavy and clumsy one, and this will amount 
in a season, to several days' work — many times 
the difference in expense. Collins' cast-steel 
plow may cost five dollars more than a coarse 
cast-iron one, but it will lastthriceas long and 
perform one-fifth more work with the same 
power. A laborer shoveling earth with a 
shovel only one pound heavier than a neatly- 
made light shovel, will exert strength to no 
purpose sufficient to throw up one pound of 
earth at every shovelful, which would amount 
to several tons in a short period of time. So 
of mowers and reapers, rakes and threshers ; 
a machine that will perform one-fifth more 
work than another, with the same power, is 



532 



THE WORKSHOP : 



usually worth twice as much, while the differ- 
ence in price is but a mere fraction of the dif- 
ference in value. 

In agricultural dynamics, tlie effective force 
of a horse, era horse-machine, is computed to 
be equal to the power of five strong, active la- 
borers. So a mowing-machine, drawn by two 
horses and driven by a man, should be, and a 
good one actually is, equal to the work of 
eleven men. From this calculation, it follows 
that a machine that will cut one-tenth more 
grass than another, is worth enough more to 
pay through the haying season the board and 
wages of one man. Our best mowers and reap- 
ers, horse-rakes, hay-tedders, horse-forks, and 
threshing machines, possess wonderful effi- 
ciency, and in some instances so far e.xceed this 
standard of merit that comparison makes the 
standard appear insignificant. 

Mr. Todd, already quoted, estimates that an 
average day's work for a man, in flail-thresh- 
ing and cleaning grain, is as fallows: "Seven 
bushels of wheat, eighteen bushels of oats, fif- 
teen bushels of barley, eight bushels of rye, or 
twenty bushels of buckwheat." For a thresh- 
ing machine he makes the following figures : 
"In order to labor economically and advan- 
tageously with a threshing machine, two horses, 
at least, and three men are necessary. In 
most instances four or five men will be re- 
quired, which will make a force equal to fifteen 
men with flails; Such a gang of hands, and 
two good horses, with such a thresher and 
cleaner as Harder's, are capable of threshing 
and cleaning, of the same kind of grain to 
which allusion has been made, one hundred 
and seventy bushels of wheat, three hundred 
and twenty-five of oats, two hundred and 
twenty of barley, one hundred and eighty of 
rye, or two hundred and si.xty of buckwheat." 

The farmer who buys the poorest machinery 
because it is the cheapest at first cost, makes 
the same mistake as the gardener who bought 
poor seed because it was " cheap," or the team- 
ster who favored his sick horse by giving him 
the short end of the whiftlelree. 

We shall refer briefly to some of the recent 
improvements in Farm Machinery, premising 
that this .short treatise is only intended to be 
suggestive, not e.xhaustive. Every year brings 
enough additional improvements to make a 
volume. 

The change wrought in implements of pre- 
paratory tillage are fewer than tho.se in the de- 
partments of culture and the harvest, yet they 
are sufficient to justify a running historical 



sketch. First in order, as first in the field in 
Spring, is 

The Plow. — The plow, in its primitive 
form, must have been one of the earliest imple- 
ments fashioned by the human hand. We can 
scarcely be certain that Cain had a plow, 
when, a young man of a hundred and fifty, he 
farmed it in the suburbs of the city of Enoch, 
" to the eastward of Eden ;" but even Adam 
might have survived to .see one, for he is said 
to have lived the best part of a thousand years, 
and doubtless saw the sparks fly from the anvil 
of Tubal Cain, his blacksmith descendant of 
the fourth generation. 

Both Moses and Samuel speak of a plow, 
which, like the modern plow, was drawn by 
a yoke of o.xen, as it was forbidden by law to 
yoke an ox and an ass together. The early 
Greek plow had a wheel. Most of the old 
rustic authors referred to the plow; ViKGiL 
wrote of it in the Georgics; Homer sang of it; 
and Pliny, Hesiod, and vStrabo .spoke of the 
methods of making it. Varro mentions a 
plow with two mold board.s. 

Ancient Ploivs. — The first plow of which we 
have any delineation is figured roughly on 
the monuments of Egypt. Figure 1 is be- 
lieved to represent the original of all plows. 




Fig. 1— Ancient Plow. 

It was sometimes formed of the limb of a tree, 
and sometimes of the body and tough root of a 
sapling; the lower end being hewed to a wedge. 
The plowman occasionally worked the imple- 
ment by himself, applying his foot to the pro- 
jecting pin, like a spade; but was oftener as- 
sisted by a team composed of a grown daughter 
and her mother, or it may be her grandmother 
attached to it by rawhide or hempen thongs. 
This same contrivance, shod with iron, is at 
the present day used for a plow in the Hebrides. 

The plow still in use 
in Palestine (figure ^) is 
made entirely of three 
sticks, adjusted to support 
each other, as shown in 
the illustration. This is '''=• 




533 



drawn by a cow or an a.ss; sometimes by a 
camel and buffalo yoked together. 




Fig. 4— Mangalore Plow. 

Figures 3 and 4 exhibit the plows of China 
and the East Indie.s. These do not seem ever 
to have improved or changed in any important 




Fig. .V- Roman Plow. 
respect Figure 5 represents the earliest Ro- 
man plow, which had hardly a rival in sim- 
plicity and rudeness. It appears to have been 
fashioned on the principle of the pickax. In 
later times was much improved. 




Fig. 6— Norman Plow. 

Figure 6 is an engraving of a Norman plow 
and plowman, from a sketch found in an an- 
ciL'nt British manuscript. The plowman car- 
ries a hatchet to break 'the clods; and the 
fiinlty perspective siiows it to be about as large 
as his team. 

The plow of the ancient Britons was very 
rude ; no man was regarded as fit to be a 



farmer until he could make Iiis own. The 
custom was to fasten the plow to the tails of 
the horses or oxen, and compel the beasts thua 
to drag it through the ground. An act of the 
Irish legislature was passed in 1634, entitled, 
"An act against plowing by the taile," which 
forbade the cruel custom ; but it was still prac- 
ticed in some parts of the island until the pres- 
ent century. The draft-pole was lashed to the 
tail of the horse, and as no harness was em- 
ployed, two men were necessary, one to guide 
and press upon the plow, the other to direct 
the hoi-se, which he did by walking backward 
before the miserable animal, and beating him 
on the head on either side, according to the 
direction required. The old Scotch plow was 
thirteen feet long; the iron part proper being 
over four feet. 

Modem Plows — Jethro Tull, an enterpris- 
ing Englishman, in the early part of the last 
century, paid considerable attention to improv- 
ing the plow, and advocated deep tillage as 
necessary to good husbandry. The Dutch, 
however, were the first to bring the plow a 
little into its present shape. A century ago 
James Small, an ingenious Scotchman, was 
fashioning the fir.st cast-iron mold boards at 
his factory in Berwickshire; and twenty years 
later, Egbert Ransome added cast-iron shares, 
and soon learned to case-harden them. 

A few years later, in 1797, Charles Ne^- 
BOLD, of New Jersey, obtained a patent for the 
first cast-iron plow, but the farmers were so 
overwhelmingly in favor of the old wooden 
" bull plow," that he had to succumb to the op- 
position, after spending a fortune to introduce 
his invention. About the same time Thomas 
Jefferson published a scientific treatise, de- 
.scribing a plow of which he demonstrated that 
the shape of the mold-board was mathematic- 
ally correct to obtain a perfect furrow with the 
lightest draft. 

But to Jethro Wood, of Cayuga county, 
New York, more than to any other man, does 
America owe a debt of gratitude, for his ener- 
getic labors and sacrifices in perfecting, and 
bringing into general use, the cast-iron plow. 
He was opposed with the greatest bitterness 
d vigor; was chjirged with trying to ruin 
the wood-plow makers and to " poison the 
soil " with his mysterious cast-iron ; but he 
never turned aside. It is said of him that he 
whittled away bushels of potatoe.s, before he 
was able to bring out a minature form of a 
plow that suited him. Large potatoes were 
whittled into almost every conceivable form 



534 



THE -woRKsnov 



before the present convenient and efBcient curve 
of the mold-board was attained. Although Mr. 
Wood was one of tlie gri>atest benefactors of 
mankind by this admirable invention, he never 
received, for all his thought, anxiety, perplex- 
ity, and expense, a snra of money snflicient to 
defray the expenses of a decent burial. 

Through the genius and unflagging zeal of 
Jethro Wood, and of those who have suc- 
ceeded him, the cast-plow was introduced upon 
every farm in the Union, and has been the 
means of efJecting a pecuniary gain, in the ag- 
gregate, of several hundred million dollars. 

what is a Oood Plnw? — America furnishes a 
great variety of good plows, calculated for hill 
and plain, for all sorts of soil, and for every 
breadth and deptli of furrow. For an intelli- 
gent farmer to select a good plow from among 
these is not diflicult. We need not remind tlie 
reader that one plow will not do all kinds of 
work, any more than one auger will bore holes 
of all sizes. 

Every farmer buying a plow, .should insist 
on taking it on trial; this is far more satisfac- 
tory than a warranty, because the implement 
may be really a good one, but not adapted to 
the soil or the work required. Let the buyer 
make sure tliat its shape is such that it will 
turn the soil well ; that the wing is wide and cold 
chilled ; that the mold-board is high enough and 
twisted enough, even if the plow runs a foot 
deep, to fling all the earth out upon the slice, 
instead of spilling it over into the furrow; and 
that it is easy of draft. 

The Universal plow, invented by Governor 
HoLBROOK, of Vermont, and manufactured by 
NoURSE, Mason & Co., of Boston, is a valua- 
ble invention. It admits of a ready replacing 
of one mold-board by any other, according to 
the intended purpose or variation of the soil, 
several mold-boards belonging to each plow. 
This is one of the very best of cast-iron plows. 
Several manufacturers of cast-iron plows in this 
country produce ij great variety, in no less than 
a thousand different kinds and sizes — as the 
Peekskill Works at Peekskill, New York; 
Eemington & Co., of Ilion, and Alden & 
Co., of Auburn, and Ames & Co., of Boston. 

Sheet-Steel riou-s. — On the prairies of the 
West, and in other rich, adhesive molds, cast- 
iron plows are impracticable ; they scratch, and 
will not scour or run clear. So, at an early 
day, it was fotind necessary to introduce steel. 
The first steel plow was made, some forty years 
ago, by John Lane, near Lockport, Illinois, 
by welding together saw-mill saws in a sheet 



for a mold-board. This was found to be an 
immense improvement on cast-iron, and sheet- 
steel plows have since generally been used in 
the sticky soils of the West. 

But even these have failed to answer per- 
fectly. To produce a uniform temper has been 
found quite impossible; .so that, while one plow 
works admirably, the next, from the same maker 
is good for nothing — either it will not properly 
scour, or will soon wear out in gritly soils. The 
fiber and grains of the steel are often injured in 
the process of rolling and bending; and only a 
moiety are brought to the requisite temper for 
a good scouring plow. For years there has 
l>een an impatient demand for a better and 
more reliable steel implement. And at last the 
demand has been answered. 




The Collins Plou'.—'in 1860, F. F. Smith, an 
ingenious mechanic of Illinoi.s, disheartened in 
a prolonged effort to produce a .sheet-steel plow 
of uniform excellence, made his appearance at 
the Collins' works, in Hartford, Connecticut, a 
corporation already celebrated in the manufac- 
ture of axes and other tool.s — told wh.it .sort of 
a plow he thought was needed on the prairies, 
and said he believed he could make it. 

The company cordially joined him, and the 
result was a plow, cast solid, in iron molds, 
from molten cast-steel — the first ever made. It 
was found equally adaptable to turf, stubble, 
and fallow; and those who haveiised it in the 
West, aver that it'will easily scour and polish 
in any soil ; that it takes less friction and draw.s 
lighter than any other plow of the same furrow ; 
that it will plow perfectly from three to twelve 
inches in depth; that it will last five times as 
long as the cast-iron plow, and twice as long as 
the sheet-steel. Moreover, these plows are of 
%tniform excellence. Another palpable advan- 
tage is, that any section of the plow can be du- 
plicated at any time at a trifling expense in 
case of damage. The share can be sharpened 
by any blacksmith, as it is perfectly malleable; 
and cold and cabinet chisels, cork-screws, and 
knive.s, have been repeatedly made from frag- 
ments of these plows in different p;»rts of the 
country, to test the steel. Of some such stuff 



535 



must the plows have been made that turned up 
the valley of Jehosaphat; for Joel (chap, iii, 
verse 10) calls upon the farmers to forge them 
into swords. 

One hundred of these plows were made, and 
sold with great difficulty, in 1861. Now fifteen 
thousand a year are turned out, and an aggre- 
gate of til'ty thousand are inverting the sod of 
the West. Indeed, this cast cast-steel plow 
seetns liUely to supersede entirely the sheet- 
steel, wherever the latter has superseded the 
cast-iron. 

New Double Furrow Plow. — A new plow, in 
wliioli .some novel points of construction are 
worthy of retoarli, has lately been introduced 
in Great Britain. It turns two furrows at the 
same time, one share being slightly in advance 
of the other, and is claimed to save so much 
draft as to be able thus to accomplish double 
work with only the usual expenditure of power 
— requiring two or three horses, according to 
the nature of the soil. Without an illustration 
it is difficult to describe it very clearly, but as 
appears from a small engraving before us, il 
has two wheels, one' in front and one in rear, 
both set at such an angle and so shaped as to 
run against the side as well as on the bottom of 
tlie furrow— the one in advance running at 
the right in the I'urrow previously opened, and 
the back wheel at the left in the last furrow 
made by the plow itself. The landside and 
sole of tlie ordinary plow are wholly dispensed 
witJi, the wheels answering, the purpose com- 
pletely, and sustaining the whole thrust caused 
by lifting and turning the furrow-slice. This 
substitution of a rolling for a dragging friction, 
and the manner in. which it is accomplisbed by 
the position and form of the wheels, eli'ect the 
saving in draft which enables two furrows to 
be turned at one operation. 

Subsoil Plows. — The subsoil plow is drawn in 
the furrow made by the common plow. Its 
office is to break up the compact and imper- 
vious substratum of heavy soil, generally leav- 
ing it in the furrow where it is broken up. In 
regard to advantages of this, we quote from the 
essay of Mr. Thomas : A considerable diver- 
sity of opinion prevails as to the value of these 
plows. As it usually happens in such ca.ses of 
diversity, all are more or less in the right. 
Farming, as much as any occupation, requires 
a constant exerci.se of the judgment, or a com- 
bination of sound reasoning powers with expe- 
rience ^nd ob.servation. The farmer must vary 
his practice with circumstances: 1, A soil al- 
ready deep and loose does not need subsoiling. 



A gravelly bottom to the furrows would be lit- 
tle better after the passage of tliis implemeiit. 
2. A sterile subsoil supporting a rich topsoil 
would only .serve, when loosened, as a regulator 
of moisture, receiving water like a sponge dur- 
ing the time of heavy rains, and retaining it for 
periods of drought. It would not, of course, 
add to the fertility of the bed in which the 
roots of the crop e.xteiid themselves. 3. A 
heavy and undrained soil would be benefited 
only temporarily. The first heavy soaking 
it received would settle the whole mass back 
again nearly to its original degree of compact- 
ness. 4. But for any hard sub.soil, whether 
sterile or not, if naturally or artificially under- 
drained, subsoiling can scarcely ever fail to be 
.substantially useful, and its benefits last some 
years without a repetition of the process. 

If the subsoil is sterile, as already men- 
tioned, it becomes a reservoir or sponge, and 
tends to prevent both drowning out and 
drought ; and the gradual deepening process, 
which the best farmers desire, may be eflTected 
through its a.ssistance, by permitting the com- 
mon or trench plow to run a little deeper into 
the mellowed bed each successive year. There 
is nothing whicli will enable that form of the 
trench plow, known as the Double Michigan, 
to do its work in the most satisfactory manner 
better than a previous loosening by the sub- 
soiler, whether it be done one, two, or three 
years previously. Where both surface and 
under soil are naturally fertile, its advantages 
are rendered eminently conspicuous, and in 
such a case the trench plow may be used to its 
full depth without fear, the mixing of the two 
portions proving usually of great advantage. 
Soils so treated have frequently contributed to 
a greatly increased growth of wheat, and inva- 
riably to larger crops of carrots and beets. 
The observing farmer will readily determine 
which of these dift'erent circumstances are his 
own, and act accordingly. 

The object being merely to loosen up the 
under soil, a slight elevation of its substance, 
by means of the passage of a horizontal acute 
wedge a few inches below the bottom of a com- 
mon plowed furrow, is all that is necessary. 
The shank ccmnecting this horizontal wedge 
with the plow-beam should be tliin, that it may 
pa.ss easily forward through the subsoil. A 
good subsoil plow has no mold-board nor land- 
side. The implement is properly a pulverizer. 

Plmoinrj v)ilh Three Horses Abreast.— This is 
somewhat practiced, and with certain advan- 
tage. Farmers have long since observed, in 



536 



THE ^VORKSHOP: 



practice, tliat a horse will exert rancli more 
force when placed near the plow, sled, or 
vehicle to be drawn, than can be bronght to 
bear when a long draught-chain placed the 
team more remote. An experienced stage pro- 
prietor has given it as his opinion, that three 
horses placed abreast will draw his vehicle as 
well as four with two leaders in advance, in 
the usual way. Experiments in plowing point 
to nearly the same conclusion, and it is accord- 
ing to the principles of draught. The new 
center of draught can be adjusted by a clevis 
bent several inches to the left side of the beam. 
Three horses are driven by the plowman with 
the same facility as a two-horse team, and do 
not require an additional driver, as becomes 
necessary with four. As a deeper cultivation 
would improve the character of farming, in all 
places where the quality of the soil properly 
admits it, there is no doubt that the general 
adoption of the three-horse system would be- 
come a considerable agent in improved agri- 
culture. 

Steam Plowing. — In the benefits of the activ- 
ity of agricultural invention, the plow has not 
fully participated. From the old bull-plow to 
the Collins or Comstock's Rotary Spader, 
there is nothing like the stride that there is 
from the sickle to the Buckeye reaper. 

\ new plow is now needed as much as a 
new reaper was. The old depth of cultivation 
ought not to be longer continued. Men have 
learned that a wealthier Republic underlies the 
present Republic; that three thousand million 
dollars are buried within six inches of the 
present depth of culture. But this treasure can 
not he economically mined except by tlie power 
of steam to propel the plow. It can not be 
that the means of doubling the present depth 
of plowing are more difficult of attainment 
than the reaper, the sewing-machine, tlie loco- 
motive — yet the steam plow is as important as 
either. 

Half a dozen steam plows have been pat- 
ented every year in this country for the last ten 
years; yet none have proved successful. The 
inventors generally retain th^ principle of 
dragging the plow through the soil, though all 
experience has tended to show that the im- 
plement that is at last to succeed will stir the 
earth by a rotary motion. 

The only steam plow that has practically 
proved successful to any considerable extent, is 
Fowler's traction-gang plow — an English in- 
vention. These plows have been in use in 
England for fifteen years, and four thousand of 



them are at work there. The Viceroy of 
Egypt has also four hundred of them in use 
in his dominions; and the result is a vast im- 
provement in culture, and a remarkable in- 
crease in the cotton crop. There are now 
(1869) only four of Fowler's plows in use in 
the United States — one in Louisiana, one in 
New Jersey, and two in Illinois. 

By the plow now working in Louisiana eight 
acres of ground per day are broken up, being 
plowed fourteen inches deep through a soil of 
unsurpassed toughne.ss ; after which the steam 
cultivator is u.sed, which occupies a place be- 
tween a large harrow and a subsoiler, piercing 
the ground to a depth of sixteen to eighteen 
inches, and operating as a great pulverizer. 
This plowing is accomplished at a cost of 
$2 25 per acre; the cultivator preparing 
twelve acres per day, at a cost of about $1 50 
per acre. In England it is held, upon compe- 
tent authority, that, including intere.st on the 
investment, depreciation, and repairs, the aver- 
age yearly cost of maintaining a set of steam- 
cultivating machinery, breaking and cultiva- 
ting two thousand acres, fen or twelve inches 
deep, is not more than five hundred dollars, or 
seventy-five cent.s per acre. 

Commissioner Horace Capron says of 
the New Jersey plows (Colonel Patterson's) 
whose working he witnessed: "The gang of 
plows consisted of twelve, six operating at a 
time, driven by two fouiteen-hor.'se power en- 
ines, one at each ^ nd of a scries of sixty-tod 
furrows; the breadth cultivated at one move- 
ment was seventy-eight inches, the depth eight 
inches, and the furrows were laid with fault- 
less regularity, at a rate of speed which would 
insure the perfect plowing of at least eighteen 
acres per day, and under very favorable cir- 
cumstances, twenty-five acres. The machine 
was guided easily by one man, and reversed at 
the end of the furrow without a moment's loss 
of time. The surface was rough, though the 
soil was a sandy loam, easy of cultivation." 

It can not be that this is the Coming Plow, 
for it seems a clumsy device to station an en- 
gine at each end of the field, to drag the plows 
alternately by wires — it involves a waste of 
power not worthy of the ingenious age we 
live in. 

Perhaps the phrase "steam plow" is ill- 
chosen; for it seems certain that, when steam 
is generally adopted as the motor, the plow, as 
such, will be dropped. The notary motion seems 
to accord more with the genius of steam, and a 
rotary spader, like Comstock's, is likely to be 



HARROWS — CULTIVATORS. 



537 



adopted as its servant — some instrument that 
will tliorougly pulverize the soil, but not invert 
il. We coincide witli M. L. DuNLAP, of Chiun- 
paign county, Illinois, in the conclusion he has 
expressed in the United States Agricultural Re- 
port, that plowing with a steam traction engine 
is out of the question, for the following reasons: 

1. This machine can not pass over soft land, 
whether wet or cultivated, as the soil yields 
to the motion of the drum or driving wheels, 
and, instead of carrying the machine forward, 
excavates a hole into which it sinks beyond its 
own power of rescue. 

2. When loaded with a half day's supply of 
water and fiftl, it is incapable of drawing the 
plows. 

3. It can not rise the ordinary grades of the 
rolling prairie with the plow at work. 

4. On level land it can not do the work as 
cheaply, under the most favorable conditions 
of water and fuel, as animal power. 

The fact that these obstacles have not been 
overcome, accounts for the failure of the Amer- 
ican steam plows thus far introduced — of BuR- 
kidoe's. Hall's, Hdssey's, Fawkes', and 
Wateks' — some of which exhibited great inge- 
nuity, and created much enthusiasm during 
their early experinieius. 

The Harrow. — Next to the plow, the 
harrow may be .-iaid to be the oldest agricultural 
implement. It is represented on the most 
ancient sculptures of Egypt, and it seems not 
to have materially clianged its form. The 
great use of the harrow is in pulverizing the 
earth, tearing out and freeing the soil frotn the 
roots of weeds and grasses, and covering seeds 
when sown. 

A good harrow onght not to cost more than 
ten dollars, even where a joiner is employed to 
make it. The best ^vhite oak is not too good, 
and the frame should be of 3 by 4 timber. The 
teeth need not be more than an inch square. 
If the harrow be square, thirty-two teeth are a 
common number; if it be triangularly winged, 
folding on hinges in the middle, twenty-four 
will be enough. The Shares' or coulter harrow 
is somewhat used ; and, when the teeth are of 
steel, it is a most perfect implement for pulver- 
izing the freshly inverted surface of sward 
land, to a depth two or three times as great as 
the common harrow can eti'ect. The teeth be- 
ing sharp, flat blades, cut with great efficiency; 
and, as they slope like a sled-runner, they pa.ss 
over the sod, and, instead of tearing it up like 
the common harrow or gang-plow, they tend to 



keep it down and in its place, while the upper 
surface of the sod is sliced up and torn into a 
fine mellow soil. No person who prepares sod 
for corn should be without this efficient pul- 
verizer. 
There is also a rotary harrow in market, 
hich is thought by .some who have used it to 
be a decided improvement over any other har- 
row in use. It is very efficient in pulverizing, 
leveling, and working it-self clear of clogs. It 
is circular, built somewhat like a star-fish, and 
is drawn by a pivot in the center. An iron 
weight is borne in a box on one side, and kept 
in place by being supported by the frame in 
which the harrow revolves. This weight 
presses the teeth under and near it into the 
ground, which partially arrests their motion, 
and causes the harrow to rotate. This gives to 
every tooth in the harrow a cycloid motion, that 
is, tliey describe successive segments of circles, 
which segments are constantly crossing each 
other at various angles, so that the ground is 
really cross-harrowed as it moves straight for- 
ward. 

J. J. Thomas, the accomplished editor of 
Rural Affairs, has invented a harrow which has 
recently elicited much inquiry. It is made of 
pieces of plank, hinged together so as to fit un- 
even surfaces, and through these pieces a large 
number of spikes are driven, constituting the 
teeth. The teeth slant backward at an angle 
of about forty degrees, which cleans them of 
all rubbish, causes them to pass freely over 
stones or other obstructions, and prevents their 
tearing out the plants of corn, wheat, and other 
crops, which they are used to cultivate. At the 
same time they mellow and smooth the surface, 
and destroy all young weeds which are just 
making their appearance. 

This harrow has been successfully used for 
harrowing wheat in Spring, brushing in grass- 
seed, mellowing the surface for receiving tur- 
nip and other small seed, smoothing ground 
intended for meadow as a substitute for the 
roller, and for destroying or preventing weeds 
among corn and other cultivated crops. It 
promises the n^st important value for the last- 
mentioned purpose, being likely^ to supersede 
entirely the labor of hand-hoeing. 

Besides the varieties of harrow, there are 
large numbers of clod-crushers, manure-sowers, 
and other machines used in tillage, which we 
can not describe in detail. 

Cultivators. — The cultivator is one of 
the most valuable of the farmer's labor-saving 



538 



THE WORKSHOP: 



machines, far surpassing the standard of use- 
fulness given in a previous paragraph. The 
importance of a constant use of cultivators 
during the growth of drilled crops is not suf- 
ficiently appreciated. The remark has been 
made, and no doubt justly, that one day's work 
with hor.se and cultivator in a corn-field is worth 
ten witli a common hand-hoe. A crop of corn 
may sometimes be doubled by a thorough dress- 
ing once a week with a good cultivator. 

A serious defect in American cultivators at 
present is, the lack of rapidity and accuracy. 
Almost all crops ouglit to be planted with a 
drill, with .such care that the rows shall be pre- 
cisely parallel, and at a distance apart mathe- 
matically uniform. Then the cultivators should 
be so constructed as to finish two rows at once, 
and to run close to the plant without covering 
it. The perfect implement can not be very 
distant, for improvements are rapidly making. 
By reference to the Patent OfEce Reports for 
three years, at random, we find four hundred 
and fifty patents for plows and cultivators. 

Alden's tliill-cnllivator, for one horse, is 
much used and valued. The thills, under its 
motion, are more steady than that of tlie com- 
mon cultivator, and the handles enable the 
operator to pre.ss it to the right or left, so that 
he may cut as closely to the rows as he desires. 
Formerly the teeth of cultivators were mostly 
made of cast-iron; now all the best ones are 
of steel plate. The .steel are lighter, keep clean 
better, keep sharp, and last longer. 

In working with this cultivator, let the driver 
throw the reins over his head, and let one line 
rest upon his shoulder, the other passing under 
his opposite arm, when he can guide the horse 
by merely turning his body in the direction 
required, much easier and more efficiently than 
by holding a rein in each hand. The undivi- 
ded use of the hands is required to hold and 
properly guide the hoe, to do the best work. 

There are also a multitude of sulky-cultiva- 
tors, drawn by two horses and carrying the 
driver, the plows or teeth being directed by the 
feet of the rider, or by a liand lever. 

Drills and Plaiitlng^ Machines. — 

The rapiditv and precision will> which small 
Beeds are distributed and covered by the use of 
seed-drills, renders them absolutely necessary to 
the successful raising of such crops as carrots, 
turnips, beets, onions, etc., in fields. Tliey are 
also coming considerably into use for the sow- 
ing of wheat, and the profitableness of the drill 
system is becoming more and jiiore apparent. 



These drills are of many varieties, and our 
limits preclude a notice of even a few of the best. 
Tbe general principles on which tliey operate, 
the regular and measured distribution of the 
seeds, by means of revolving cylinders furnished 
with small cavities, or by the vibratory motion 
of perforated plates, and the passage of tlie seed 
down into the mellow earth through a hollow 
coulter, where it is immediately buried by the 
earth falling back upon it as soon as tlie coulter 
has passed — these principles of construction 
are adopted in all, and are familiar to all 
who use them. 

The depth should be carefully adjusted by 
the operator, and he should remember tliat 
seeds are much oftener sown too deep than too 
shallow. It is estimated, by some of our most 
successful farmers, that by the use of the grain- 
drill they save from half a bushel to a bushel 
of grain per acre, and the yield per acre is 
several bushels greater than when the seed ia 
scattered broadcast by hand. 

There are numerojis machines for planting 
potatoes, Indian corn, beans, peas, flax-.seed, 
cotton-seed, and almost all kinds of vegetable 
seeds that are grown in rows or drills. At 
most agricultural warehouses hand-planters, 
co.sting three or four dollars each, can be ob- 
tained. These small planters are adapted to 
distributing only the seeds of carrot.s, beets, 
turnips, parsnips, etc. At a higher price can 
be procured hor.se-drills, adapted to large 
farmers. 

At the West, Indian oorn-planUTs, drawn by 
one or two horses, are extensively usee'; most 
of the corn in Illinois is planted in tliis way. 
Sometimes four-horse corn-planters are used. 
At the East, hand-planlers havegenerally failed 
to give satisfaction, on account of the rocky and 
uneven character of the ground. 

There are some hill-sides with which we are 
acquainted, where a musket, loaded with flint- 
corn, is the only "machine" with which it 
could be planted to advantage. 

A reliable cotton-|>lanter is manufactured at 
Hawkersville, Georgiii, It is constructed some- 
what like a small wheelbarrow; the hopper 
holds about a bushel and a half of seed; with 
curved bottom of sheet-iron, and made into two 
parts, capable of being compressed or separated 
by rods and screws. The wheel has a crank 
and connecting rod, which give a reciprocity 
motion to about half a dozen long teetli that 
pn.ss just through the division of the box. The 
two sides can be screwed together so as to put 
half a bushel or less of the seed to the acre; or 



MOWERS AND REAPERS. 



539 



the orifice can be opened so as to sow three 
bushels or more if desired. The long teeth 
pull down the cotton-seed as they move to and 
fro, and secure its dropping regularly. 

Tuue's potato-planter is now much used. The 
machine is supported on two drive-wheels, sim- 
ilar to the driving-wheels of a mowing machine, 
and these work the dropping and cutting appa- 
tus. In the bottom of the hopper which con- 
tains the potatoes to be planted, there is a sink 
on each .side of a slide, which is worked back 
and forth by mean.s of a. crank or pitman. One 
or more potatoes drop down into the recess, 
when the slide forces the potato against a knife, 
which cuts off all that extends below the knife. 
After it is cut off, the piece or pieces drop down 
into the furrow that is opened to receive the 
seed. The furrow is opened by a small double 
mold-board plow, and the seed drop.s directly 
behind il, before the soil has time to fall hack 
into the furrow. .^ scraper of peculiar form 
follows the ph)W, and tills the furrow with mel- 
low soil, covering the potatoes as neatly as it 
can be done by hand. Immediately in the rear 
of every other part of the planter there is a 
cast-iron roller, which rolls every row. The 
drive-wheels make marks sufficiently distinct, 
where the land is well prepared, for a guide, 
when returning, to enable the operator to plant 
the rows the desired distance apart. 

Mowers and Reapers. — Solomon 
was evidently more than half riglit when he 
Raid there was "nothing new under the sun." 
Many suppose the mowing and leaping ma- 
chine, at least, to be a comparatively recent in- 
vention. Yet grain was reaped by machinery 
as early as the time of Pliny the elder, who 
lived in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, more 
than 1800 years ago. This historian .said, as 
translated by Philip Holland, of London, 
in 1601: 

" As touching the manner of cutting down 
or reaping come [wheat], there be divers and 
sundry devices. In Fraunce, where the fields 
be large, they used to .set a jade or an ass unto 
the taile of a mightie great wheelebarrow, or 
cart, made in manner of a van, and the same 
set with keene and trenchant teeth sticking out 
on both sides; now is this cart driven forward 
before the said beast upon two wheeles into the 
standing ripe corne (contrairie to the manrigr 
of other carts that are drawne after) : the said 
teeth or sharp tines fastened to the sides of the 
wheelebarrow or cart aforesaid, catch hold of 
the corne ears and cut them off; yet so as they 



fall presently into the bodie of the wheele- 
barrow." 

Palladius, an Eastern ecclesiastic, also de- 
scribed the Gallic reapers in 391 A. D. They 
had apparently received .some improvement, as 
the writer speaks of "the driver regulating the 
elevation ^nd depression of the teeth with a 
lever." 

These reapers seem to have fallen into disu.se 
for a thousand odd years, to be revived by sone 
ingenious student of history in Great Britain 
in 1785. In the details of this machine, a 
drive-wheel, pulleys, pinions, tooth-wheels, and 
iron-combs or teetfi are mentioned. In 1799, an- 
other reaper is spoken of as being propelled by 
a horse hitched behind it, which cut and laid 
the grain in a swath on one side of the reaper. 
A boy could manage this machine, and a horse 
could draw it, cutting a swath about two feet 
wide, or rather more than could be reaped iu 
the same time by six men, with sickles. 

In 1S06, Mr. Gladstone produced a reaper 
for cutting grain, delivering the straw into 
gavels to be bound. The machines were still 
pushed ahead of a horse or ox. The next year. 
Mr. Plcnkett adjusted the gearing so that 
the horses dragged it against the grain. 

Thenceforth, patent followed patent rapidly, 
and the clumsy machine became more shapely, 
though the present adjustment of knives had 
not yet been attained, and the finger-bar was 
not yet invented. In 1815, a citizen of Deans- 
ton, in England, who comes down to us under 
the generic designation of "Mr. Smith," in- 
vented a reaping machine, "which," says John- 
son, "in some experimental trials, api)eared to 
perform its work exceedingly well ; but, upon 
longer trial, has not answered the favorable 




expectation formed of il." The reason of its 
failure is disclosed by the cut of the machine. 
It was pushed against the grain, which was 
reaped and carried to the slubble by a vertical 
cylinder, with an edged flange at the bottom, 



540 



THE workshop: 



revolving rapidly. A Mr. Wilson introdured 
tliis inveiitirrn into the United State.'*, but even 
witli liis "improvements" it could not succeed. 
It was not until 1826 that Rev. Patrick 
Bell, of Carmylie, in Scotland, introduced his 
invention of the reaping machine. This caused 
a coTnplete revolution in the methgds of har- 
vesting, for it was a vast improvement on all 
that had gone before, and became the model 
for those which followed. The arrangement of 
the cutting gear was similar to that of the 
machine.s of the pr^.sent day. This reaper 
could cut ten acres in ten liours, and sold for 
52.50. Several were constructed and <iperated 
on his plan, and four of them are .'iaid to have 
found their way across the Atlantic. The in- 
ventor received a prizeof £50 from the Highland 
Society, but .seems to have obtained no otiier 
compensation for his labor and ingenuity. He 
was said to be still liring in his parish last year 
A testimonial from the mower-and-reaper man- 
ufacturers would be the most appropriate recog- 
nition that he could receive for his valuable 
public .services. * 

Obkd IIussey, of Baltimore, afterward of 
Cincinnati, was the first American to improve 
on the invention of Patrick BelA He im- 
ported the English machine, and bettered it, 
and a large number were manufactured by his 
brother, T. R. Hussey, at Auburn, New York. 
We present a cut of this machine, in action, a.s 




printed in the Xew Genesee Farmer of May, 1842. 
Accompanying it is the inventor's statement, 
minutely describing the machine, and gravely 
informing the public that "by several years 
experiLMice, I have been enabled to add much 
to the durability of the machine, which I appre- 
liend can vow receive but Utile improvement fur- 
ther (lian I shall make this year.'" The machine 
looks clumsy enough, but it was an efficient 
implement, being " warranted to cut fifteen 
acres of the heaviest wheat in a day, and save 
it njucli cleaner than is usually done by a good 



cradler, and to cut the whole season without 
sharpening." We need not say that it some- 
times fell below the warranty. Its price was 
«150. 

Soon after this, the celebrated McCormick 
reaper entered the field, astonishing Americans 
as well as the farmers of the Old World. It 
was cheaper, lighter, and every way better built 
and more efl'ective than anything that had pre- 
ceded it, and has, since its auspicious debut, 
undergone constant improvement. From that 
time to the present day, reapers and mowers of 
innumerable forms have come into existence, 
many of which have ended in total failure, 
while others have resulted in as signal success. 
Solon Robinson, in the Tribune, considers 
himself able to slate "that the number of 
reapers and mowers manufactured in this coun- 
try in the year 1864, was between 8.5,000 and 
00,000 machines. In 1865 the number built 
did not vary 5,000 from the number in 1864. 
The total number built each year should have 
increased largely since that time, but we will 
not attempt even approximately to estimate it. ' 
The maiuifacturers of the Wood self-raking 
reaper and mower, claim to have sold, in the 
aggregate, more than one hundred thous;ind 
machines. Mr. TouD says: "I ascertain that 
in 1864, more mowers and reapers were manu- 
factured in the county of (Cayuga — and most of 
them in the city of Auburn — New York, than 
in any other city or county in the world." 

We have now a score of mowers and reapers 
that work beautifully. FortLines have been 
expended in bringing some of them to their 
present state of perfection; no time or money 
have .been spared to turn out a perfect labor- 
saving implement. According to the reports 
of committees, where the most extensive trials 
have been had, the Buckeye stands at the head; 
while at its side stand the Clipper, Wood's, and 
Kirby, and following closely are the Clough, 
Nhmny, New Yorker, Champion, Climax, War- 
rior, Quaker, Syracuse, Marsh harvester, and 
numerous others. 

At the national contest for "the champion- 
ship " at Auburn, New Y'ork, in 1866, there 
were more llian fifty entries of mowers and 
reapers — prob:ii)ly a larger number than ever 
competed at any other single trial. The con- 
test continued for two weeks, and the great gold 
m^dal was awarded to the Buckeye, ami the 
second prize to the Clipper. Other fairs liave 
confirmed the justice of this preference. 

One machine excels in one point, and another 
in another; the Buckeye was awarded the prize 



SELF-BINDING REAPERS. 



541 



for superiority in the greatest number of poin ts — 
quality of work, easy of ilraft, durability, side 
draft, and portability. The Marsh Harvester 
lias a narrow platform upon which two men 
stand and bind the gi-ain as it is delivered to 
them on a revolving apron. All these ma- 
chines are made stronger than formerly, lighter, 
more durable, more efficient, and of easier 
draft ; and, what is not least in importance, the 
best ones cut as perfectly when moving at the 
rale of one mile per hour as when going three or 
four miles as was formerly necessary. 

In 1808, Mr. Egbert Stone, of Fulton, 
Wisconsin, cut thirty-two acres of wheat with 
a Clow reaper, and deposited it on the ground 
with one of C'rawfcbd's droppers, between 
sunrise and six o'clock, P. M. — the thermome- 
ter standing at 90' degrees in the shade. 

A good mowing machine ought to cut a thou- 
sand acres of grass before wearing out, and at 
a cost of about twenty cents a ton, while mow- 
ing by hand costs at least fifty cents a ton 
at moderate wages. The horse-tedding and 
raking are effected with still greater compara- 
tive economy. 

Self-raking reapers, are common and are 
growing in favor. 

There is also a wide demand for a good one- 
horse mower, that can be adjusted to serve as 
a reaper. There are thousands of moderate 
fiirmers in every State, who are not able to pur- 
chase separate machines to mow their few acres 
of grass and to reap their few acres of grain. 
The machine that will adapt itself to the various 
kinds of work to be done on a small farm, is an 
implement that will always be largely in request. 
A machine that a farpier can work aloi»B in 
grass and grain is a labor-saving machine of 
great value. The implement that is simple, 
' cheap, and, within its smaller range, as effective 
as more expensive machines, is the machine for 
the million. 

The committee on mowers and reapers at the 
National trial at Auburn, gave considerable at- 
tention to the comparative merits of wooden 
and iron frames, and ihej' give the preference 
to the former for the following reasons: "1, 
The iron frames are more easily, and, therefore, 
more frequently broken than wooden ones; 
weak spots and flaws are more easily concealed 
from the knowledge of the manufacturer and 
the purchaser ; 2, if the wooden ones are broken 
the broken part is more easily and cheaply re- 
placed than when made of iron, workmen in 
wood are also more easily accessible than work- 
men in iron ; 3, the elasticity of wood is more 



favorable to the successful working of the ma- 
chine than the rigidity of iron ; 4, it makes less 
jar and noise, and the nuts do not work loose 
io quickly ; 5, it is lighter, and, therefore, draws 
easier." 

Seir-Binding- Reapers. — There is 
now an earnest demand for a reliable binder- 
attachment. The Cultivator speaks of a self- 
raking and binding harvester, invented by J. 
F. Gordon, and adds: "The only question 
that arises is, whether a machine as rigid and 
comp!ic;Ued as one -would suppose such a ma- 
chine must be, can stand the work without fre- 
quent repairs. That it will cut, rake, and bind 
wheat at one operation, and do it well, is an 
undoubted fact." 

W. W. BuRSON, of Bockford, Illinois, also 
made a binder some years ago, but it was not a 
success because it had to be operated by hand. 

Carpenter's Automatic Binder. — This self- 
binding reaper, invented by S. D. Carpenter, 
of Madison, Wisconsin, has already worked 
two .sea.sons in the field, and although certain 
defects in the gearing still need to be remedied, 
the machine works so beautifully and promises 
such compete success, as to justify a descrip- 
tion. 

The sickle and cutter-bar are constructed in 
the usual way, but here all comparison with 
other harvesters ends. The reel has a raking 
device attached, which is operated by a simple 
wooden cam and tyo elbow-levers, so arranged 
that the rake comes down in front of the sickle, 
performing the office of a "beater" — dividing 
the bundle in the standing grain. As the rake 
swings around to the point where the grain is 
cut, it remains rigid, while the arms that sup- 
port it being freed from the cam, are allowed 
to fall gradually, so as to be at right angles 
with the vertical arms of the reel, and, by 
means of guide rollers, to pass along on ways, 
nearly parallel to the inclined platform, thus 
pushing the bundle endwise to a rear platform. 

The loo.se bundle now appears spread par- 
tially under the automatic binder, which is lo- 
cated behind the driver's seat. A rake pushes 
across the platform, and returns with the gath- 
ered straw, releasing it to a hedge of curved 
fingers. These draw it half round and up- 
ward, compressing it between converging bars 
more firmly than any manual power could do, 
and giving it the form of a sheaf. While in 
this grip, a rotating arm, to which a shuttle is 
attached, passes around the bundle with one 
end of the wire until it meets the main wire, 



542 



THE workshop: 



when the ingeniously-contrived "twister" 
wheel within the shuttle, engages with a cir- 
cular nick, which gives the wire I'our twists. 
The wire is cut b_v automatic shears, and the 
finished sheaf, tight and firm, drops of its own 
weight. The whole operation is done without 
any human assistance, and the team moves fif- 
teen fc'et to each bundle. The machine binds a 
bundle the size of a man's arm as firmly as one 
a foot through. A grain box under the binder 
received all the shelled grain and loose heads — 
a saving of five to fifteen busliels a day. 

As an appendage to the whole, there is a 
dropper outside of the binder, which carries 
the sheaves until there are enough for a rick, 
wlicn it dumps them and .sets itself again. 

Carpenter has also invented an attachment 
to threshing machines that will cut the wire 
and strip it ofl" as the sheaf goes in, thus pro- 
viding against harm to cattle that eat the 
str;iw. The binder works with wonderful pre- 
cision, and certainly foreshadows a revolution 
in wheat-harvesting. A company ia now form- 
ing in Madison for its manufacture. We can 
not doubt that some such machine will bind 
half the grain in America in 1880. 

Geokge p. Gordon, of Ohio, has also suc- 
ceeded in constructing an automatic binder, 
which receives the .straw from the platform 
where it falls. The chief difficulty met with 
by the inventor has been to keep the cross-rake 
out of the way of the falling grain, and to sep- 
arate the bundles without, slobbering. The 
device is very ingenious, and gives some prom- 
ise of success. 

Another efTort deserves honorable mention — 
that of Dr. E. B. Rice, of Oregon, Wisconsin. 
This has not yet lieen made entirely automatic, 
hut receives the grain from the revolving-apron 
of a Marsh harvester, and binds with a boy 
to assist it. The contrivance is admirable for 
its simplicity — any boy can work it, and any 
farmer can repair it if it should get out of 
order. The whole machine is made up of two 
or three pieces of iron and brass, somewhat 
as follows Two half cylinders, some eigliteen 
inches long and eiglit inches in diameter, being 
geared to the wheels, open and shut on lunges 
at one end. When they are opened the grain, 
enough to moke a bundle, having been previ- 
ously separated by a simple device, falls into 
the lower cylinder, which receives the butts. 
The upper half instantly closes on a flexible 
lining of spring steel, which, by the meeting of 
the two jaws in a perfect cylinder, enwraps the 
straw closely. Several hundred hempen bands 



already noosed together are hung on a shaft 
near tlie hinge of the cylinder, and a boy slipa 
one of these upon and over the closed cylinder, 
drawing it quickly upon the middle of the 
bundle beyond, by a twitch upon the pendant 
end, which buckles it tightly. The bundle is 
then released, as the jaws open to receive an- 
other. The bands cost, ready made, about a 
dollar an acre, Dr. KiCE says, and they can ev- 
idently be used for several years. There is 
little doubt that this machine, with a boy to 
slip on the bands, will bind as fast as any 
reaper will cut. 

The Horse-Ralte was a great advance, 
and it has been so far improved as to seem now 
nearly perfect, with a seat for driver and a run- 
ning-gear as light as a trotting buggy. Every 
farmer should have a good one, for it is a wonder- 
ful labor-saver, snatching hay from the coming 
shower, and performing, easily, the woik of ten 
or fifteen men. It is impossible to say which 
of the hundred patents is the best. Eevolvinj 
Wood-rakes are yet used largely for their cheap- 
ness, and on small farms will continue to hokl 
a place for some time as they are more easilj 
repaired. On large farms the sulky independ- 
ent wire-tooth rake is fast replacing all others. 
With it a boy and horse will rake and bunch 
twenty acres a day. The bunching is a greal 
saving of hand labor, as with it the windrow in 
thrown in heaps or bunches of eighty to ono 
hundred pounds, ready to be placed in cocks or 
loaded. The latter mode is now employed, aa 
with this kind of r.ake the hay is very much 
compressed, and can be pitched nearly as well 
as ffom the cocks that Jiave stood one or two 
days to settle. 

Tbe Hay-Te<lder.— The horse-rake 
follows the tedder in the field, but the tedder 
followed the rake in the patent office. Indeed, 
it is doubtful if the principal features of the 
tedder are protected by patent ; for thousands 
of tedders, somewhat similar to Biti.lard's and 
the American, were hopping over English fields 
half a century ago. The tedder, like the rake, 
saves a million tons of hay every year, for it 
offers its aid at the season when weather is 
capricious, laborers are scarce, and work can 
not be po.stponed. 

AVithout the mowing machine, the trouble 
in haying was to cut down the grass ; with it, 
the trouble has been to take care of the hay. 
The horse-rake, iintil recently, has been the 
only available assistant for this purpose the 



HORSE FORKS. 



543 



faimer has had, but the use of the tediler or 
dryer in connection with it will readily be per- 
ceived as necessary for accomplishing the work 
of getting tlie hay into a good condition for the 
barn or stack in the shortest time with the least 
expense. This sfhortening of the process of 
bay-making enables the farmer to cut bis bay 
when it is nearest ready for the harvest, and 
much diminishes the risk of its injury from bad 
weather. The tedder, like the horse-rake, will 
soon lie considered quite indispensable. The 
best made tedders aim to toss up the grass to 
the air and sun without too violent action, 
which after the heavy two-horse English ma- 
chines was ftllowed by a waste. But perhaps 
the greatest value of tedders, consists in tlie op- 
portunity they give farmers to cut their grass 
when it is young, before it is seeded and spoiled. 
The following incident which occurred at a 
Connecticut fair shows the marvelous efficiency 
of the horse-tedder : The operator took grass 
that had been mowed and had lain in the swath 
eight days, without six hours sunshine upon it 
during that time, and had been rained upon 
nearly every day ; it was green, wet and sour. 
About two heaps of it was spread out in thick- 
ness of about four tons to the acre, the tedder 
passsing over it every lew minutes for about 
three hours. When he commenced operation 
it rained so that the farmers held umbrellas 
over their heads, and laughed at the operator 
for making bay when it rained. This was 
about noon; it soon stopped raining, and the 
wind sprung up a little, and at three o'clock 
that h.iy was dry enough to go into any barn, 
some of it blowing three rods while the ma- 
chine was\)perating upon it. All this was done 
without a particle of sunshine. 

The HorSC-Forfc.— The horse pitch- 
fork deserves a more general adoption ; and no 
farmer who has ever tried a good one at the 
stack or in field or barn, will ever return to 
the oppressive labor of lifting loads of hay, 
sweating at every pore, and filling his eyes and 
ears with hay-seed, on a sweltering August 
afternoon. 

Every farmer who has ever pitched o9' from 
a wagon in one day ten or twelve tons of hay, 
is aware that no labor on the farm can be more 
fatiguing. The horse-fork, which, to a con- 
siderable extent, has been brought into use, has 
afforded great relief; this severe work not only 
being avoided, but much greater expedition 
attained. The effective force of a horse is at 
least five times as great as that of a stout man; 



and if half an hour is usually required to un- 
load from a wagon a ton of hay, then only six 
minutes would be required to accomplish the 
same result with horse power. Actual experi- 
ment very nearly accords with this estimate, 
three to seven minutes only being required by 
the assistance of the best horse-fork. 

The method of unloading by horse power, is, 
usually, as follows: A tackle-block is affixed to 
the ridge-pole of the barn, and a snatch-block 
fastened to the sill in the door; the rope passes 
through each, a horse drawing away from the 
barn at one end, lifting to its place the hay on 
a fork at the other. 

There are several good forks: Gladding's 
long-handled grappling- fork; Buckner's grap- 
pling-fork ; Walker's harpoon-fork, simply a 
straight spearthat first enters the hay, then hold.s 
its burden by releasing a barb at its extremity ; 
Palmer's single cat claw-fork, excellent for all 
work; and Sprout's combined hay-fork-and- 
knife. 

The latter manufactured by S. E. & L. B. 
Sprout, of Muncy, Pennsylvania, is a very 
ingenious and a very effective implement. It 
is arranged like a pair of shears, with a long 
shaft, and #ith it a man can cut and lift out of 
a bay or stack, a solid bundle of hay two fee^ 
and a half deep, two and a half feet wide, and 
fifteen feet long, in two minutes and a half by 
tbe watch. 

For pitching, it is only necessary to thrust 
tbe instrument in when shut, the sliaip blade 
easily cutting its way down, the knile is opened, 
throwing the horns of the blades out and 
spreading the shanks apart; the braces are 
then sprung to hold it open, and it will take 
up half a ton of hay. When elevated to the 
desired place by a rope and pulley, a jerk at a 
cord bends the elbows of the braces, the fork or 
knife shuts, and the hay slijis off. The whole 
implement weighs only ten pounds, and is of 
steel throughout. 

For almost all kinds of work. Sprout's hay- 
knife-and-fork will be found the most satisfac- 
tory ; though the harpoon-fork, maiuifactured 
by Wheeler, Mehcii & Co., is preferred by 
some. 

Sprout's fork, at the trial of implements 
held under the auspices of the New York State 
Agricultural Society, July 10, 186(), pitched ofJ' 
1,810 pounds of hay over the large beam at 
five forkfuls, in two minutes and forty-five 
.seconds. When pitching under the beam, the 
same fork removed 12,000 pounds of buy iu one 
minute and fortv-one seconds. 



bU 



THE worKsnop: 



The jiidgeg say: "Tliis fork enters tlie hay 
with great ease, and is tripped with celerity 
and certainty. It gathers a single pound of 
hay from the barn floor as easily as any hand 
hay-fork, and holds it more securely. It is one 
of the best hay-knives we have ever seen. As 
a hay-knife it will rapidly cut hay in the mow 
into solid blocks, and as a fork remove it to 
any place it may be desired. It is apparently 
indestructible, and will last a life-time." 

Lomling Hay by Machinery. — The editor of 
the New England Farmer thus describes a new 
machine, invente<l by N. B. Douglas, of Corn- 
wall, Vermont, the operation of which he wit- 
nessed in th.at place during the harvest of 1869 : 
"To the valuable machines which I have 
named, there has recently been added another 
which I have taken especial pains to .see in 
operation; it is fur loading the hay by horse 
power, alter it is sufficiently dry and thrown into 
windrow. I liave seen it in use at three different 
times, and on uneven as well as even ground, 
and everywhere it did the work quickly and 
well. At one of my visits to see it, the first 
load wa.s put on in eight minutes, the .second in 
seven and a half minutes, and the third in seven 
minutes. This was done by the stfeady, usual 
working of the machine, and without any effort 
to do the work in a short time. The bystanders 
estimated the loads at 1,500 pounds each; the 
wagon, being a short one, would not conve- 
niently take any more. The men using it 
stated that on a previous occasion they loaded 
and unloaded eighteen loads in six and a half 
hours, all the loads but the last one being placed 
upon stacks in the field. 

"The loader is attached to the hind end of 
the wagon; stands perpendicularly; is eight 
feet long and four feet wide. It has eight sole- 
leather belts, each two inches wide, which pass 
over rollers at the top and a cylinder at the 
bottom. There are fifteen small iron spurs in 
each of these belts, which pick up the hay as 
the team, straddling the windrow, passes along, 
carrying it up and rattling it over upon the 
wagon. The whole of this weighs but one 
hundred and seventy-five pounds. It can be 
attached or removed in less than five minute.s, 
and can be applied to any wagon. It makes 
no noi.se while being operated, adapts itself to 
uneven surfaces, and is exceedingly simple in 
every part of its construction. When I saw 
this small and liglit contrivance, noiselessly 
picking np the hay and conveying it to the 
wagon, I came to the conclusion that a device 
had been reached which would complete tlie 



circle of machines to be used in .securing the 
most important of all our crops — the buy har- 
vest. Wherever a large amount of hay is to 
be secured, this macliine must take rank with 
the mower, horse-rake, tedder, and horse pitch- 
fork." 

Slaeking Hay by Machinery.— "Shiny farmers 
use a common derrick for stacking hay, made 
of three straddle poles, with a tackle-block ' 
rigged at top, through which runs the rope that 
lifts the horse-fork. A better device is repre- 
sented by the accompanying cut: Get a stick 




1 Bope. b, h, b, Guy Ko 



say forty feet long, of some light timber, and 
diess it down so as to leave it strongest aboui 
fifteen feet from top. Take a light piece of tim- 
ber twelve feet long (four by four pine) and 
hinge it with iron to the pole at d, so as to allow 
it to rise and lower or swing sidewise, fully two- 
thirds the way round, for an arm; run a five- 
eighths rope from tlie end of the arm to the top 
of pole, through a pulley made fast there, down 
the pole, and fasten it on a pin for the pur- 
po.se of raising and lowering the a»m from the 
ground. Fasten three guy ropes to the top of 
the pole and raise it, first digging a little hole 
a foot deep to keep the bottom of the pole in 
its place, and secure it by fastening ropes to 
stakes, one of which is driven directly behind 
the pole and the other two ju.st far enough 
ahead to keep it from falling backward. The 
guy ropes should be sixty feet each. The pole 
should lean toward the stack, so that when the 
load comes on the crane, it swings of its own 
accord to the center. One of the fork-pulleys 
hangs on the end of the arm, one just under 
the arm on the pole, and one near the ground. 
This makes a better rigging in every way, and 
costs, forks, ropes and all, about $25. 

The advantages are: 1, A much larger rick 



THE THRESHING MACHINE. 



545 



can be built, and the hay pushed to any part 
of it easily by the stackers; 2, all your hay is 
thrown in tlie middle of the rick, tliereby pre- 
venting the settling of one side so as to lean tlie 
stack; 3, it is taken from the gronnd without 
dragging against the side of the stack. With 
sucli a crane, ricks of thirty or more tons are 
put up very easily. 

The Tliresliing- Maclaine.— This is 
one (if the greatest of agricultural labor-savers; 
a blessing to farmers. It is not yet forty years 
since the jealous English peasantry arose and 
wantonly destroyed all the agricultural ma- 
chinery of a neighborhood, in the mistaken 
opinion that its use was an infringement of their 
rights to labor; but this wild prejudice is now 
almost wholly disarmed, and every hand- 
worker is learning that an improved machine 
is his best friend, relieving him of drudgery 
and elevating his pursuit to dignity and in- 
dependence. 

The power threshing machine is of English 
birth, but as Americans borrowed the sickle 
and finger-bar, and made a McCoRMiCK reaper 
that was the champion of the world, so they 
have transplanted the thresher, and bettered it 
till they can outthresh their neighbors across 
the sea. 

At tlie Paris Exhibition in 1855, Pitt's 
American machine bore off the prize. During 
the trial, to test the comparative value of tlie 
new way and the old, six men were employed 
to thresh with flails, and in one hour they 
threshed two bushels of wheat. During the 
same hour 



PiNET's French 



tbrcslieil 4'5busli( 



Since the Paris trial, threshing inacbines 
have been vastly improved, until they seem to 
liiive reached the height of possible efEciency. 
Iiidecil, they may be pronounced perfect. 

It was a long time before separators and 
winnowers were attached to the thresher; but 
when once put into operation, tliey soon became 
general, and now all machines have one or the 
other. In time straw-carriers and bagging 
apparatus were attached, leaving most of the 
labor to the team. At first farmers owned their 
own threshers; but now they mostly belong to 
jobbers, who go about threshing and cleaning 
grain at a certain price per bushel — say, for 
wheat and rye, live cents; barle}', three cents; 
oats, two cents. The grain thus threshed is 

35 



ready for market, thus saving to the farmer the 
co.st of a farm fanning-mill, and the labor of 
recleaning and screening, as was the case until 
within the last few years. 

The farmer is at no outlay of capital for 
machines; all he has to do is to furnish half 
the team, which is two span of horses; a hand 
to throw the bundles from the stack; one to cut 
the bands and place them on the thresher- 
table; one to look after tlie chaff and straw, 
and one to haul off the grain to the bin. The 
owner of the machine furnishes the driver, 
feeder, and one man to attend to the bagging 
and measuring. 

The stacking of the straw was an important 
item, so as to save it for Winter feed. This is 
now done by straw-carriers attached to the 
cleaning apparatus, which deposits the straw 
on the stack. As the great mass of farmers on 
the prairies have no barns, this system of thresh- 
ing has obvious advantages — but we trust its 
advantages will not pro^e so marked as to 
make any farmer satisfied to do without a barn 
longer than he is actually compelled to by the 
exigencies of hfs situation. 

Farmers who have large barns generally own 
a different style of machine. These are called 
railway or tread-powers, and are adapted, to 
one, two, or three horses. Some of these have 
only separators attached, so as to separate the 
straw from the chaff and grain. In this case, 
the threshing progresses according to the de- 
mand of the stock for the straw and chatt'. 
Usually the machine is run a fourth or half a 
day at a time, according to the capacity of the 
lliior to hold the straw. This mode of thresh- 
ing, taking into view the value of the straw 
and chart" for feed, is, perhaps, one of the most 
economical that we have. The machine is 
cheap, and being always housed, will last a 
lung time. In using this machine, the grain 
must be cleaned with a hand fanning-mill. 
With this there are two or three advantages— 
the work is done at a leisure time of the year, 
and the stock have the full benefit of the straw 
and chaff. The aggregate cost of threshing is 
below every other mode. 

To these horse-powers and threshers a win- 
nower and straw-carrier is sometimes attached, 
to do field or out-door work; and some large 
farmers use them for barn work. The farmer 
of two hundred acres, half of which he has in 
small grain, and who has a barn, will find this 
kind of thresher very profitable. The objec- 
tion that formerly applied to these powers, in 
regard to the danger of injuring the team when 



546 



THE ■WORKSHOP: 



the band runs off the diiving-pulley, is now 
obviated by the use of a patent brake that in- 
stantly stops the machine in such an event. 
The machines are portable, and can be taken 
out to the wood-shed or any part of the farm, 
and are the most commonly used to saw wood 
for railroads and for domestic use. They are 
also used for running bay or straw-cutters, for 
thresliing and cleaning clover-seed, grinding 
corn, and other farm uses. They are among 
the most valuable and durable of farm ma- 
chines; but let no man own one unless he has 
a barn, or other convenient place to bouse it. 
This remark also holds good for all farm ma- 
chines and implements. Tlie annual loss on 
farm wagons, machines, and implements by ex- 
posure to the weather, would nearly pay the 
whole tax levied on the farmers, both personal 
and real, in the country. 

Po^ver for tlic Farm.— In tlie lasi 
p;iragraph we have menlioncd the horse-power; 
and a horse-power in some form, either work- 
ing with the endless-chain, or the windlass, or 
sweep-power, is coming to be regarded as quite 
indispensable on every large farm, and it should 
be so located as to be geared to the thresher, 
the hay-cutter, the root-cutter, the corn-sbeller, 
the lathe, the farm-mill, or the wood-saw. The 
sweep-power is built for one or two liorses, and 
costs only half as much as tbe endless-chain 
power. 

That intelligent observer of farm implements, 
S. Edwards Todd, says of the prejudice against 
railway or tread horse-powers: "The erroneous 
idea that such powers arc 'horse killers,' does 
not meet with nnich favor among intelligent 
farmers. I used a span of horses on one of 
Wheeler's machines for more than ten years, 
and I know it never injured them any more 
than to travel on the ground. I have seen it 
stated in i>rint that the u.se of such powers is 
as cruel as slavery. I am certain that the men 
who make such assertions are not the proper 
persons to give an opinion on such a subject, as 
I think they have never used such hor.^e-pow- 
ers for any considerable length of time." 

Sleam-Power — We are ahead of our English 
cousins in the average efficiency of our farm 
machinery, but we are behind them in the use 
of steam as a motor. By them it is almost 
universally adopted for threshing, sawing, and 
mueb otber farm work, while here it is used 
but little, scarcely at all, though it is doubtless 
as much more economical than horse-power, in 
this application of it, as it is in its application 



to any other machinery. There are several 
excellent compact and portable engines manu- 
factured, any of which farmers, who have plenty 
of wood or available peat fuel, would find prof- 
itable servants. Such an agent is adapted to 
almost as many kinds of service as a horse, and 
costs nothing for keeping except a little wood 
and water when actually at work. It can be 
harnessed to almost anything, and made to 
thresh grain, grind corn, saw the wood, and 
they now have it rigged on wheels so that it 
can run of errand.s — be sent to any part of the 
farm or neighborhood as readily as a wagon- 
load of anything else. Every neighborhood, 
at least, should have one of these iron liorses 
to do the drudgery all around. 

Windmills. — The powers of nature are suffi- 
cient to do all our drudgery, could we but fully 
subdue them and "have dominion over them." 
Tbe gravitating power of water, the expansive 
I)()wer of steam, and the swift-winged lightning 
are already fulfilling their destiny in part, and 
tbe atmospheric currents which exceed them 
both in the vastness and universality of their 
force have been, for ages, tbe grand motive 
power of commerce. 

Tbcre is not a day in the year when the powers 
of the wind, passing overacontincnt, is not vastly 
greater than all the muscular p iwer of all its 
animated tribes. To bring this power success- 
fully into the service of man on land, has been 
tbe most difficult problem of all that are con- 
ceded to be practic.djie. The use of windmills 
has long been known, having been brought 
from the arid plains of Asia by the Crusaders, 
yet their adaptation, as a motive-power, has 
remained extremely imperfect. 

The difficulty has been to regulate the power, 
so as to get something like a uniform motion 
through the ever-varying velocity and power 
of the serial current. 

In some of tbe more recent wind-wheels, this 
objection has been largely overcome by an effi- 
cient governing apparatus, completely controll- 
ing the effect of the wind. This result is at- 
tained partially by the wings being so arranged, 
that as the speed increases they are turned more 
and more edgewise to the wind by governing 
balls, working on a similar principle to those 
attached to steam engines. 

Their number is rapidly increasing on the 
Western piairies, where they are made availa- 
ble for threshing, fanning, hay-cutting, grind- 
ing, corn-shelling:, wood-sawing, pumping, or 
other purposes. We have no doubt that this 
simple and universal force is capable of such 



HAY AND FODDER-CCTTERS. ETC. 



547 



control as to render its use practicable to an ex- 
tent heretofore unknown. 

Hay and Fodder-Cutter. — As farm- 
ers become more enlightened, macliines to cut 
fdilder for tlieir stock are more used. Wliile 
there may 3'et remain a few wlio doubt the 
ociiuomy of steaming or cooking food for stock, 
all imelligent farmers now concede the lu-ofita- 
blciiess of cutting fodder — at any rate, of cutting 
all (if a coarse quality. It is now generally ac- 
knowleged tluit cattle will thrice on three-fourths as 
m iich cut hay as they will require if it be uncut, and, 
if it be moistened, and a little salt and bran or 
meal added, the proportion will be still further 
reduced. Of course, this does not add nutri- 
ment, but it saves the secretion of .saliva to an 
enormous extent, and relieves the animal of 
half the labor of chewing — thus performing a 
phvsiological function that is very manifest. In 
otlier words, it saves animals exertion in feeding. 
and so leaves them in better flesh. Mastication 
of long hay requires a considerable expendi- 
ture of muscular force. Besides, cut hay makes 
bettor manure. 

Yet the middle way is the best even here. 
There is such a thing as cutting too fine — 
especially for the ruminating animals. Ex- 
perience teaches that fodder digests mucli bet- 
ter after being macerated by tlie teeth of animals 
tlian when it is reduced so fine by a straw-cutter 
that the stock swallow it without first cnisliing 
it between their teetli. 

When cornstalks are chaffed two inches in 
length a cow can masticate them with little diffi- 
culiy, and there is no danger that the flinty 
porticins will injure the animal; but when cut 
into very short pieces much more labor is re- 
([uired to do the chafling, and the liability to 
injure the mouth by chewing the hard, flinty 
pieces of stalks is greatly increased. Short 
piefes of hard cornstalks that have been cut oft' 
square by a straw-cutter, often wound the gums 
of an animal so severely that it will endure 
severe hunger before it will eat fodder prepared 
in that manner. The stalks of Indian corn or 
sorghum should never be cut less than two 
indies long. 

There is palpable profit in a good hay-cutter, 
for we can occupy the dreary days of Winter 
in cutting up fodder — straw, cornstalks, meadow 
hay-— and so carry through our stock for twen- 
ty-five per cent, less than in the ordinary way 
The cutter should be strong, simple, and dura 
ble; it should ran easily, and the knives should 
be completely masked, so as to insure against 



accident. There is a large and excellent vari- 
ety in market, each of which, driven by horse 
or steam-power, is capable of cutting from one 
to two Ions an hour. 

Root-Cutters. — There are also admirable root- 
cutlers, capable of cutting pumpkins, potatoes, 
turnips, beets, etc., fine enougli for sliee[), at tiie 
rate of two bu.shels a minute, if such speed 
were desired. 

A Farm Corn-Mill. — We ought to 

have a better farm-mill to grind corn for stock, 
for far less food in this form will keep stock in 
a higher condition. On this point we quote 
lion. M. L. Dtjnlap, of Illinois: The cheap- 
ness of corn, which is the principal feed for an- 
imals, both for work and fattening, has gener- 
ally been so low, and labor, on the other Iiand, 
so high, that little effort has been made in this 
direction. Most of the mills used for this pur- 
pose are of cast-iron, and are run by the use of 
a sweep. These, of course, only bruise the 
grain, and do not grind it so as to rupture the 
cells. There can be no doubt that there is 
economy in grinding' corn and other grain for 
feed, when it can be done at a reasonable cost. 
To haul corn ten or fifteen miles, and pay one- 
fifth for toll is doubtful policy; and, to pay 
sixty dollars for a mill that will crush only 
tliirty or forty bushels of corn in ten hours,^ 
with two span of horses, has no great promise 
of gain. If we could have a cheap mill to run 
with a railway two-horse (power that would 
grind five bushels an hour, and at the same 
time not require a new set of grinders every 
other day, we might find it an advantage; but, 
of the hundreds of farm-mills that we have 
seen, not one of them comes within our idea of 
what such .rmill ought and can be made to do. 
A durable mill of this kind would be cheap at 
a hundred dollars, and find a ready sale at the 
West. 

Sorg'Iio Machinery. — Mills to work up 
sorghum are now made strong and durable. 
Some of them have feed aprons and carrieis to 
deposit the bagas.se out of the way, when it 
can be hauled oS" for mulching or put in the 
manure pile. As a general thing farmers will 
do better to haul their sorghum to the steam 
works, rather than to work it up them.selves; 
for, as a rule, farmers should not become man- 
ufacturers, as it will be found more profitable 
to give all such work into the hands of me- 
chanics and skilled workmen than to attend to 
it themselves. The business of the farmer is to 



548 



THE WORKSHOP 



produce and deliver the raw material into the 
liands of the manufacturer. 

Among the best macliines for tliis process are 
the Victor Cane Mill and Cook's Sngar E%'apo- 
rator, made by Blymyek, Nokton & Co., Cin- 
cinnati. 

The Corn-Husking' Itlachine.— 

Tlie machine before-mentioned, that is to work 
among the standing maize, is not yet in the 
market. But a successful corn-husking ma- 
chine has been introduced, which seems des- 
tined to revolutioni'ie present methods, by 
clianging the tcdions task of corn-husking into 
a rapid and attractive mechanical process. 

Onr enormous corn crop, amounting to 
nearly a thousand million bushels annually, is 
chiefly rai.sed by the use of machinery. Man- 
ual labor only to a small extent is used in pro- 
ducing the crop up to the harvest time. Then 
commences the band work. With large crops 
and costly labor, the corn-growers find it im- 
possible to place the cereal in market at the 
most auspicious moment; much of the crop is, 
therefore, fed to stock, without husking, and 
immense quantities are wasted. The husks, 
too, are mostly lost, because, to preserve them, 
every husk must be grasped by the human 
hand. Yet the husk crop is one of (he most 
valuable which we produce. It would amount, 
if saved, according to the eslimale of some per- 
sons, to not less than eight million tons annu- 
ally ; and would bring, at fifteen dollars per 
ton, one hundred and twenty million dollars. 
In Austria the husks make paper suj^erior to 
that made from linen rags. The largest paper- 
mills in the world — those near Vienna — em- 
ploy notliing but husks, brought from Hun- 
gary, and costing forty dollars per ton, about 
I be price of white rags in the Austrian mar- 
ket. From the long fiber of the husk excellent 
cloth is made; from the short fiber paper of 
superior quality is produced, while the gluten 
of the husk makes excellent bread. 

The corn-husker which is now offered at 
seventy five dollars, husks cleanly fifty bushels 
an hour, and strips off and saves every vestige 
of the husk. ' 

The husker, at first sight, resembles a fodder- 
cutler. At one end of the frame which sup- 
ports the machinery there are two rollers 
which revolve toward each other. The top 
roller is plain, made of hard wood, and some 
four or five inches in diameter. The lower 
roller is studded with stiff knives, set securely 
into the surface, so that if the twu rollers are 



screwed closely together they will cut the stalks 
into pieces about one and a half inches long. 
The stalks are fed between these rollers, but- 
ends first. When the but-ewls of the ears ar- 
rive at the rollers, as they can not pass through, 
the knives cut or pinch off the stem, when 
most of the husks pass through wiili tlie bruised 
stalks, and the ear drops down on two small 
rollers, about two inches in diameter, which 
are set at an inclination endways, .so that the 
cars, in slipping along in the depression made 
by the two rollers, have all tlie husks and silk 
stripped off tbem by the two rollers beneath 
the ear of grain. A small sliafi, with small 
sharp spikes in it, causes tbe ears to revolve as 
they slide along, so that every side of the ear 
is presented to the rollers, when in motion, 
which seize every husk and all the silk, and 
strip them off as neatly as can be done by hand 
and with great rajiidity. One horse will drive 
tlie machine to husk as fast as one man can 
place the stalks on the feeding-box. 

A point of transcendent excellence of this 
busker is, it will strip the husks from large 
ears and small ones with equal facility and 
neatness, without any aheration of the ma- 
chinery. 

When the stalks have been run through this 
machine, the large ones are crushed so that the 
moisture will escape in a few days, and in much 
less time than would be required to dry out 
and cure whole stocks. The man, therefore, 
who husks corn with such a husker, will be 
able to dry and cure liis crop of cornstalks in 
a few days, and thus save a vast amount of 
exceU^nt fodder which must be lost in curing 
if th#large slocks are not crushed so as to. 
allow the moisture to escape readily. It is the 
large amount of sap in the big joints and pith 
of the cornstalks that causes the stalks to heat 
and mold after they have been secured in a 
stack or mow. 

Pulling- Out .Stumps.' — Stump ma- 
cliines are now made so effective and conveni- 
ent, that two men and a. team can take out al- 
most any stump in a few minutes with but 
little effort. For certain kinds of work, the 
sweep-slump machines are perhaps the cheap- 
est and best. For taking out large stumps and 
rocks, the' lifting-machine will be found the 
most convenient and the cheapest. 

AVitli a stump machine of the latest improve- 
ment, a man and a boy, with a horse, can lake 
out from fifty to one hundred large slumps in a 
day, without expending one-half the strength 



POTATO-DIGGER, ETC. 



549 



that would necessarily be exerted by a failliful 
laborer in doing one-lcntli of tlie work, with a 
grubbing-lioe. Grubbing out small stumps is 
the most expensive way they can be removed- 
Small roots should be taken out with a cheap 
hand machine, wliich two men can readily 
handle. 

PI. M. KoGEES, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, de- 
scribes his stump machine, which has the tre- 
ble merit of being elfective, cheap, and not 
patented. Mr. Rooers says: "I bought two 
screw-jacks, and I had a etout log chain. 
These jacks have IJ feet lift, working in cast- 
iron pedestals. I procured a stout beam, eight 
feet long, andnbout as heavy as two men would 
want to carry, and two pieces of plank for the 
jacks to stand on, together with some blocks, 
etc., and all was ready. I place the beam 




KoGERs' Unpatinted Stump-Puller. 
across the largest and stoutest root of the stump, 
one jack on each side, and as near the stump as 
I think the roots will allow, and resting on a 
jiiece of plank. The chain is passed around 
the root and the beam. One man at each jack 
will raise almost any stump to the full lift of 
the screw, which, in a majority of cases, is suf- 
ficient; if not, place a stud under each end of 
the beam; let down the jacks, and placing 
blocks under them, give the stump another lift. 
Two men will pull from thirty to fifty slumps 
a day, and the machine will cost fifteen or 
twenty dollars, while the jacks are u.seful for 
many purposes besides pulling stumps." 

Potato-BMgrg'er. — If Trde's, or Spauld- 
ixg's, or any other potato-planter, will cut, 
drop, and cover sis acres a day, and save the 
labor of ten men, as claimed, an equally ef- 
fective machine to liarvest the crop becomes 
quite imperative. There is no doubt that the 
expensive and back-aching work of digging 
and picking up potatoes will soon he done by 
horse-power. 

The first horse-diggers were merely the 
old double-mold-board plows, with ojecting 
fingers behind to retain the tubers, and drop 
thera upon the soil. This was, perhaps, better 
than a potato-hook, but it left some covered, 



and all ungathered. The next advance con- 
sisted of two light plows attached to elevated 
side pieces, uiion each side of the machine, lo 
run before, clear away weeds and loofc dirt 
and expose the row of hills to the digger, 
which followed after. The digger was a shaft 
of iron, nearly flat upon the bottom, with a 
slight depression in the center. The soil and 
potatoes were carried over the shaft togelhtr, 
and thrown upon wire-rake fingers behind, by 
which the potatoes were separated from the 
dirt and left upon the surface of the ground. 

Since this crude eflbrt, further improvements 
have been added, by which all tlie potatoes are 
separated from the soil, and deposited in a box 
capable of liolding from ten to fifteen bushels, 
entirely free from dirt and ready for the bin. 
It is claimed that a man with two horses may 
gather six acres a day — ;is many as the hest 
horse-planters will deposit in the soil. AspiN- 
wall's digger, manufactured by Wheeler, 
Melkiv & Co., Albany, is said lo perform 
salisfactorily the work of twenty men. 

Cow-Milkiiig^ Macliine. — There have 
been several cow-milkers made, and brought 
into use to a small extent. The simplest is-the 
Mexican cow-milker, consisting of a hollow 
iron tube some two inches long, but smaller 
than a goose-quill, which inserted into the 
channel of the teat brings all the milk away 
witliout pies.sure of any kind, and without irri- 
lalion or harm. 

Solon Robinson thus describes a milker 
which has been advantageously used by some 
farmers : " It consists of two diaphragm pumps 
made of tin and India rubber, so adjusted as to 
he easily taken apart for washing. The leat- 
cups are made tapering to fit any size. This 
machine is attached to a pail and set on a .stool 
under the udder, the four teats inserted in four 
tubes, and the pump operated and the milk 
drawn and conveyed by a conductor into a 
pail, the inventor say-s, in a marvelously short 
time — say three minutes for an ordinary cow; 
milking entirely clean without injury and to 
her advantage." 

Wine and Cider Press.— Much at- 
tention is now being directed to the cultivation 
of small fruils, and many people feel the need 
of a cheap, efficient, convenient, and portable 
mill with which they can make a gallon of 
cider or wine, or larger quantities if desirable. 
There are several kinds that operate satisfac- 
torily; but the little portable Hutchinson mill, 



J50 



THE workshop: 



manufactured by tlie Peekskill Plow Works, 
Peekskill, New York, and by Georoe E. 
Hutchinson, Cleveland, Oliio, stands, perhaps, 
at the head of the list, when everything is 
taken into consideration. Xliis mill will grind 
apples, pears, and grapes without crushing 
the seeds, which is an important point when 
making cider or wine. It will also grind all 
kinds of berries and cherries, and crush the 
pits without injuring the grinding apparatus. 

Apples are first crushed, then ground into a 
fine pomace, which is discharged directly into 
the curb or into a pail. The grinding may be 
done by liand or by liorse-power. The press- 
ing is done by liand. The teeth of the grinder 
are so arranged that no apples can clog between 
them. One man can grind several bushels of 
apples per hour, and make several gallons of 
any kind of wine per hour. This machine can 
be employed as an e.xcellent lard press; and it 
is frequently employed in the d^iry for press- 
ing cheese. 

Tliere may be better mills than this, but we 
bave not met with any that possesses so much, 
compactness, convenience, durability, and effi- 
ciency. The crowning consideration is its 
cheiipness, wliich is about twenty-two dollars 
for the small size. 

Cliurn. — We have already intimated that 
there is nothing much better than the old dash 
churn, with some improvements. A churn of 
this kind, which has been awarded the first 
premium by the New York Slate Agricultural 
Society, and is a favorite throughout the hirge 
dairy districts of tliat State, is the Westcott 
churn, made by the Seneca Falls Churn Manu- 
facturing Co., New York. It embraces the 
principle of the old dasi: churn, but adds 
thereto certain improvement.s, intended to se- 
cure the best quality and largest quantity of 
butter with the least labor. For these purposes 
the dasher is double — tlie upper one adjustable 
so as to be placed at the top of the milk when 
the lower one is about half-way between bot- 
tom and top. The dasher is worked by a lever, 
BO that the motion is like that of a pump han- 
dle, and a steel spring raises it to the surface 
of the cream, thus relieving the operator of the 
most laborious part of churning. By the pecu- 
liar shape of the upper (adjustable) (hisher, 
air is carried to the bottom of the churn al 
every stroke. All parts of the churn with 
which the cream comes in contact are of the 
best wbite oak. 



A Dumping- ^'agon.— A very con- 
venient manure wagon was lately introduced — 
just the thing that many want : " The body is 
in four sections or boxes resting on axles or 
rollers, which are .supported on two sills at the 
sides, by which the wagon is drawn, thus ob- 
viating the necessity of a reach, and allowing 
the bo.xes or sections to dump separately. Any 
boy of sufficient capacity to manage a team, can 
unload one in le.ss than two minutes, leaving 
the load in four separate heaps, without any 
tool or handling of the manure. The boxes 
are very easily removed when rails, hay, etc., 
are to form the load." 

Sheep-Sliearing Machines are con- 
siderably used in some sections, iind the best 
have disappointed public expectation by work- 
ing very satisfactorily and very rapidly. The 
apparatus is a box, about the size and some- 
thing of the shape of a common brick. It is 
fastened to the arm of the shearer, who works 
the cutting part by moving a lever with his 
hand so as to produce a rapid oscillating motion 
of the knives. The knives are shielded by 
guards, similar in principle to those which are 
used for mowing machines, and although they 
can be made to cut very close, it is imjiossible 
for them to cut the skin. The machine works ' 
more rapidly than the shears, and cuts very 
evenly. 

Otiicr Improved Implements.^ 

It is scarcely possible that agricultural ma- 
chinery will make such progress during the 
next twenty years as during the Ust twenty ; for 
in 1850, this field of invention was almost en- 
lirely new and unoccupied. Y'et tliere are some 
labor-savers, which our Western prairies stand 
sorely in need of, and which the next decade 
will almost certainly produce; and any large 
farmer will confirm our judgment that the 
most prominent of these are: 1, An automatic 
grain-binder, geared to a reaper; 2, an im- 
proved .soil-stirrer, that shall prove far more 
ertective than the common plow, or even than 
the lightest and best of the steel plows. That 
both these implements will be furnished, is 
foreshadowed by what ingenuity has already 
achieved in behalf of agriculture. 

Our pages do not aflbrd room for a notice 
of the ditching-machine, clod-crusher, dirt- 
scraper, corn-sheller, hay and cotton press, clo- 
ver-huUer, and many other important imple- 
ments ; we can only advise the reader, who da- 



FARJI IMPLEMENTS. 



551 



sires to know of these, and learn more of the 
details of sucli as we liave mentioned, to send 
for an illustrated catalogue, to some prominent 
manufacturer and dealer, wliose adverUseraeiits 
are to be, or should be, found in the agricult- 
ural journals. 

Minor Matters.— Tliere are some facts 
and hints connected with the iniiileincnt.s of the 
farm and household, which may not be deemed 
unimportant. 

A Corn-Marker, — An excellent corn-marker, 
for four rows, is made b_v putting tlie forward 
wheels of a wagon upon a short axle — say four 
feet — and tlieliind wheels upon a long axle — 
B.iy twelve feet — tlien ODnnecting the axlea by 
a six-foot reach, and adding the wagon tongue. 
Sixty acres in a day can be marked with it. 
It runs light, and makes a good mark, and one 
that will show after a rain as plainly as a .sled 
mark. 

A Portable Water Barrel. — On almost every 
farm there is usually a large quantity of water 
to be transported from place to place, which 
may be gre.atly facilitated by simply hanging a 
water barrel between two light wheels. A pair 
of the forward wheels of a liglit carriage would 
be just what is needed. A strong cider, beer, 
or oil barrel may be used, by cutting two square 
lioles through the staves about two-thirds of 
the way up, to receive the axle-tree, which 
should fit close to the orifices, and be secured 



for my own use seven years ago, and the tires 
are as tight as when put on. My method of 
filling the felloes with oil is as follows: I 
use a long cast-iron oil-heater, made for the 
purpose. The oil is brought to a boiling heat, 
the wheel is placed on a .stick .so as to hang in 
the oil, eacli felloe an hour for a common-sized 
one. The tiiuber should be dry, as green tim- 
ber will not take oil. Care should be taken 
that the oil does not get hotter than boiling 
heat, in ordiT that the timber be not burnt. 
Timber filled witli oil is ncjt permeable to 
water, and is more durable. I was amused, 
some years ago, when I told a blacksmith how 
to keep the tires tight on wheels, by his telling 
me that it was a profitable business to tighten 
tires; and the wagon-maker will say that it 
is profitable to him to repair wheels. But 
what will the farmer say who supports them 
both?" 

How to Hang an Ax. — A tool that is used so 
much as an ax should be properly adjusted, as 
every blow will tell of the ease or awkwardness 
of the lianging. The rule is very simple. Put 
the helve loosely into the .ax at first, so that it 
can be moved to the proper position ; now let 
the center of the edge of the blade of the ax, 
and the butt of the helve (or part taken hold 
of), be brought each down to a horizontal line, 
which may be done by simply placing them on 
the floor, and the ax is ready for wedging. 
Filling Ice-Houscs — A good deal of labor is 
vith nails, having the very small cracks stopped sometimes lost by not adopting the easiest 



with pitch, or beeswa.x and tallow. In many 
instances a farmer could carry one or two bar- 
rels of drinking water a short distance, to a few 
animals much sooner than they could be driven 
to the watering place. As the piggery should 
always stand at a good distance from the dwell- 
ing-house, a swill barrel, on wheels, would al- 
ways be found eminently convenient for carry- 
ing all kinds of swill, whether in a solid or 
liquid state, to the swine's trough. Such a bar- 
rel may be appropriated to numerous purposes 
which will suggest themselws. A lid is made 
to fit the top closely; and two hooks hold it 
down, so that but little of the contents of the 
barrel can escape even were it turned on the 
side. 

2h Keep Tires on Wheels. — Hear what a prac- 
tical man says on this subject: "I ironed a 
wagon some years ago for my own use, and, be- 
fore putting on the tires, I filled the felloes 
with linseed oil; and the tires have worn ont 
and never were loose. I also ironed a buggy 



mode of lifting the ice out of the water. After 
the blocks are sawn in the water (which should 
be done by accurate measurement, so that all 
may pile up solid, like hewn stone, and leave 
no crevices), tliey are very easily and quickly 
drawn out by means of a light, stiff" plank, 
having a cleat across one end. This plank is 
thrust with its cleat end into the water, and un- 
der the block of ice; the cleat holds it, when 
the plank is drawn forward, and thus lifts it 
out. 

Honor Strops- — Oxide of tin, as many know, 
has a fine sharpening quality, and is exten- 
sively used for coating the leather of strops. 
When they have lost their efficiency, rub them 
briskly for a short time across a tin vessel, 
and enough will be imparted for the intended 
purpose. 

Marking Bags. — Tliis is easily done by npjily- 
ing black paint with a brush through holes cut 
as letters, in a piece of pastboard. But the 
pasteboard, unless inconveniently thick, curls 



552 



THE woRK.snop: 




at the corners after a time, and tlie letters are 
defaced. Tin plate is mucVi belter, but it is 
difficult to cut the letters in it. Thick sheet- 
lead is, however, just tlie thing, and any person 
who can use a knife may cut the letters tlirough 
it after they have been accurately marked . 

An Ox-Bow Faslener. — An excellent substi- 
tute for a bow-pin is represented in the accom- 
panying cut. A common butt or small hinge is 
used for this purpose, and is screwed by one 
wing on to the top of the yoke, so that its mov- 
able wing may cover 
about one-fourtli or 
one-fifth of tlie hole. 
A notch is cut into 
the bow to corres- 
pond with this pro- 
jecting edge of the 
liinge. On inserting the bow, this half of the 
hinge is thrust upward, but drops and secures 
it as soon as it reaches the notch. 

Tinkering. — A gun will not need cleaning for 
years, if the muzzle is kept liglitly corked, and 
a piece of rubber kept upon the tube under the 
hammer, while standing idle. 

The sharp corner of a common Indian ar- 
row-head, or flint, will cut glass quite ellect- 
ually. 

For wheel-grease, take two parts hog's lard, 
by bulk, and one each of black lead and wheat 
flour. AVe have heard wagons a mile oS', on 
a still morning, uttering the most dismal sounds 
from the want of a little of this material, and 
which a very little imagination translated into 
words — "meeze-e-ry, meeze-e-ry, mecze-e-rv ! " 

When you cut India rubber, keep the blade 
of your* knife wet, and you can then cut it 
without difficulty. 

Every farmer ought to know that cut nails, 
heated red-hot, and drojiped into cold water, 
will clinch as well as wrought nails. 

Tlie Scienlific American says that animal fats 
are much better than vegetable oil for all kinds 
of agricultural machinery. 

Uousetaold Implements. — Inven- 
tion is relieving domestic drudgery almost as 
■much as it modifies the toil of the field. Tlie 
Yankee baby .sets itself seriously at work to 
improve its nursing-bottle, and devise a more 
convenient cradle. And its ingenuity is pro- 
lific of results. The loom and spinning-wheel 
are now things of tradition — standing like 
skeletons of Silurian monsters in the back- 
ground of the ancient kitchen. Before the 



spirit of Ingenuity we are becoming terribly 
practical, and our household and neighborhood 
amusements are passing away. 

Once we had the sewing-circle and the quilt- 
ing-bee, but both are scattered now; theomniv- 
erous sewing-machine devours cloth and thread 
to come forth garments; and across the patch- 
work-quilt a girl pushes rapidly back and 
forth a toj.cart of glittering steel, and the 
quilting is done ! We had the apple-bee, 
where pleasant faces chatted across busy 
hands, and the necessary initials always came 
forth at command from the coil of apple-par- 
ings; hut now a machine is advertised where 
the apples are poured into a huge hopper to 
re-appear fiayed, cored, and quartered, ready 
for pies ! 

The knitting-needle and darning-needle will 
soon have to retire from business, and the old 
lady knitting in the corner will live only on 
the artist's canvass; for the new knitting- 
machines will produce a web either tubular or 
flat, single, double, or ribbed, finishing a stock- 
ing from top to toe in fifteen minutes, and turn- 
ing oil' twenty or thirty pairs a day. Then 
there is the carpet-sweeper, the washing-ma- 
chine, and clothes-wringer, the "lightning meat- 
chopper," and innumerable other agencies of 
relief. Even the baby born behind "brown- 
stone fronts " is rocked by clock-work ! 

All this is well, and foreshadows a better 
tiinej InMCnlion is the mother of Opportunity. 
The opportunity may not always be well im- 
proved ; the thriftless, sluggish, dissolute man, 
the frivolous, thoughtless woman, may waste or 
misuse it; but in the aggregate, the hours that 
are saved from the earthly struggle for food 
and clothing, go to promote the intelligence, 
comfort, and well-being of our race. 

In the whole domain of industry, the truth 
is now placed beyond controversy that ma- 
chinery has proved the best friend t>f the work- 
man. It has immensely increased both the 
number of the employed and the rate of their 
remuneration. Evfery wheel and lever, every 
cog and shaft and belt that takes the place of 
a human hand, adds to the aggregate not only 
of national wealth but of human comfort. 

The natural effect of this substitution of me- 
chanical for muscular power in agriculture is 
to make husbandry a less precarious and a 
more scientific and lucrative pursuit. It tends 
to transfer human labor from the ruder pro- 
cesses which can be better performed by ma- 
chinery, to the more refined operations which 



HOUSEHOLD IMPLEMENTS. 553 

demand the intelligence of the liuman mind willed, and a better paid class of laborers than 
and the dexterity of human fingers. Machin- existed in onr fathers time. No macliinery 
ery can dig and reap, and weave and sew, but supersedes human toil; but only transfers it to 
the supreme and superintending brain of man a higher plane. Invention is the handmaid 
i; still indispensable. The mower, the binder, 'of general enlightenment, and the rHorjRESS 
the thresher, the steam plow will demand for ok knowledge is the emancip.\tiox of 
their direction a better instructed, a quicker- labor. 



FAEM ECONOMY: 



Practical Directions and Useful Tables. 



Under this head, we shall group many in 
teresting and valuable facts and suggestions 
relative to the management of a "farm, that 
have not seemed to find plaoe, natural!)', in the 
special departments of this, work. 

To make Farmings more Attrac- 
tive. — We have already treated this matter 
in our first chapter, but its varied lessons can 
not be too earnestly enforced : 

1. Bv better implements. Labor-saving ma 
chinery is doing more to make farming popular 
than all other influences combined. 

2. By less hard work. Farmers often un- 
dertake more than they can do well, and con- 
sequently work too early and too late. 

3. By more system. Farmers should have a 
time to be in, and stop labor. They should 
put more mind and machinery into their work. 
They should theorize as well as practice, and 
let both go together. Farming is healthy, 
moral, and respectable; and, in the long run, 
may be made profitable. The farmer should 
keep good stock, and keep out of debt. The 
farm is the best place to begin and to end our 
days, and hence so many in the cities and pro- 
fes.sional life coVet a rural home. 

4. By taking care of health. Farmers have 
a wholesome variety of exercise, but too often 
neglect cleanliness, omit bathing, eat irregu- 
larly and hurriedly, sleep in ill-ventilated 
apartments, and expose themselves to cold. 
Nine-tenths of the human diseases arise from 
cold or intemperance. Frequent bathing is 
profitable; so is fresh air, deliberation, and 
cheerfulness at the dinner-table, and rest after 
a meal. 

5. By adorning the home. Nothing is lost 
by a plensant home. Books, papers, pictures, 
music, and reading, should all be brought to 
bear upon the in-door family entertainments. 
and neatness, comfort, order, shrubbery, flow- 
ers, and fruits should harmonize all without. 

(554) 



Home should be a sanctuary so happy and 
holy that children will love it, women delight 
in it, manhood crave it, and old age enjoy it. 
There would be less desertion of old home- 
steads, if pains were taken to make them agree- 
able. Ease, order, health, and beauty are 
compatible with farm life, and were ordained 
to go with it. 

TVheii to Buy a Farm.— All know 
that cultivated fields show to the best advantage 
in Summer time ; yet few seem to realize that 
July and August are the best months in the 
year in which to select a farm. At this season 
one can jiulge, without chemical analysis, 
whether the land can produce good crops, for 
if it be covered with waving grass or grain, and 
if there is "an abundance of choice fruit," the 
occular demonstration will be accepted as a 
sufficient voucher. 

f 

Book Farmers.— The man who sneers 

at "book farming" and derides the idea that 
a?:ricultural journals can throw light upon his 
labors, will never attain to eminence in his oc- 
cupation. He may, by stinginess and hard 
knocks, manage to feed his family without a 
farm-book or paper; but they are quite indis- 
pensable to rapid progress. 

Samuel Williams, of Waterloo, New York, 
says: "I know a farmer who has paid over 
three hundred dollars for a private library, 
and who takes both the Albany Cultivator and 
Oeneaee Farmer. In proof that he is something 
more than a theoretical farmer, he sold the 
surplus products of his farm last year lor over 
fourteen hundred dollars, and he paid out of 
the same but ninety dollars for hired help — he 
h,is no children old enough to work in tlie field. 
It is hardly necessary to say that he is fully up 
to the improvements of the age." 

Milton J. Boss, of Allen county, Ohio, 
say.s, in the Ohio Cultivator: " This year I had 



DOES FARMING PAT? 



555 



twenty bushels of wheat to the acre, from a fiekl 
of forty acres — whicli for this region is a re- 
markable crop — and I attribute the extra yield 
eniirely to knowledge I have obtained by reading. 
When I commenced fanning, 'twelve years ago, 
my wheat crop was only six to eight busbels 
per acre." * ® " Mr. EuKL, in his life-time, 
furnished me information, tlirough his ' Calti- 
rator' in relation to making and using manures, 
that is worth to me, at leitst/ce hundred dollars." 

How many hundreds of thousands of dollars 
liave been saved and earned, in all the Middle 
States by information obtained through Moore's 
Rural Sew Yorker and the Ayriculturist ! — and 
how many fortones in the West has the Prairie 
Farmer been the key to! Says Horace Gkee- 
ley: "There are at present some fifty or sixty 
periodicals published in our country devoted to 
farming — as many, I presume, as in all the 
world beside. They have been built up at a 
great expense of talent, labor, and money; for 
when Colonel Skinnee started the first of them 
at Baltimore, some forty years ago, the idea of 
teaching farmers anything in that way was 
hooted by them as ridiculous, ond he found it 
)iardly po.ssible to give his early numbers away. 
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been 
spent in these publications; and they are this 
day, in my judgment, doing more to promote 
the true growth of the country, and the sub- 
stantial, enduring welfare of our people, than 
Congress and the army and navy, for the sup- 
port of which they are taxed some forty mill- 
ions per annum." 

Pennock Pukset, of St. Paul, Minnesota, 
gives in the Chicago Post, an account of the ex- 
perience of Oliver Dalrympee and otiiers 
who liave followed farming on a large scale 
for a few years past, in that State, adding some 
remarks to the effect that farming, with the 
same amount of capital, study, energy, and 
business sagacity that other kinds of busine.ss 
employ, can be made to pay as well as the best, 
and to rank with the highest in point of respect- 
ability, agreeableness, and certainty of profits. 

Mr. Dalry'MPLE does not scorn " book farm- 
ing," but eagerly makes himself familiar with 
the best methods, deduced from the aggregate 
experience of others, and the result is, that 
though a lawyer by profession, he makes farm- 
ing pay munificently. In 1867, he grew .seven- 
teen hundred aere.s of wheat, averaging twenty- 
one busliels to the acre, or a total of thirty-five 
thou>and seven hundred bushels. He con- 
tracted for the transportation of his crop in 
bulk to Milwaukee, for twenty-one cents per 



bushel, where he realized from SI 60 to SI 85 
per bushel, netting about SI 50 per bushel, or 
an aggregate of S53,5o0. In con.sequence of 
the extremely high prices which had ruled the 
preceding ^'ear — seed-wheat costing S2 50 per 
bushel, with corresponding disbursements for 
first breaking and other expenses — the net 
profits were somewhat less than one-third of 
the total receipts; but a clear profit was real- 
ized of about S14,500. 

In 1868, his crop averaged twenty-three 
bushels per acre, aggregating tliirty-nine thou- 
sand bushels, and leaving him, when sold, a 
net profit of more than $20,000. His crop for 
1869 was neai-ly fifty thousand bushels. Many 
other farmers in other States bear equally 
eloquent testimony to the value of " book 
farming." 

Does Farming Paj ?— .Vlmost every 
man thinks he can drive a four-horse team, 
manage a farm, and keep a hotel, without any 
special training for either job. This iilea that 
farming is an occupation that requires no edu- 
cation and little skill, lies at the basis of most 
of the failures to make farming pay. No other 
profession could stand so much mismanagement 
and so much stupid and mulish conservatism 
as agriculture has had to sustain. 

Yei, in spite of the ignorant and thriftless 
thousands who drift into farming on the theory 
that " anybody can manage a farm," it is more 
profitable than any other occupation. There 
are thousands of men in this country who have 
made SoO.OOO a piece from farming alone. If ' 
it were, as some assert, a bad business, three- 
fourths of our population would not ,=elect it, or 
remain in it as a matter of choice, while com- 
merce and the mechanic arts are open to all. 
No man voluntarily chooses, as his portion, 
hard labor, poverty, and misery. Trade, like 
water, finds its level. If any occupation or 
scheme happens to prove very lucrative, great 
numbers ru.sh into it, and it is soon overdone. 
If, on the contrary, it is found a losing business;, 
a portion withdraw, and leave a better field for 
the rest. And now, after the lapse of thousands 
of years, we find the great majority of all active 
men adhering to agriculture as the occupation 
of their choice. 

Amos Lawrence, of Boston, kept a record 
during a long .life, of all his mercantile ac- 
quaintance, and found that out of every hun- 
dred who entered business, ninety-seven failed of 
success. J; J. Thomas asserts that "at housand 
young men who engage in the cultivation of 



556 



FARM ECONOMY: 



the Roil, accumulate a lotrger aggregate property 
than a thousand who enter trade." Farmers 
who attend to their business, exercise decent 
economy, use common judgment, and let out- 
side speculations alone, do not fail. Moreover, 
their prospects are evei-y year improving in 
every State. 

Our farmers make more money than their 
fathens did, and spend more; they live better, 
dress better, travel more, read more, live in 
better houses, educate their children better, and 
are in ev^ery way more prosperous. If a census 
could be taken of the merchants and busine.ss 
men in our large cities who are most active in 
their occupations, and the most noted for wealth 
and enterprise, it would be found that a ma- 
jority of them came from a farm, and a very 
large proportion of them look forward to a 
home upon a farm, to which they may some- 
time retire from the avocations ol commerce, 
as the goal of their ambition. Comparatively 
few ever reach it and they only after tlie habits 
of a life-time have unfitted them for its en- 
joyment. 

How to Slake it Pay Belter.— 

The first advantage a young man can have as a 
farmer, is to work for his farm and pay for it 
with money earned with his own hands. To 
inherit a farm will probably diminish success; 
to inherit S10,000 in addition, will probably 
prevent success. "Young maul" says Dr. Hol- 
land, "if you are poor, thank God and take 
courage, for He has given you a chance to make 
somebody of yourself!" The doctor is right; 
if you are plucky, a good kick out of doors is 
better than four rich uncles. 

Studi/.^Sludy this and other books and jour- 
nals of agriculture, select such methods of treat- 
ment of soil.s, crop.*, orchards, etc., as seem 
fitted to your farm, and then test their value 
and adaptation by careful experiment. You 
will be better for your books; don't neglect 
them. Learning is wealth to the poor, honor 
to the rich, aid to the young, entertainment and 
comfort to the aged. 

Mixed Farming. — Practice 'a diversified or 
"mixed" husbandry; having one leading de- 
partment, as hay, grain, stock, fruit, or the dairy, 
but seldom adopting any one to the entire ex- 
clusi(m of all tlie rest. The different depart- 
ments work economically togeMier and assist 
and strengthen each other, while constantly 
improving the soil. Those farmers in the 
West who make wheat-growing orstock-fatten- 
w ing their entire reliance, are following a haz- 



ardous cour.se which is likely to end in complete 
or partial ruin. 

Draining. — No other improvement is so much 
neglected on American farms as subsoil or tile- 
draining, and no other would yield such an im- 
mense profit (vs this, if it were judiciously intro- 
duced in every settled township. There are 
thousands of farms that would double in value 
in five years, if they were subjected to a thor- 
ough system of tile-drainage on every field that 
suffers for lack of it. If the land is wet, 
swampy, or springy, of course it should be 
drained, but there are many apparently dry 
fields that equally need relief from .stagnant 
water held in the subsoil. Thi.s condition may 
be easily determined by digging a hole two 
feet deep in the Spring of the year; if water 
will stand in it, underdraining is required. 

If one of our railroads or banks should be 
known to pay an average of thi7'ly per cet^. 
dividend annually on its regular earning.s, what 
a rush would be made for the stock at par! 
Systematic tile-draining will almost always pay 
as much as this, yet firmers are as sluggish as 
the dead water, .■fnd do not invest ! We entreat 
every reader of this paragraph, who holds land 
worth forty dollars an acre, to try tile-draining 
on a single field. It will plead its own cause 
thereafter. 

Akin to draining, and equally advantageous 
in many sections, is 

Irrigation. — This is practiced little in the 
States; but Utah offsets its peculiar marital 
theories by an excellent example in the ra.itter 
of irrigation. For a knowledge of the benefits 
of watering, we already owe much to the Mor- 
mons. A correspondent says : 

"The report of the Dcseret Agricultural and 
Manufacturing Society, made last year to the 
legislature, shows this: The amount reported 
as having been expended for irrigation in one 
year was $246,938, and the number of aci'es 
irrigated was 93,709. Eighty thousand five 
hundred and eighteen acres were devoted to 
cereals ; one thousand eight hundred and seven- 
teen to sorghum; six thou.sand eight hundred 
and thirty-nine to root crops; one hundred and 
sixty-six acres were planted with cotton,' and 
twenty-nine thousand eight hundred and sev- 
enty-six were reported as meadows. There 
were nine hundred and six acres in apple or- 
chards; ten hundred and eleven acres in peach 
orchards; seventy-five acres in grapes, and one 
hundred and ninety-five acres in currants. A 
canal is in course of construction, by a stock 
company, to bring the waters of Utah Lake 



now TO LOSE MONEY BY IT. 



557 



along the whole length of the intermediate 
valluy to Salt Lake. This will aftbrd means 
of irrigation and hydraulic power to rnn hiills." 

27ioroHjAness— No farmer ought to be satisfied 
witli less than an average of two tons of hay to 
an acre from his meadows, and his stock ought 
to reap as much from his pastures. This may 
easily be attained by underdraiuing, deep plow- 
ing for previous crops, and heavy seeding to 
grass. We have known an average of four 
tons to the acre, from fields thus managed. 

It is a .raet that our most successful farmers 
are, as a rule, gentlemen who have been en- 
gaged in active town or city" life, where much 
thoui^ht, cnerg.^aotivity, and enterprise are re- 
quired ; they have been taught system, order, 
pruilonce, and economy in the adaptation of 
means tii ends — to do everything well, and to 
do it at tlie proper time. They have learned 
not to spurn any agency that will increa.se their 
knowledge of their new occupation and point 
tlie road to success. 

There is a very pretty fable of a Sicilian 
peasant that had tliree daughters. When the 
eldest was married he gave her one-fourth of 
his vineyard, and his annual crop after that 
was the .same. When his second daughter 
married, he gave her one- fourth, and still his 
remaining vines bore the same quantity of clus- 
ters as before. When the third daughter mar- 
ried and received her equal portion, his harvest 
was as large as ever. The secret lay in the fact 
that he be.stowed on one-fuurth part the same 
skill and labor formerly expended on the whole 
vineyard, and with the same result. 

Perhaps we can best indicate how to make 
farming pay better, by showing 

Wow to LiOse Money by It.— -If you 
are a young man, bend all your energies to the 
procuring of a fast horse, and show your ac- 
tivity by cutting a swell behind him around 
the country. Wait patiently till "the old man" 
dies and bequeaths to you his farm, then hire 
Bill S.mith to take care of it, instructing him 
to use his own judgment and not bother you. 
Encourage the raising of live stock by attend- 
ing horse-races, and patronize breeders by 
slaking your money on the result. Cimnect 
your.self with the agricultural press, by sub- 
scribing for the Field, Tarf, and So-Forth. Show 
your iiUere.st in the growth of rye, barley, and 
liops, by drinking freely of the beverages there 
from concocted. Give your countenance in the 
same way to tobacco culture. Don't get mar- 
ried; you can't afford that sort of husbandry. 



In about four year.s, if the farm is a good one 
and you are as frugal as you will be likely to 
be. Bill Smith, or a more enterprising neigb- 
bor, will foreclose sundry mortgages, take your 
property off your hands, you can go to sea to 
complain of your "bad luck," and wonder what 
has become of your money. 

If you are an old hand at it, and still man- 
age to keep a little farm going on slip-shod 
principles, the following rules will enable you 
to do all your work uniformly — in the worst 
po.ssible manner: • 

Concerning Land. — If you add to your acres, 
buy poor land at a low price, rather than the 
be.st at a high price; you will thus get some- 
thing like half as much harvest fur your sub- 
sequent labor. 

Never drain; if you do, the farm-work will 
be hastened, crops increased, and manure saved, 
besides which you will lose the stagnant water 
and the " buried crockery." 

Plow shallow ; keep doing as your grand- 
father did, and stick to it that "yaller earth 
is j)izen." 

Concerning Manure. — Build your hog-pen, 
and if possible, your barn-yard, across a run- 
ning steam ; this will carry the filth off your 
farm, and you won't be bothered with it. Some 
of the best farms are "always stuck up with 
manure." 

If there is no running stream convenient, 
move your barn, when the yard is packed si.x 
or eight feet deep, to another hill-side, and start 
again ; the original deposit will wasli away in 
time; '^y this flanking system do thousands 
of sagacious farmers in the West get rid of a 
nuisance, and, at the same time, preserve that 
cleanliness which is said to be "next to godli- 
ness." Give a neighbor the contents of your 
privy, and pay him to carry it upon his own 
laud. 

If, after the above treatment, your soil yields 
any crops, never feed or plow under the wheat- 
straw and cornstalks, but always burn them — 
you won't be troubled with so heavy a growth 
next time. 

Concerning Crops. — Plant the same crop year 
after year in thcsame field, thus diminishing 
the product, and filling the land with \*eeda. 

Plant and sow very late; by so doing you 
will diminisli the crop an amount equal lo the 
whole net profit; that is,. you will get nothing 
for your labor. 

Allow your corn-fields to be filled with a 
dense undergrowth of weed.s, and potatoes, tur- 
nips, and onions with a a dense overgrowth of 



558 



FARM ECONOMY: 



ditto ; it won't cost half so miicli to harvest your 
crop, and money [iiiid ont in August and Sep- 
tember is an important item. 

Don't be persuaded to row clover and then 
waste it by plowing it under; if you do, it will 
pulverize, warm, and enrich the soil, and the 
first you will know, your harvest will be larger 
than you will know what to do wilh. 

Don't be fooled by il\e cry of "rotation." 
Dirt is dirt, isn't it? and if a field will grow 
potatoes, of course it will grow wheat. Keep 
your cifrn in the "corn-lot" all your life, as 
your father did; if you were to jump around 
from field to field, as the book-farmers advise, 
your corn would very likely outgrow the gran- 
ary — and then what a fix you'd be in ! 

Concerning Stock. — See how little food will 
keep a cow alive. It is astonishing how this 
sort of economy counts up I 

Feed as irregularly as possible. It will give 
the cows an appetite if they wait an hour or 
two for breakfast ; and it will save them anx- 
iety if they don't know precisely when to ex- 
pect i(. 

Wouldn't waste many oats on horses; how 
do horses get along in countries where oats 
won't grow ? Oats make horses frisky ; get 
them u.sed to going without, and they will be 
just as well satisfied with gnawing the wood-j 
pile or the fence. 

Don't throw corn to pigs; men can eat corn, 
and there l;as been enough wasted in hog- 
troughs to keep thousands of human beings from 
starvation; above all, never feed pigs till they 
stop squealing. It is bad manners to squeal, 
and well-bred swine ought to be broken of it 

Let neat cattle, so called, lie in their own 
manure as much as possible, for it will keep 
them warm. Never curry them — it makes 'em 
tender. 

Teach your cattle to jump; it won't cost you 
half so much to feed them, and if it costs your 
neighbors more, that is their lookout. Cattle 
may be taught to go over any fence, by careful 
training, as follows: First starve them, or give 
them poor feed, which will make them light and 
enterprising. As soon as they go over the lowest 
part of the fence after better provender, put on 
another rail and then make them jump back 
again, saying "Plague take you! I guess that'll 
keep you out !" Ne.xt day, drive them out 
again, repeating the process, and adding another 
rail. In a short time they will be able to take 
care of themselves. 

Cattle will live with very little care. Stables 
and sheds are an expensive and needless luxury. 



You will he surprised (o see liow much exposure 
to snow-storms cattle can stand when they are 
once hardened. When Winter sets in turn 
them to the hay-stacks, pull down the fences 
and make them earn their own living. In the 
Spring you will have land-pike pigs, hump- 
backed cows, and horses of Gothic architecture, 
with appetites as sharp as their hips. Don't 
fail to teach your stock self-reliance. 

By a careful observance of the above rules, 
the farmer may dispense with keeping an ac- 
count of annual profits and losses. 

LiUCky Fanners.— Say what we will 
there is a good deal in luck. There have been 
some very unhicky farmers who were frugal, 
industrious, and had no expensive personal 
habits. 

One m:in was unlucky in wintering Iiis slock. 
He kepi, generally, abont twenty cattle and a 
hundred sheep, and wintered them mainly in 
the yard and fields. The cattle trod about three 
tons of hay under foot each year, and consumed 
half a ton each extra by exposure to the winds, 
in all thirteen tons, worth ninety-one dollars. 
This exposure of cattle and calves reduced their 
size and market value one-tliird — annual in- 
crease, si.t head, and average value lost, eight 
dollars each — forty-eight dollars. Ten per 
cent, of his sheep and lambs, were lost for want 
of shelter, and the clip was diminished twenty- 
five per cent, from the same cause — total loss on 
sheep per annum, fiftj' dollars. The whole 
yearly loss on cattle and sheep was, therefore, 
one hundred and eighty-nine dollars. In forty 
yeai-s this annual loss, with compound interest, 
would amount to about thirty-five thousand 
dollars. Was not that "bad luck?" 

Another man was "unlucky" by neglecting 
to employ tile-drainage on his farm. Half of 
it badly needed draining; and, if he had at- 
tended to it, would have netted him, exclusive 
of cost, a surplus crop amounting to at least 
five dollars an acre on fifty acres annually — 
total two hundred and fifty dollars a year. 
This loss repeated for forty years, with interest, 
would amount to more than fifty thousand dol- 
lars! This farmer was vei-y " unlucky." 

But we have known farmers to be " lucky." 
They were lucky with their crops, for they 
properly drained, plowed and prepared the 
soil, saved their manure, sowed with the drill, 
adapted the fertilizers to the ground and the 
crop, fought the weeds, and harvested in the 
best way and at the right time. They were 
lucky with their fruit; for they treated it aa 



MEASURING AND MAPriNO FARMS. 



559 



carefully as tlieir corn, giving wide, deep, and 
mellow cnltivation, nmlcliing in Winter, not 
by piling tlie ninlch aronnd the trunk, but by 
spreading as far as the limbs extend, fertilizing 
judiciously in tlie same way, with a compost 
one-lliird barn-yard manure, one-tenth ashes 
and lime, and the rest swamp muck; and 
by grafting wisely, pruning moderately, and 
wulching constantly. They were lucky with 
their stock; for they used no scrub or grade 
bulls, but selected and bred their cattle with an 
eye to improvement, protected them from the 
elements, raised green crops fur soiling in the 
Fall, cut food and steamed it in the Winter, 
substituted cleanliness for filth, and saved tons 
of hay by giving good shelter and abundant 
care. " Good luck " is not such a capricious 
fellow as many suppose; he may always be 
found perching on the fruit trees or walking 
b)' the reaping-machines, or hovering about 
tlie barn-yards of such farmers as these. 

One of the most famous farmers of the West 
was the late Jacob Stkawn, of Jacksonville, 
Illinois. The following are some of his 
maxims: 

" When you wake up do not roll over, but 
roll out. It will give you time to ditch all 
your sloughs, break them up, harrow them, 
and sow with timothy aijd red clover. 

" Be sure to get your hands to bed by seven 
o'clock ; they will rise early by the force of 
circumstances. 

"I am satisfied that getting up early, indus- 
try, and regular habits, are the best medicines 
ever published for he;dth. 

" Pay a hand, if he is a poor hand, all you 
promise him ; if he is a good hand pay liim a 
little more; it will encourage him to do still 
better. 

" Always feed your hands as well as you do' 
yourself, for the laboring men are the bone and 
sinew of the world, and ought to be well treated. ■ 
" Take your time and make your ealcula-'i 
tions; don't do things in a hurry, but do them 
at the right time, and keep your mind as well, 
as your body employed. 

"If your barn is larger than your house, it 
is a sign that you may expect large profits and 
small afflictions. 

" The best fertilizer of any soil is a spirit of 
industry, enterprise, and intelligence; without 
this, lime and gypsum, bones and green ma- 
nure, marl and guano, will be of little use." 

measuring and Mapping Farms. 

We are indebted to the Countrij Gentleman, of 



January, 1869, for the following valuable arti- 
cle, giving instructions whereby any farmer 
can accurately measure any field of any shape. 
It will be worth ten times the cost of this vol- 
ume to any farmer: 

Importance of Mapping. — "A vast amount of 
valuable opportunity is lost by farmei's in con- 
sequence of not knowing the exact area of their 
fields. Certain modes of cultivation, such as 
thin and thick sealing, different ways of ma- 
nuring, deep and shallow plowing and plant- 
ing, using different varieties of seed, and early 
and late cutting, variously aflfect the expense 
and amount of product; but, as the owner 
knows only by guessing how much his fields 
contain, he is unable to arrive at certain and 
satisfactory results, or to repeat the modes by 
which such results are reached. .He can not 
know how long his team will be occujjied in 
plowing a field, unless he knows its contents, 
nor say how much seed will he needed, how 
much manure he applies per acre, or whether 
he obtains thirty, forty, or fifty bushels as a 
crop, which may be affected five or ten bushels 
to the acre, according to variation in manage- 
ment. It may, in short, be laid down as a cer- 
tain fact, that the farmer who keeps his lands 
constantly measured, and regularly weighs or 
measures their products, will learn more about 
good paying farming in ten years, than the 
careless and guessing farmer in forty. 

Method of Mappin(j. — "Open weather in Winter 
often affordsagood opportunity to measure fields 
and to map farms. A thin, crusty snow, hard 
enough to bear the weight, fills up hollows and 
furrows, and makes a rough surfa(^e more easily 
and accurately measured. With the simple im- 
plements we are about to describe, the measuring 
may be readily accomplished by any farmer. 
Having taken these measurements in his memo- 
randum book, he can lay them down with meas- 
ure and rule on a sheet of paper within doors, 
and easily calculate the area by the simple rules 
here given, if he knows the first rules in arith- 
metic. He can thus draw his whole farm on a 
sheet of paper, with the dimensions and con- 
tents of every field ; and, if he has a little .skill 
with pen and pencil, will make a neat and use- 
ful map. If he has but little skill, he will 
nevertheless make a map which, although 
rougher, will be accurate because its fields have 
been accurately measured, and will be con- 
stantly of great use and value. 

Measuring Distances. — "The man who buys' 
or sells land will require a good surveyor, with 
compass or theodolite, and a Gunter's chain. 



560 



FARM economy: 



corrected by tlie authorized standard of the 
county or Slate; but for all ordinary and prac- 
tical purposes, where tlie farmer keeps tlie ac- 
count with himself, this accuracy is unnecessary. 
Chaining always requires two persons, which 
is often inconvenient. If the owner can delib- 
erately make his own measurements alone, 
while his men are at work, he will be much 
better suited, and will be more likely to enter 
into the biisine.ss thoroughly. Pacing is too 
inaccurate, although some, by long practice, 
will accomplish it with much uniformity. One 
of the most rapid and convenient modes is the 
use of a light angular wheel, which is thrust 
forward as fast as llie measurer walks. Figure 
1 represents a wheel for this purpose, made of 




Fig. 1.— Land BIeasurer. 
strips of wood a little larger than common 
lath — lightness being very important, in order 
to prevent the successive jerking which would 
take place if the implement was heavy, as 
each point strikes the earth. The wheel is of 
such a size as to revolve once at every rod in 
length. To effect this purpose, the strips must 
be 32} inches long from the center* (as calcu- 
lated by trigonometry), which will give 24| 
inches from point to point. To construct this 
wheel, take a round piece of board about an 
inch thick, and saw radiating spaces into it, 
shaving the wood between the saw-cuts out 
with a sharp chisel (Figure 2) ; then lay in the 
strips and screw them in. Then 
11/^ screw on another round piece of 

spokes should be fitted with ac- 
'"■ " curacy, so as to be firm, and the 
points at equal distances. Then measure from 
point to point, and if all are accurately 24^ 
inches apart, the measurements of the land 
will also be correct, 8 times 245 being 16 J feet. 
It is best to drive a nail lengthwise into the end 
of each arm or spoke, before whittling it down 
sharp, as this will prevent the point from wear- 
ing down, and becoming ultimately too short. 



board and the hub will be com- 
plete. The radiating strips or 



■acy, 32.337 inches. 



"A straight smooth piece of round rod iron, 
with a screw and nut on one end, is then in- 
serted for an axle; and two strips of board 
placed on each side to receive the ends of the 
axle. A washer, made of sole leather, may be 
placed on each side of the wheel and inside the 
strips of board. The.se two strips have blocks 
placed between them, to keep them at suitable 
distances apart, and a cross-bar is passed 
through the rear end for a handle. For meas- 
uring farms of a moderate size, this will be 
sufficient, with the addition of a strip of red 
cloth on one of the spokes, .so that each revolu- 
tion may be easily seen by the operator as he 
pushes the machine before him. For more 
extensive work, two wheels, for recording are 
to be attached, as shown in Figure 3. These 
may be about six inches in diameter, and 
made of inch board. They are placed in 
the space in which the wheel revolves, which 




l-ig. 3.— Wiii.Ei.s nn Kecoiidixo. 
must be made wide* enough for this pur- 
pose. The first lias twenty small headless nails 
driven into its circunifereuce at equal dis- 
tances, projecting half an inch or more. A 
short tooth projects from the axle (easily in- 
serted by drilling a hole), and so situated that 
at every revolution it conies against one of the 
nails, thus pushing the wheel on a short distance. 
At the next revolution it pushes another nail on. 
In this way the wheel revolves once for every 
twenty rods. On the axles of this wheel is a 
single tooth, which comes successively against 
one of the sixteen nails of a second wheel, 
made like the first. Thus the second wheel re- 
volves once in a mile, or three hundred and 
twenty rods, and long distances may be easily 
counted without much ti'ouble to the observer. 
It may be used to measure roads, either on foot 
or by being drawn behind a wagon. The 
wheels should have enough friction at the 
axles to prevent any possibility of their slip- 
ping; which is easily efTecled by a spring 
pressing the axles, or by boring a hole down 
close beside the bearings, and thrusting in a 
wooden plug or wedge, so as to press moder- 
ately against the axles. 

This machine may be made of pine, which 



MEASURING AND MAPPING FARMS. 



5G1 



is light and sufficiently stiff, but llie aims or 
spokes should be of oak or other hard wood. 
If ihey are half an inch thick and two inches 
wide at the hub, tapering to an inch or less at 
the outer end, we have found them to be quite 
stifT enough. Any ingenious farmer who has a 
workshop will readily make one for himself, or 
a good joiner will do the work well — we had 
one made (without registering wheels) in a 
neat and substantial manner for three dollars. 
It measures land with case and rapidity, and 
will soon pay for itself by the increase of 
knowledge which it will be the means of pour- 
in;; into the farmer's mind, when he measures 
all his crops. 

'"The measurements will, of course, be most 
correct on smooth hard ground. On a freshly 
plowed field they will be attended with consid- 
erable inaccuracy, and should be made after 
the field is harrowed and settled. Our own 
ex[icrience during the past year shows that on 
a smooth surface there is rarely a variation of 
half an inch to a rod, and on ordinary farm 
ground or grass, not more than an inch, ff well 
made. It is always advisable to prove the 
work on a piece of measured ground, to see if 
the spokes are of the right length. 

Measuring Areas. — "Square fields, or those in 
the shape of a rectangle, are of course most 
easily calculated; all that is requisite is to 
multiply the length by the breadth — which, if 
in rods, will be divided by 160 to bring it to 
acres. Or, if the field is measured in chains 
and links or hundredths, according to the general 
practice of land surveyors, he has the very easy 
task of dividing these by ten, or in other words, 
simply pointing off one figure to make the 
product acres and hundredtlis of an acre. 

"But,iflhe fields 
are three-sided, or 
with four or more 
sides in an irreg- 
ular shape, anoth- 
er mode must be 
^ adopted, which is 
*'=■ ^' nearly as easy when 

once understood. If three-sided, with one right 
angle, as at a, Figure 4, this right-angled tri- 
angle will contain precisely one-half as much as 
if a .square or rectangle, as indicated by the 
dotted lines. All we have to do in this case, 
therefore, is to measure the two sides which 
contain the right angle, multiply tliera together, 
and divide by 2. For example — .suppose a tri- 
angular field measures 40 rods on one side and 
50 rods on the other; multiply these, and the 

36 




product is 2,000 square rods — one-half of which, 
1,000, is the area — which divided by 160 gives 
6} acres. But more frequently the triangle has 




no right angle, as in Figure 5, what then? 
Divide it into two parts, as shown by the dotted 
line, making two triangles, measure them sepa- 
rately, and add the areas together. The dotted 
line must be at right angles to the side on whicli 
it falls, or nearly so — a slight variation will not 
affect the result materially. To do this easily, 
stretch a cord or garden-line, or make a straight 
line in any other way, place a carpenter's square 
a, on this, moving it along one way or the other 
until the other arm of the square points to a 
stake at the corner b. Then measure to this 
corner, and also measure from the square to the 
two other corners, and you have all the neces- 
sary figures to tell readily 
how much land is in the 
field. Suppose for exam- 
ple, the dotted line is 40 
rods long, and the two 
parts of the line, c d, are 
30 and 50 rods. Multi- 
ply, and we get 1,200 and 
2,000— add, and the sum 
is 3,200— divide by 2, and 
the product is 1,600 square 
rods, or ten acres, the con- 
tents of the field. The 
most convenient way of placing this square is 
to saw a slit into the side of a stake near the 
top, drive in the stake, and place In the square 
(Figure 6.) 

"A four-.sided field with parallel sides, but 




Fig. 6. 



with oblique angles (Figure 7) requires that a 
line across it be measured at right angles to 
one of the other sides, as marked by dots in 
the figure, and then one of the sides multiplied 
by the length of this dotted line, which will 



562 



FARM ECONOMT: 



give the aren. If only two sides are parallel, 



as in Figure 8, add these two sides tbgether, 
and divide the sum by 2; then multiply this 
quotient by the dotted line for the area. 



receding toward ruin. He works in the dark, 
and the result must be a loss of hundreds or 
thousands of dollars in the long run. Every 
farmer ought to keep an accurate account with 
every department, and to avoid being cheated, 
either by his stock, his crops, or his customers, 
he ought to h.ive at hand the means of weigh- 
ing to an ounce, and measuring to a hair, a 
justified half-bushel, a ten-foot pole, a meas- 
ured wagon-box, a graduated granary, and, 
above all, a Fairbank's platform scale, that 
he m.iy determine at once the vital question, 
How Much ? Without these, the buying drover 
and butcher have an advantage of the farmer, 
fur they can usually estimate the weight of an 
animal much closer than he can. A good pair 
of scales ought to save their cost every year. 

Wluil is a Horse- Power f — A liorse-power, 
when considered as the unit of power in ma- 
chinery, was defined by Mr. Watt to be "the 
power required to lift 33,000 pounds avoirdu- 
pois one foot high in a minute." Few farmers 
If the field is four-sided and irregular (Fig- 1 attach this technical meaning .to it, yet it 
nre 9) cut it up into triangles, a.s shown by the should be imderstood by all. The American 
dotted lines, and measure each of these sepa-i yliy/icii/dinsnhus more definitely explains it: 




rately, as already shown. If five or more 




Bided (Figure 10) pursue the same process. A 
little practice will enable any man who knows 
enough to own a field, to measure any piece of 
ground with great readiness and ease, without 
resorting to the complex calculations of land 
surveyors. This may seem like very simple 
instruction ; but we know from observation 
that there are many who have not looked into 
the matter, who feel awkward in measuring 
for the want of a few simple rules, well under- 
stood by school-boys in theory, but which they 
hesitate in applying when called upon in 
practice. 

W^elghts and Measures.— The farmer 
who does not habitually weigh and measure, is 
adrift without a chart or a compass, uncertain 
whether he is advancing toward success or 



"A horse hitched to the end of a rope over 
a pulley, one foot in diameter, placed over a 
deep well, traveling at the rate of about 2} 
miles per hour, or 220 feet per minute, will 
draw up 150 pounds the same distance he 
travels. The force thus exerted, is called in 
mechanics, a ' horse-power,' it being an approx- 
imation to the average amount of continuous 
power it is fair to demand of a strong horse. 
If we multiply the weight raised (150 pounds) 
by the number of feet it was moved per minute 
(220), the product will be the number of pounds 
which the same power would raise one loot 
high in the same length of time (33,000 
pounds). 

"The dynamometer is an instrument made 
for measuring power, particularly that exerted 
in drawing. Those used for testing the draft 
of agricultural implements, are simply very 
strong spring balances, or spring steelyards, 
graduated to indicate the power required to 
raise any weight, within reasonable limit, at 
the rate of '2\ miles per hour. Wlien we apply 
the dynamometer, in ascertaining the draft of 
machines, if the index indicates 150 pounds, it 
is shown that the horse is required to draw just 
as hard as he would do if raising 150 pounds 
out of a well with a rope over a pulley one 
foot in diameter, at the rate of 2i miles per 
hour, and so for other weights. 

"The velocity at which a team moves is 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



563 



to be considered, as well as tlie weight to be 
raised, or the load to be drawn. In ascertain- 
ing; the draft of a plow, or reaper and mower, 
by drawing faster than 2} miles per hour, the 
dynamometer would indicate more than the 
correct draft; and by driving slower the draft 
would- appear to be less than it really is. In 
testing the draft of machines a team slionid 
alwMvs move at the rate of 2.V miles per hour, 
or 220 feet per minute, which is the universally 
accepted rate with reference to which dyna- 
mometers are graduated, and an easy one to 
which to approximate in driving with almost 
any kind of te»»ii. The power of a man is es- 
timated at one-fifth of a horse-power." 

Uniformity of Weights and Ifeasures. — Dur- 
ing the past few years an efibrt has been mak- 
ing in Europe and America lo reduce weights 
and measures to some common standard, 
whereby general uniformity might be attained. 

Says Sir William Armstrong:" "Science 
suffers by the want of uniformity, because val- 
uable observations made in one country are, in 
a great measure, lost to another, from the labor 
required to convert a series of quantities into 
new denominations. International commerce 
is also impeded by the same cause, which is 
productive of constant inconvenience and seri- 
ous mistake. It is much to be regretted that 
two standards of measure so nearly alike as 
the English yard and the French meter should 
not be made absolutely identical. The metric 
system has already been adopted by other na- 
tions besides France, and is the only one which 
has any chance of becoming universal. We, 
in England, therefore, have no allernative but 
to conform to France, if we desire general 
uniformity." 

The five-cent pieces now in use in this coun- 
try, mark an epoch in the history of our 
weights and measures, for they are coined in 
conformity to the French metric system. Each 
of them weighs exactly five grammes, and five 
of them laid along in order on the flat surface 
mark ofi' a diameter in length. Thus the 
weight and diameter of this coin constitute the 
first official recognition, on the part of the 
United States, of the decimal system of weights 
and measures. The basis of this scheme, and 
the only arbitrary unit, is the meter. This 
was found by French mathematicians by meas- 
uring an arc of the earth's circumference on 
the meridian passing through Paris, and thus 
calculating the exact distance from the equator 



to the pole. This distance was arbitrarily di- 
vided by 10,000,000, and that gave the unit a 
meter of length, which, if it is ever lost, could 
be recovered again by a new measurement of 
the earth's circumference. The circumference 
of the earth is, for all practical purposes, inva- 
riable. It has undergone no perceptible con- 
traction since the memory of man, and will 
undergo none for a long time to come. Per- 
haps it will never contract further. The 
meter, as thus found, is almost exactly 39.37079 
inches, or 3.28089 feet; the subdivisions of 
this, all decimals, are marked by the Latin 
prefixes, deci, centi, milii. The multiplies of 
this, al.so all decimals, are marked by the Greek 
numerals, delca, heico, kill. Thus the other 
French measures, founded upon this, increase 
or decrease regularly by ten, and are as conve- 
nient, therefore, for adding or subtracting as 
our dollars and cents. 

The proposed change contemplates a com- 
mon standard of lineal, square, and cubic 
measure and weight, expressed in units and 
decimals. There is no dcmbt that the decimal 
system is, by far, the most convenient and accu- 
rate, and that its general adoption would greatly 
advance science and literature, and promote 
international commerce. 

The Cental System. — The cental system of 
buying and selling grain — that is, by the one 
hundred pounds, instead of by the bushel — was 
earnestly recommended in 1860 by the Albany 
Board of Trade, and other commercial as.soci- 
ations, and it took efliect in .several of the large 
grain markets of the country on March 1, 1867. 

By the following rule, buyers and sellers can 
make their own calculations. The standard 
weights of wheat and other kinds of grain per 
bushel in different States are given in the next 
paragraph. The price per bushel being given, 
to find the price per cental multiply the price 
per bushel by 100 and divide by the number of 
pounds in a bushel. For instance : At $1 50 
per bushel for wheat, what is the price per 
cental? 150X100=15,000, divided by 60= 
S2 50 the price per cental. Again : The price 
per cental being given, to find the price per 
bushel multiply the price per cental by the 
number of pounds in a bushel, and divide by 
100. Example: At !f2 00 per cental, for oats, 
what is the price per bushel of 32 pounds? 
200X32=6400, which, divided by 100, gives 64 
cents, the price per bushel. The cental system 
gives, no doubt, the true standard of measure, 
and it ouglit to be adopted universally in the 
United States. It is hoped we shall never re- 



564 



FARM economy: 



lapse into the almost obsolete "sliilling" sys- 
tem of values, but count our money by tens and 
twenties; the practical introduction of tlie de- 
cimal system in measures would be as happy a 
relief. 

What is a Bushel f — The following table 
shows the number of pounds which constitute 
a lawful busliel in several of the States — and 
(he measurement in the States not mentioned 
is substantially the same: 



)Iilli-t.... 
<irihiinl. 
H,-,l-t..,,. 



Malt 

Uhis 

Unions.. 



White bca 



Capacity of Various Measures. — The United 
States .standard bushel, now adopted in most of 
the Slates, is 2150.4 cubic inches. Its dimen- 
sions are eighteen and a half inches diameter 
inside, and eight inches deep, and when heaped 
— as it should be, in measuring fruit, vegeta- 
bles, coal, etc. — tlie cone must be six inches 
high = 2747.70 cubic inches, including the full 
cone. 

The United States standard gallon is 231 cu- 
bic inches. 

The dry mea.sure gallon, without heaping, is 
268.8 cubic inches. 

The imperial, British, gallon, is 277.274 cubic 
inches; a gill is 8J cubic inches; a gallon of 
flour = 7 lbs.; ale gallon = 282 cubic inches; a 
chaldron (coal), = 36 bushels, = 57.25 cubic 
feet. 

A lime busliel is 13^ inclies diameter at bot- 
tom, 15 inches at top, and 13.47 inches deep. 



Any box or measure, the contents of which 
are equal to 2150.4 cubic inches, will hold a 
bushel of grain when struck level. In meas- 
uring fruit, vegetables, coal and other coarse 
substances, one-fifth must be added. In other 
words, a peck measure five times even full 
makes one bu.«hel of these. The usual practice 
is to "heap the measure " four times full. In 
order to get on the fifth peck, measures must be 
heaped as long as what is to be measured will 
lie on. 

A "quarter of wheat" is an English meas- 
ure of eight standard bushels; so, if you see 
it quoted at 56s. a quarter, it is 7s. a bushel, 
-i shilling is twenty-four cents; multiply by 
seven and you have SI 68. But in the Liver- 
pool Price-Cmrent, 70 lbs. are estimated to a 
bushel of wheat. 

A box 24 inches by 16 inches .square and 28 
inches deep will contain a barrel, or five bush- 
els, or 10.752 cubic inclics. 

A box 16 inches by 16.8 inches square and 8 
inches deep will contain one bushel, or 2150.4 
cubic inches. 

A box 12 inches by 11.2 inches square and 8 
inches deep will contain half a bushel, or 1075.2 
cubic inches. 

A box 8 inches by 8.4 inches square and 8 
inches deep will contain one peck, or 537.6 
cubic inches. 

A box 8 inclics by 8 inches square and 4.2 
inches deep will contain half a peck, or 268.8 
cubic inches. 

A box 7 inches by 4 inches square and 4.8 
inches deep will contain half a gallon, or 134.4 
cubic inches. 

A box 4 by 4 and 4.2 inches deep will con- 
tain one quart, or 67.2 cubic inches. 

A Scotch pint is equal to four English pints. 

A Scotch quart is 208.6 cubic inches. 

A commercial bale of cotton is 400 pounds. 

The American quintal is 100 pounds. 

To find the area of a circle, multiply the di- 
ameter by itself and then by the decimal .7854. 

To find the contents of a sphere, multiply the 
cube of the diameter by .6236. 

A hempen rope, one inch in diameter, will 
support a weight or force of 5,000 pounds, but 
in practice, should not be subjected to more 
than one-half this strain. 

A rod of good iron is about ten times as 
strong as the best hemp rope of the same size. 

The P'rench gramme is 15.44 grains, and the 
kilogramme (1,000 grammes) is two pounds 
three ounces five drams. 

Gutter's chain, used by surveyors, is sixty- 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



565 



six feet long, or four rods, and each link is 7.92 
indie?. 

One acre contain,? 43..560 square feet, and the 
side of the enclosing .square is about 208 feet SJ 
inclies. 

A fathom is six feet. 

A cubit is two feet. 

One cord contains 103 bushels — 128 cubic 
feet. 

A cord of fresh dung weighs four or five 
tons — don't overload. 

It takes about four and a half bushels of fair 
wheat to make a barrel of flour. The usual 
estimate of " five bushels to the barrel " is too 
great. 

Measuring Coal — By applying the following 
rules purchasers may determine whether they 
receive tlie full weight or measurement of coal 
to which they are entitled. The rules were 
furnished by a coal-dealer of twenty years' e.K- 
pcrience: 

An ordinary flour barrel holds three bushels 
of coal, egg, stove, or nut. 

Ked ash coals, of the above sizes, eight bar- 
rels, or twenty-four bushels to the ton. 

Lackawanna, nine barrels, or twenty-seven 
bushels. 

Lcliigli, seven barrels, or twenty-one bushels. 

Schuylkill, about seven and a half barrels, 
or twenty-one and a half to twenty-three bush- 
els. Every coal-dealer knows this, and every 
consumer has within his power a positive check 
against robbery. 

Another test is to measure the coal-bin, allow- 
ing thirty-six cubic feet for a ton of coal. Mul- 
tiply the length, width, and height of the bin 
together, and divide by thirty-si.'c, and the re- 
sult will be the capacity of the bin. 

Measuring Corn m a Crib. — The following 
rule for acertaining the quantity of slielled corn 
that m.ay be expected from an average crib of 
com in the ear, is from the Southern Agricul- 
turist : Having leveled the corn in the house 
so tliat it will be of equal depth throughout, as^ 
certain tlie length, breadth, and depth of the 
b\ilk; multiply these dimensions together, and 
their products by 4, then cut off one figure from 
the right of this last product. This will give 
so many bushels and a decimal of a bushel of 
shelleil corn. If it be required to find the 
qnaniily of ear corn, substitute 8 for 4, and cut 
off one figure as before. 

Ej-iimple. — In a bulk of corn in the ear, meas- 
iiriug 12 feet long, 11 feet broad, and 6 feet 
deep, there will be 316 bushels and 8 tenths of 



a bushel of shelled corn, or 663 bushels and 6 
tenths of ear corn, as: 



Measuring Wheat in Bulk. — To reduce solid 
feet to bushels, multiply the niiraher of solid 
feet by 45 and divide the product by 56; the 
quotient will be the number of bushels. E.t- 
ample : How many bushels in a box or crib 8 
feet long, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet deep? Multi- 
ply the length by the width and depth, and the 
product by 45, which divided by 56, gives 513.7 ; 
the number of bushels which the box contains. 
Weights of Various Substances. — A cubic foot 
of loose earth or sand weighs 95 pounds. 
A cubic foot of common soil, weighs 124 lbs. 



strong soil, ' 


127 


clay, ' 


135 


mason's work, ' 


205 


distilled water, ' 


62.5 


cast-iron, ' 


450.45 


steel, ' 


489.8 


lead, 


709.5 


platina, ' 


1218.75 


copper, ' 


486.75 


cork, ' 


15 


tallow, 


59 


oak, * 


73.15 


brick, ' 


125 


air, ' 


0.0753 



About 16 cubic feet of sand, 18 cubic feet of 
earth, or 17 cubic feet of clay make a ton ; 18 
cubic feet of gravel or earth, before digging, 
make 27 cubic feet when dug ; or the bulk is 
increased as three to two. Therefore, in filling 
a drain two feet deep above the tile or stones, 
the earth should be heaped up a foot above the 
surface, to settle even with it, when the earth is 
shoveled loosely in. 

Weighing Cattle hy Measurement. — Many ex- 
periments have been made by graziers and 
salesmen to ascertain the net weight of cattle by 
measurement, and a number of rules and tables 
have been formed of the results obtained, one 
method having already been given under the 
head of live stock. None, however, can be re- 
garded as absolutely correct. With the most 
accurate measuring is required a practical ac- 
quaintance with the points and forms of ani- 
mals, and allowance must be made according to 
the age, size, breed, mode and length of time 



566 



FARM economy: 



of fattening, etc., conditions which require a 
practical eye and a long experience to appreci- 
ate. Tiie following method will lead to ap- 
proximate accuracy in weighing by measure: 
Measure carefully with a tape line from the 
lop of the shoulder to wlierethe tail is attached 
lo the back ; this will give the length. For the 
>;iitli, measure immediately behind tlie shoulder 
and forelegs. Multiply half the girth by itself 
in feet, and the sum by the length in feet, and 
the product will give tlie net weight in stones 
of eight pounds each. For example, with an 
ox or cow five feet in length and seven feet in 
girth the calculation will be as follows: 
JIulliply half llie girth by itst-lf m f,-ct 3.5 



Multiply by lensth iu ftet.. 



J StOUu) 

Weight in pounils ^S-'iO 

Weighing Hay hj il/e«s«i-emen;.— Somebody, 
a few years ago, announced, and the journals 
have since industriously reiterated the rule, 
that "eleven cubic yards,.or two hundred and 
ninety-seven cubic feet of clover hay weigh a 
ton; ten cubic yards — two hundred and seventy 
cubic feet — of meadow hay, and eight cubic 
yards — two hundred and sixteen cubic feet — 
of old stacks." And "Inquire Within" s.ays 
that " a cube of a solid mow ten feet square — 
one thousand cubic feet — will weigh a ton." 
These are exaggerations in two directlens, and 
about equidistant from the truth. 

That hay must be very heavy and very firmly 
pressed to hold a ton within a cube of seven 
feet — three hundred and fifty cubic feet. And 
that hay must be very coarse and very light to 
require one thousand cubic feet for a ton. 

The united testimuuy of thirty prominent 
farmers, writing from difl'erent States, tends to 
show that, in average hay, four hundred cubic 
feet at the base of mow or stack, nrake a ton 
while it requires seven hundred feet at the 
top of the mow or on a scaffold. The mows 
throughout the country will probably average, 
from top to bottom, about a ton to every five 
hundred and twelve cubic feet. A ton, gross, 
will generally be fimnd in every cube of eight 
feet, or in every square of twenty-three feet a 
foot deep. 

The Genesee Farmer gives the following rule 
for measuring the contents of a stack in feet, 
preliminary to its reduction to tons: "When 
hay is sold by the stack, or where farmers wish 
to know the quantity they may have on hand, 



measurement, instead of the tedio-is process ot 
weighing, may be conveniently practiced. The 
first object, is to ascertain the number of cubic 
yards contained iu the stack. As the practice 
of building them round or circular, is by far 
the most common, it is necessary in ascertain- 
ing the contents of such, to measure round 
tliem at different heights but at regular dis- 
tances (omitting the part above the eaves, if it 
is a regular cone, as is usual), and these meas- 
urements added together and divided by their 
joint number will give tlie mean circumference. 
The square of this is then multiplied by the 
decimal .0790; the product thus obtained is 
again to be multiplied by the height up to the 
eaves with one-third of the rise from the eaves 
to the peak, and this last product will be the 
number of cubic feet in the stack. Divide this 
by twenty-seven and it will give the cubic 
yards. The measurement round may be per- 
formed by a cord, drawing it close to the stack 
and allowing about six inches in depth for loose 
hay. The height may be known with sufficient 
accuracy by placing a pole perpendicularly be- 
side the stack, standing off a few rods and ob- 
serving with the eye. If the stick is square or 
oblcjug, multiply the medium height (which is 
the height to the eaves and one-tlwrd of the 
rise of the roof taken together), and the last 
product will be the solid contents." 

The process is not complex or difficult if the 
measurer will follow closely the directions. 
After obtaining the .solid contents in feet, divide 
by five hundred lo reduce it to tons, or by four 
hundred if it has stood mure than a year. 

IVumber of Plants to the Acre.— 

It is often very convenient to know how many ■ 
plants will grow on an acre at certain dis- 
tances. For reference we give the following 
table: 



Diet, apart. 


No 


of plants. 


Di3t. apart. 


No. of plants. 






43..ifi0 

l'J..'KU 


9 feet 


iV 


1 '2 f<:ot 


12 " 

li " 

n " 


3hi 
194 
134 
110 


2 (1 








■0 


* ti 




. '-I., 




w 







Force of Windmills.— The force ex- 
erted by windmills will vary greatly with the 
velocity of the wind. The following table 
shows the pressure against a fixed surface; 
from the velocity given in this table, the aver- 



now MUCH SEED PER ACRE? ETC. 



567 



age velocity of the sails must be deducted, and 
tlie remainder will show the real force exerted: 



JIIil<<s an 
hour. 


Pii-«sure 
ill \ba. on 
sciniiieft. 


Descoiption of Wixd. 


1 


.OO'i 


Hardly perci-ptible. 




3 


.04.-. S 


.Inst perceptible. 




4 


.ftsoi 


Light breeze. 




6 

7 
111 
l.i 
20 
2.i 


.i.-ni 

.320 ! 

.5001 
1.125) 
2.0001 
3.125; 


Gentle, pleasant wind. 
Pleasant, brisk wind. 
Very brisk. 




3(1 


4..T001 


Strong, bighwiud. 




411 


S.OOO 1 


Very high. 




100 


IS. 00* 
32.0110 
iO.lllX) 


.■^torm, or tempest, 
finiit storm, 
lliirriciuie. 

Torii^.. 1... ten rine up trees and s 
in!>..ffl.iiiMinir-. 


weep- 



Ilo^v iiiucli Seed per Acre?— The 

UPtial quantity of sofd ainilit-d per acre for the 
ordinary crops in England, i.'i as follows, under 
the difierent systems of broadcast sowing or 
drilling. Dibbling requires about two-thirds 
as much as drillino;: 



Name. 


Broadcast. 


Dun. I,. 


Wheat 

(lats 


2'i to W bnshels. 
4 lo6 
3 to 4 
2', 10 3'^ 

.V, t" I'j 

12 to Ih pounds. 

1 peck. 

2 tu 3 pounds. 


2 to 3 bushels. 
■J'i to 4!*, " 




2 to 3 


iieaiv;:;:::::::::::::;::::: 




Pens 

Tans 

Jlu.k«h.;,i 

Clov.r 1 

Mint- 


3 to 4 " 

2 to :}i " 

2 

10 to 14 pounds. 










Turnips 




Potatoes 











Scedingr of Weeds. — One of the mo.st 
fertile .sources of the continuation of weeds is 
that of constantly allowing them to seed on the 
land. Now, the enormous Increase which may 
result from seeding may be gathered from the 
following table of observations made upon a 
few of their common spt'cies; 







Nomberof 


Number of 


Comm 






Seeds on a 






Klowers. Flower 


.Single 






may bear. 





Groundsel 

Chickweed 

Corn Cneklo 

n'ed r''ppv.'.'.'.'.V.'.''. 
c'h^.ii...k; 

Blnrk llll-lflMl.. 
C..MI 1'. .l-ll;,\V.. 

Cliv.i- 

Corn Snw Tliisth 

1*1 iisk Thistle , 

Kouls Parsley.... 

Tare 

WildCurroI 

Wild Parsnip 



Now, it is not likely that each individual 



plant would always perfect the quantities of 
.seeds above tabulated; but the list gives a 
pretty accurate notion of the numerous seeds 
which might be perfected under circumstances 
favorable to their development, and from it 
will at once be gathered the important practical 
fact that, allowing for the casualties to which 
seeds are constantly liable, yet enough would be 
left, where seeding is allowed but for a single 
year, to give trouble for many years after. It 
can not be too earnestly urged tliat weeds be 
destroyed before their seeds are ripe. 

General Hints on Tlllagre.— One 

of the greatest horticulturists of the present 
day says: "If I had a 'call' to preach a ser- 
mon on gardening, I should take for my text: 
Stir the Soil,." The prodOce of almost any 
garden can be doubled by hoeing it every morn- 
ing while the dew is on. Remember that the 
hoe, industriously flourished, is a substitute 
for guano. 

Cummcrctal Fertilisers. — There is a tendency 
in the West and South to invest more largely 
in what are termed " Commercial Fertilizers." 
We have already referred to this impulse as a 
sign of progress in agriculture; and we return 
to the matter, to warn farmers to exercise the 
utmost vigilance and be sure they get the arti- 
cle they pay for. To buy some of the pure 
mineral manures is an excellent investment — 
but the trouble is, a mujority of all the dealers in 
these fertilizers are swindlers. ^ 

This evil has become so aggravated that, 
without good evidence to the contrary, it is safe 
to assume that any manure offered in the 
market for sale is so far adulterated as to be 
about worthless. There is no class in the com- 
munity that is so robbed and plundered and 
sponged as our farmers are by these manufac- 
turers of commercial fertilizers. This is how 
the thing sometimes is done : The traders 
want to get up a manure that will sell for forty- 
five dollars a ton. That is what a good super- 
phosphate or Peruvian guano ought to sell for; 
that is what it is worth to the farmer. They 
will buy up fi.sh guano for twenty dollars a ton, 
and then mix it with charcoal, and make a 
manure for twenly-five dollars a ton, which they 
sell for forty-five dollar.s, and make a clear 
profit of twenty dollars a ton, which conies out 
of the pockets of the farmers. The farmers of 
the country are robbed of millions of dollars a 
year by just this process. 

A farmer can not afford to pay $25 to have 
a sample analyzed before purchasing; besides 



5GS 



.FARM EC0NO5IY: 



wliicli, a single analysis is of no value. Tlie 
seller will see that llie genuine article goes to 
tlie chemist. What is needed, is a thorough 
system whereby the farmers shall be protected 
by the Agricultural College of each State. Let 
these colleges analyze, without cost to the 
farmer, average specimens of every fertilizer 
in market; then let the legislatures, and if 
necessary, Congress, interpose, and provide that 
commercial manures shall be Sold with a war- 
ranted analysi.s, and that if they fall below the 
standard, the seller shall lose his entire stock 
by confiscation. Only heroic remedies will 
avail to abolish this growing evil, and defend 
the farmers against the plunderers. 

Ifiiw Deep to Cover Manure. — Manure stays 
nearly where it is jiut. If laid near the .sur- 
face, it remains near the surface; if buried deep, 
very little of it comes up; and so it follows that 
a thorough pulverization and intermixture with 
the soil yields the best results. Forty loads of 
manure to the acre is only a load to foursquare 
rods, giving a uniform spread of one-third of 
an inch. The great bulk of it should be cov- 
ered at about the depth attained by the roots 
of the crop to be put in. 

Value of Mud: and Leaves. — Muck, or peat, is 
not half so much used as it ought to be, as a 
divisor and absorbent of barn-yard manure. 
In itself, it contains many plant constituents, 
and when properly spread in yards, stables, 
and privies, it serves as a complete deodorizer 
and adds largely to the fertilizing fund. The 
time will come when the value of fallen forest 
leaves for littering stables, mulching the ground, 
and protecting lender plants, will be better un- 
derstood than at present. For littering stables, 
they have every advantage over straw. They 
e.xclude the cold more perfectly. They make 
a fine soft bedding for horses; and as a com- 
ponent part of manure are not so coarse as 
straw, and soon decay, giving a fine texture to 
the compost they form. They impart similar 
advantages when used as a mulch, namely, light- 
ness of covering and perfect protection. For 
covering tender plants, they are peculiarly fit- 
ted, being always so dry as not to sufi'ocate or 
rot the plant, and the thin plates of air inter- 
posed between them, entirely excluding frost 
if sufficient depth is given. 

A late number of the Genesee Fanner men- 
tions the case of a gardener who has had re- 
markable success with ro.ses, the tender kinds 
of which he keeps through the Winter in open 
ground by a thorough covering with leaves. 
When a foot in thickness, with a few branches 



of evergreens on the top to prevent them from 
blowing away, no frost can penetrale them. 
These leaves may be found deposited a foot 
thick in any deciduous forest in the Fall, and 
may be quickly gathered with a cart, corn- 
basket and rake. 

Season fur Cutting Baxhes. — One correspond- 
ent says: "I hail a number of acres of land 
covered with bushes of diflerent kinds — white 
birch, alder, hazel, white pine, etc., and I have 
succeeded in killing them. I cut them in the 
longest days in June. There are a number of 
days of the same length, and when I do not 
want to cut more than two or three days in a 
year, I select the middle longest days. I have 
cut more or less bushes every year, at the time 
above stated, and the result has been death to 
the bushes." 

This, or a little later, is probably the best 
season to cut almost any bushes, for they are 
then in full leaf and vigor, and the shock is 
greatest. But bushes generally, especially those 
in swampy ground, will not be killed by one 
cutting, unless the succeeding sprouts are kept 
pastured down. Mow off short in Summer 
time, then turn on cattle and sheep, and the 
plants will hardly have a chance to catch their 
breath. 

To Destroy Canada Tkhtlcs.—To exterminate 
Canada thistles involves a severe fight ; the best 
way is to begin the battle as soon as one makes 
its appearance, and before" the enemy has time 
to fortify. John .Johnston used to fight them 
with plowshare, scythe and fire, and there is 
probably no better way. Plow early in the 
Spring and harrow as soon as dry ; let the land 
lie till tlie thistles are in blossom, then mow 
them down and burn them. Turn up the roots 
again, and that generally finishes them. The 
thistles should never be thrown into the hog- 
pen, for some of them have vitality enougli to 
mature their seeds. Farmers who fail to kill 
thistles by mowing, or ordinary Summer plow- 
ng, succeed by repeated plowings. A corres- 
pondent says: "Four years ago I plowed about 
four acres eight times, and have not seen one 
thistle on that piece of ground since, excepting 
where they branch out from the fence." This 
method is doubtless very effective. 

To Destroy Sorrel. — Lime is a natural enemy 
of sorrel. Thirty bushels to the acre, judi- 
ciously spread, will sweeten and neutralize the 
acids of almost any soil sufficiently to prevent 
the spread of this pest. On peculiar soils, how- 
ever, it seems to have but little effect; and here, 
deep cultivation and growing clover, buck- 



BUTCHERING — CUTTING UP MEAT. 



569 



wlieat, or corn sown broadcast, especially tlie 
two latter crops, will in nine times out of ten 
destroy it. 

To Destroy Orass on Walks. — Gas tar is abso- 
lutely fatal to vegetable growth ; ami a coating 
of it spiead over a walk keeps it clear as long 
as the tar remains. To apidy it in the best 
manner, have the walk made and rolled hard, 
then put un the tar wiili a brush, and as it is 
offensive to the eye and the olfactories, cover it 
with a thin coat of gravel which becomes in- 
corporated with it and forms a liard, dry, unin- 
cumbered walk. This plan is not expensive, 
and is believed to be certain. 
m 

Butcliei'ing'. — In butchering hogs do not 
permit the hog to be run and worried by men, 
bovs, and dogs, healing his blood just before 
killins:. This i.s believed to make the meat 
tender and more apt to spoil. There is always 
an injury to the pork, when hogs, for conven- 
ience sake, are driven to a neighbors .so as to 
kill together. Butchering ouglit to be done 
with as little noise and worry as po.ssible — 
shooting and then sticking is probably the 
best way. 

Scalding machines and long square boxes are 
somewhat in use, and, when properly arranged, 
are un improvement on tubs, but the latter are 
still mostly employed. They should be placed 
under the strong branch of a tree or a derrick, 
to which a rope and taflclecan be attached, and 
there should be at least two men to each hog. 
Let the scald be gradual, lifting out, now and 
then, to keep the hair from setting, and scrap- 
ing ofl" the hair actively. Too little attention 
is generally given to cleaning the head and 
feet, leaving them for the women to worry over 
by the hour in some cold back-kitclien. 

Cutting up Meat. — The butchers' meth- 
od of cutting up meat is very diversified, al 
most every State having a way of its own. The 
cuts below will indicate modes that are largely 
practiced : 





54^=* 



Mutton. 

1. Shoulder. 2, 2. Neck, or Rack. 3. Loin. i. Leg. 
i. Breast. 




1. Head niiit Pliirk. 2. Ruck and Neck. 3 
4. Fori-- SliaiiU .MKiiiioklf. 5. Bri'ast. fi, T.oii 
or Leg. s. Uind Sliauk or Knuckle. 9, Bre 



General blatters. — Weevil.-~A farmer 
says that newly taken sheep-skins, after being 
dried, if laid upon the bins, the weevil will 
leave, and keeping sheep-skins on the bins of 
grain will effectually prevent the weevil from 
infesting the grain. Also, that stabling sheep 
in a barn near the grain will keep them out, 

Dry-Rot in Wood.— ft. London .scientific 
journal announces that soaking timber for a 
short period in lime-water is an efl'ectual pre- 
ventive for what is known as dry-rot. It says 
the matter has been thoronghly tested by ex- 
periment, and may be relied upon as being cor- 
rect. The proportion of lime used is eighty- 
eight grains to one gallon of water, and the 
time necessarv for the timber to remain in the 



570 



FARM ECONOMY: 



solution depends upon its size, and the kind of 
wood used. Wliiitever kind or size is used, it 
should be thoroughly saturated. 

Finding Wells. — Kliabdouiancy, or the power 
whicli some people claim to possess, of locating 
wells advantageously by means of a divining- 
rod — usually a stick of peach tree or witch- 
hazel — has long been denounced as imposture, 
or ridiculed as self-delusion; but it still has 
many intelligent champions in every country. 
Mesmerism, psychology, clairvoyance have all 
been rejected as absurd superstition.s; yet they 
are now admitted to have facts for their basis 
hy all candid men who have investigated them, 
and have been assigned a place among the re- 
condite sciences. "Water-witchery" may also 
be based on fact, and may be profitably em- 
ployed by those who are the custodians of its 
power. We know too little yet of the occult 
relation between mind and matter, and of the 
my.sterions sympathies and affinities of Nature, 
to indulge in dogmatic assertions. Let every man 
tru.st his own senses and judgment, and remem- 
ber that one fact is worth forty theories, and that 
one who has seen knows more about a given 
thing than a thousand who have not. We 
have abundant evidence of men who have prac- 
ticed rhabdomancy with great success, and 
there are professional water-finders in every 
State who have the utmost confidence in their 
magnetic wands, and who, if they are deluded, 
make some very lucky hits. 

Articles Lost in WelU. — The following illus- 
tration of the utility of science in the common 
occurrences of life, is from the Gene-we Fanner: 
"A penknife was by accident dropped into a 
well twenty feet deep. A sunbeam, from a mir- 
ror, was directed to the bottom, which rendered 
the knife visible, and a mar/net fastened to a 
pole, brought it up again" 

27ie Value of the Corn-Husk. — Hearth and 
Home has the following article on the utili- 
zation of corn-husks. Everybody is familiar 
witli husk mats, and it is well known that ex- 
celleut mattrasses can be made from corn- busks, 
but a very small proportion of the crop is 
saved for these purposes. It is not generally 
known that the husk is applied in foreign 
countries to many other iinportant uses. Some 
writers even as.sert that the value of the husk 
crop, if utilized, would be nearly eijual to that 
of the oat and barley crops of the country 
combined. We have seen most excellent husk 
letter paper, and it is said better paper can be 
made from it than from either linen or cotton 
rags; and, because it has great hardness and 



firmness, exceeding that of the best hand-mad^ 
English drawing papers, that it is especially 
adapted for pencil-drawing, water-colors, and 
short-band writing, for which latter purpose 
it is extensively used. Its durability, it is 
claimed, renders it peculiarly valuable for doc- 
uments, records, bank-notes, bonds, etc. 

Corn-husks contain a long, straight, strong, 
Uax-like fabric, which can be spun, like flax, 
into a thread, and the thread, like linen tliread, 
woven into cloth of great strength and tenac- 
ity, which excels all the coarse materials in 
common use, in resisting decomposition. This 
will furnish an excellent substitute for coarse 
flax and hemp cloths, jute and gunny clotlis, 
and bagging. 

Again, in the course of extracting the corn 
fiber, long libers are found at the bottom of the 
boiler in a spongy condition, filled with a glu- 
tinous substance, whicli, on closer e.xanilnation, 
proves to be a nutritious dough. This may be 
dried and baked, and furnishes a good, whole- 
some, sweet bread, especially when mixed with 
wheat flour. It possesses the peculiarity, that 
it keeps perfectly sweet for months, although 
exposed to the air. It will not mold, and ex- 
cels almost all known vegetable substances in 
its resistance to decomposition. Mixed with 
wheat flour, it would probably make a very 
good material for ship-bread and crackers. 
Cattle eat it voraciously. Of this farinaceous 
substance there are fliteen pounds in a hun- 
dred pounds of husks; of the long fiber, suit- 
able for spinning, a hundred pounds of husks 
furnishes twenty five pounds, while, at the same 
time, twenty pounds of paper is alTordcd from 
the one hundred pounds of raw material — the 
entire valuable products being sixty por cent, 
of the weight of husks. 

The.se interesting manufactures are chiefly 
conducted under the patronage of the Austrian 
government, and it is stated that the knapsacks 
for the Imperial array, wagon tops, floor cloths, 
fire buckets, and paper of all varieties, from 
the coarsest wrapping to the finest bank-note 
paper used by the government, are manufact- 
ured at the Imperial mills. Beside these, there 
are two private mills in operation near Vienna, 
conducted on an extensive scale, the owners of 
which, it is said, became independently rich in 
the two first years of their workings, their mills 
being several times extended and kept running 
night and day to fill all their diflerent onlers. . 

The importance of saving the husks will be 
fully appreciated, when it is remembered that 
they are simply incidental to the production of 



DRESSING HIDES. 



571 



a most important cereal, everywhere cultiva- 
ted, and that they cost nothing beyend the 
care al tending their collection and preserva- 
tion. We are satisfied, says tlie journal we are 
quoting, the demand will abundantly warrant 
farmers in saving and storing all the husks 
they can. They are easily baled and market- 
ed, like baled hay, and will bring a good price 
for nialtrasses alone. [See paragraph on Corn- 
husking in the preceding chapter.] 

Corn-Cobs. — "How shall they be disposed 
of?" asks a correspondent of the Prairie Farm- 
er. "One person says the most economical way 
i.-i to grind them with the grain and feed tliem 
to stock. Another, that an excellent method of 
using ihem is to soak them in strong brine, and 
feed them, while soft, to cows and other cattle, 
in the yard during Winter. Most animals, it is 
said, will devour them greedily when thus pre- 
pared. A third recommends using them as 
fuel, although the women do not like such 
'snuill stufl'.' We have soaked them in the 
'puddles' of the manure cellar, put two or 
three in the hill for corn, and found them quite 
useful there. Which of these ways is the best, 
or is there a better use for them than either? 

"There is not so great a difference, in point 
of actual value, we imagine, between pure corn 
meal and that made from corn and cobs, for 
feeding most animals, as many are inclined to 
suppose. The deficiency of alimentary matter, 
in the latter, is, in a considerable degree, made 
up by the stimulus of distention — bulk being, in 
some measure, an equivalent for nutrimental 
matter." 

Dressing- Hides.— Pelts are often lost 
or greatly injured by ignorant or careless man- 
agement. The first thing to be attended to, i,-. 
to keep them clean and free from blood or other 
stains. 

SIcinniiij Animals. — The value of a skin for 
leather depends considerably on the care with 
which it is taken ofi'. An experienced tanner 
gives the following directions in regard to the 
cutting or opening of the hide before the ope- 
ration of flaying: This is always best performed 
when the most of the skin is thrown between 
the fore and hind legs, leaving the hide square 
in its form. Tanners of upper leather know the 
value of this mode of skinning by its increase 
of measure over the one practiced by many per- 
s<ins in sticking or bleeding the animal, by 
cutting its throat from ear to ear, and in opening 
the hide, not running the knife far enough upon 
the brisket before they cut down the skin on tlie 



fore legs; or not down far enough on the flank 
toward the tail before they cut through the 
hind leg. 

Curing for the Tanner. — In ordinary weather, 
I'resh-skinned hides should be well salted on 
the flesh side, then folded so as to lap the 
fleshy parts together, and then farther folded 
so as to be rolled into a small bSndle. You 
have then a compact parcel with the hair out, 
easy and clean to be handled, and taking little 
room for transportation, and which will keep 
for an indefinite time, and will be the same to 
the tanner as green hides, which are more easily 
worked, tainied in less time, and make better 
leather than hides dried in the usual way. Salt, 
besides curing and keeping the skins, acts most 
beneficially on them, and causes them to turn 
out a better quality of leather. Some may ob- 
ject to the cost of salt, but the injury done to 
hides by careless man.igement is far greater, in 
point of value, on an average, than the cost of 
three to five poinidsof salt required to cure a hide. 

In very hot weather, flies and bugs are so 
troublesome as to require that the hide be well 
salted, the salt rubbed in, and then hung in the 
sun for a couple of days; after that dried in 
the shade, and, when sufliciently cured, folded 
and put away. Hides thus kept are not so 
compact and convenient to handle as the green 
salted, but work easily, and make as good 
leather. 

Process cif Tanning. — The skins of animals, 
when used after merely drying them, are stiff", 
easily affected by water, and liable to decay. 
The North-.\merican Indians dress deer skins 
with a thin paste made of brains, then rub 
them and dry them in smoke. A much better 
way is to impregnate Ihem with the tannin 
furnished by astringent vegetables, that extract 
combining with the gelatin of the skin, and 
forming a tough and durable compound, no 
longer soluble in water. Tanned leather is 
commonly prepared in this way. The skins 
are previously prepared by soaking them in 
lime-water, which facilitates the removal of the 
hair. They are then immersed in the tan pits. 
Oak bark, from its cheapness, and the quantity 
of tannin it contains, is commonly employed in 
the preparation of leather in this countiy and 
in Europe. The bark of the hemlock spruce, 
and of the chestnut, the leaves of the diflerent 
species of sumach, and various other astringent 
vegetables, are used in sections of country 
where oak is scarce. The strength of the a.-5- 
tringent infusion is increased from time to time 
until the skin is saturated with tannin. A por- 



672 



FARM economy: 



tion of extractive matter likewise co;i. bines 
■with tlie hide, and to lliis tlie brown color, 
which is common in leather, is owing. The 
presence of this extractive is snpposed to render 
leather more tongh and pliable. 

Wlien strong or saturated solutions of tannin 
are used, the leather is formed in a nnich shorter 
time, but it is observed that leather tanned 
in this way is more rigid and more liable to 
crack than that made in the common manner, 
with weaker infusions, gradually increased in 
strength. But sole leather, the most important 
requisites of which are firmness and resistance 
to water, is immersed in an infusion kept nearly 
Baturaled by alternate .strata of bark. The 
full impregnation requires from ten to eighteen 
months 

Caring Sheep-Skin Mais. — The following is for 
two skins, and, if the directions are faithfully 
followed, will make something nice: Make 
strong soap-suds, using hot water, and let it 
stand till cold; then wash tlie skins in it, care- 
fully squeezing out all the dirt from among 
the wool; then wash them in cold water till all 
the soap is out Next dissolve half a pound 
each of salt and alum in a little hot water, and 
put into a tub of cold water sufficient to cover 
the skins, and let them soak twelve liours; then 
hang over a pole to drain. When well drained, 
stretch carefully on a board to dry. Stretch 
several times while drying. Before they get 
entirely dry, sprinkle on the flesh side one 
ounce each of finely-pulverized alum and salt- 
peter, rubbing it in well; then lay the flesh 
sides together, and hang in the shade for two 
or three days, turning them over every day till 
perfectly dry. 

Finish by scraping the flesh side with a blunt 
knife, to remove any remaining scraps of flesh, 
and then rub the flesh side with pumice or rot- 
ten stone and the hands. Very beautiful mit- 
tens can be made of lamb skins tanned as above. 

Curing iJau'Ai'rfe. — When the hide is first 
taken from the animal, spread it flesh side up; 
then take a compound of two parts of salt and 
two parts of saltpeter and alum combined — 
make it fine; sprinkle it evenly over the sur- 
face; roll it up, and let it lie a few days till dis- 
solved. Then take ofiF what flesh remains, 
and nail the skin to the side of a barn in the 
sun, or in dry weather stretch on the ground 
by driving pegs in the edges of the skin. It 
must be stretched tight, or there will be hard 
and ugly wrinkles you can not get out. After 
drying, and the flesh is sufficiently off, it is fit 
to cut up. 



The Value of Rawhide. — Farmers ought to 
keep nmst of their pelts for farm use, some- 
times dressing soft and sometimes using in the 
naturalstate The CV/iMio)- says: "Takeastrip 
of well-tanned rawhide an inch wide,and a horse 
can hardly break it by pulling back — two of 
them he can not break any waj-. Cut into nar- 
row strips, and shave the hair off with a sharp 
knife, to use for bag strings; the strings will 
oiit-last two sets of bags. Farmers know how 
perplexing it is to lend bags and have them re- 
turned minus strings. It will out-last hoop- 
iron (common) in any shape, and is stronger. 
It is good to wrap around a broken thill — better 
than iron. Two sets of rawhide halters will 
last a man's life-time — (if he don't live too 
long). In some places the Spaniards use raw- 
hide log-chains to work cattle with, cut into 
narrow strips and twisted together liawser 
fashion. It is good to tie in for a broken link 
in a (race chain. It can be tanned so it will be 
soft and pliable, like harness leather. Save a 
cow and 'deacon's pelt,' and try it." 

Deodorizers. — We have already called atten- 
tion to dried muck, and the chloride of lime, 
as powerful in concealing obnoxious smells, 
and applied as disinfectants. Ashes mixed in 
a privy or other out-house, are also effective in 
neutralizing the odors. There are other agents 
as successful, but not not generally so conveni- 
ent as the above: A compound of one part of 
fine charcoal and four parts of dry, ground 
plaster-of-paris; the liquor of chloride of zinc; 
a pound of copperas in a gallon of water. Most 
of these absorb the ammonia and prevent its 
escape, thereby preserving the strength of the 
fertilizer. A quart or two of coal tar added to 
the contents of a privy, will so deodorize the 
same that it can be readily mixed with four or 
five times its bulk of garden soil ; and a fertilizer 
thus made is equal to the best guano in market. 

There is no doubt that a great deal of the 
sickness of families proceeds from filthy cellars, 
sinks, yards, privies, sties, etc. These things 
are neglected by many, as other duties, from 
pure thoughtlessness, while others never dream 
of paying any attention to them. The labor 
of cleansing one's premises by either of the 
above remedies is trifling, and the expense is 
not worth mentioning. If it were ten times 
greater both the labor and expense should be 
willingly incurred. 

The Coiistruciion of Privies. — In 

the department of Feitilizers, especially under 
the heads of Night Soil and The Garden Com- 



THE CONSTRUCTION OF PRIVIES. 



573 



post, we luive briefly treated the subject of priv- 
ies, ;itul shown how to make and manage 
tliem. We return to tlie niatterliere to exhibit 
tlie best methods of construction and to set 
forth the paramount advantages of dry muck 
or earth as a divisor and deodorizer. 

Value as a Manure. — By using earth as a 
vehicle to save the contents of tlie privy's 
vault, instead of using water to wash it away, 
or employing a scavenger to cart it to tlie river 
or the sea, a vast amount of wealth might 
every year be saved. The Agvicidlural Annual 
for 1S6S estimates that tlie human excreta an- 
nually wasted* in America contain 200,000 
tons of [ihospboric acid, and a large quantity 
of other fertilizers, worth in the aggregate, to 
apply to land, $50,000,000! "The good time 
is coming," it continues, "when (as now in 
China and Japan) men must accept the fact 
that the soil is not a warehouse to be plun- 
dered — only a factory to be worked. Then 
they will save their raw material, instead of 
wasting it, and, aided by Nature's wonderful 
laws, will weave, over and over again, the 
fabric by which we live and prosper." Liebig 
declares that the vitality of the Roman Empire 
was sapped by the river Cloaca, through which 
the whole sewerage of Rome was washed into 
tlie Tiber. The London sewers pour daily into 
the Tiiames 115,000 tons of mixed drainage. 
One part in thirty is regarded as rich, fertili- 
zing, solid manure, or 3,800 tons daily. This 
amount would richly manure every year more 
than fifty thousand acres of land. It is esti- 
mated that the money value of this waste of 
fertilizing matter in the city of New York, ex- 
clusive of the products of the immense number 
of animals, amounts to $5,475,000 annually. 

Earth as a Deodorizer. — The fact that soil, 
especially soil which partakes of the nature of 
peat or muck, is a powerful deodorizer, has 
long been known, but its practical application 
has only recently been learned from Europe. 
Yet Nature teaches conspicuously the lesson 
which man has been so slow to learn. All an- 
imals of tlie feline race turn and cover their 
offensive droppings with earth. In Deuteron- 
omy, xxiii, 12 and 13, we read : 

"Tliou shalt have a place also without the 
camp, whither thou slialt go forth abroad : And 
thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon ; 
and it shall be when thou wilt ease thyself 
abroad thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn 
back and cover that which cometh from thee." 

The Earth Closet. — The earth closet seems 
destined to supersede the water closet in Amer- 



ica, as it is already being substituted in Europe. 
It is based on the power of earth as an absorb- 
ent, and is very simple in its construction. The 
only indispensable machinery is a pail or other 
vessel, and a .supply of dried earth to sift in 
the bottom of the vessel, and, after use, to cover 
the deposit. The earth and a convenient scoop 
may be kept in an adjacent box. A quart is 
ample to use each time. 

A commode managed in this way, may be 
kept in the house without any unpleasant odor 
arising from it; indeed, it may stand in a sick 
room without the slightest annoyance, greatly 
promoting the comfort of all. It will not need 
emptying more than once a week, or whenever 
it is full. From the instant of covering the 
evacuation, all ofl'ensive smell ceases, and is 
absorbed and neutralized by the earth. 

The accumulation becomes thoroughly mixed 
and rapidly dries to a uniform powder, the ex- 
cretions having disappeared. The pail used 
in the commode .should be of galvanized iron, 
with a cover of the same, and in emptying it 
may be carried down through the hou.se with 
no more offensiveness than a hod full of com- 
mon coal ashes. Not only will the excretions 
have disappeared, but the paper used will also 
have been completely destroyed. 

On removal, the produce, wliioh will be 
wholly inodorous, should be piled in some dry 
place and occasionally turned over. At the 
end of two or three weeks it will be entirely 
dry, and fit for use for the same purpose again. 
"When the ordure is completely decompos- 
ed," says George E. Waring, Jr., of New- 
port, Rhode Island, in a treatise on this sub- 
ject, "it has not only lost its odor, but it has 
become, like all decomposed organic m.atter, 
an excellent disinfectant, and the fifth or sixth 
time that the same earth is pa.ssed through the 
closet, it is fully as effective in destroying 
odors as it was when used the first time; and 
of course each use adds to its value as manure, 
until it becomes as strong as Peruvian guano, 
which is now worth $75 per ton."'-" 

The earth-closet, if used by six persons 
daily, will require, on an average, about one 
hundred pounds of earth per week. This 
must be artificially dried, and coarsely sifted, 
and sand will not be found effective. No slops 
must be thrown into the vessel. These condi- 
tions are imperative; and to oKserve them 
with care will not require so much time as to 
provide water for a water-closet, while all disa- 



574 



FARM ECONOMV: 



greeable effluvia will be prevented, and a ma- 
nure as rich as guano will be saved. 

Indeed, farmers near villages will find it a 
good investment to prepare and deliver the 
dried earth for the privilege of removing the 
aggregate deposits — which may be made so 
strong by repeated use, tliat "a hundred pounds 
will be a good dressing for an acre of land," 
according to Mr. Waeing. 

An unreasoning prejudice exists in many 
minds against having so simple a contrivance 
in the house, and servants and others may at 
first shrink from the novelty and imagine diffi- 
culties; but the briefest trial will carry con- 
viction, and the soil, after having been, with 
the dissolved excretions, passed six, or even 
eight, times through the closet, will still be 
perfectly inodorous, and may be taken in the 
hand fearlessly without anything more un- 
pleasant than in lifting common sand. This 
seems incredible, but the facts are abundantly 
vouched for. 

Our English cousins have had several years 
experience, and the earth-closet is being every- 
where introduced — in private hou.ses, hotels, 
schools, prisons, factories. Rev. Henry Modle, 
of Dorsetshire, has patented a closet on this 
principle, so constructed as to let earth fall upon 



the droppings by a simple mechanical contri- 
vance connected with an earth reservoir in the 
rear of the seat, somewhat upon the plan of 
water-closets- The principle in this, or a sim- 
pler form, ought to be adopted and made prac- 
tical at once, in every county in the United 
States. 

A correspondent has adopted the principle of 
earth-closets as follows : " The house is built in 
the usual manner. Under the seats I have a 
drawer made of two-inch stuff, put together 
with brown paper and white lead, made so that 
it can be drawn out at one end of the house. I 
cover the bottom of the drawer with about three 
inches of dry earth and then sprinkle a shovel- 
ful of plaster over it. The drawer is cleaned 
out once a week, and the contents go to increase 
my manure pile. So far I have not found any 
smell coming from tlie arrangement, although 
we have had a pretty hot Summer, and the privy 
is within fifteen feet of my house. The drawer 
runs on two slides, and when in place is cov- 
ered on the «nds by doors. This is my earth- 
closet. An improvement would be to have a 
box in each compartment full of dry earth, and 
a scoop so that more earth could be thrown on 
from time to lime. As yet I have not found 
this at all necessary." 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY: 

The House — General Equipment and Management. The Laundry and 
:■ Kitchen — Preserves, Jellies, and Beverages. 



We have already indicated the general fea- 
tureR of a gdbd farm, and how to manage it, 
and the characteristics of a good house and how 
to build it; but a convenient residence, sur- 
ronndeil by a picturesque landscape in fertile 
fields, does not necessarily insure tlie e-xislence 
of a comfortable Home. A household, whose 
hearth shall have unfailing attractions for father 
and mother, sons and daughters, and guests, 
implies a constant" supervision of love, and 
frugal skill — an eye for harmony, an intel- 
ligent and dextrous hand, and that subtle in- 
stinct which invests everything with the final 
charm when art has done all it can. " Men 
talk in raptures of youth and beauty, wit, and 
sprighlliness," says Witherspoon, " but, after 
a seven years' union, not one of them is to be 
compared to good family manngement, which 
is seen at every meal and felt every hour in the 
husband's purse." 

Flll'niture. — There are few general rules 
for I'uniishing a house, except such as are too 
vague lo be of much practical value. Of course, 
the first thing to be considered is expense; 
everything being necessarily limited to the size 
of the purse. The next thing is Fitness — an 
equally rigid adaptation to the size and style 
of the residence, and to the habits of the occu- 
pants, summed up in what artists call Expres- 
sion. Small, plain dwellings, externally em- 
bellished by Nature's prodigal hand, require 
little aid from internal art, and should be furn- 
ished in a fresh and simple style. Marbles, 
heavy gildings and damask hangings would be 
incungrnous in such a home ; while it is equally 
evi(k-nt that lofty mansions, fronted with colon- 
nades, mounting into Mansard roofs, or orna- 
mented with bay-windows and, orioles, would 
liave a mean appearance if set out with such 
articles as might be sufficient and elegant in a 
cottage. 

Whether the house be large or small, care 



should be taken not to subdivide so ninoh that 
the rooms become too contracted for comfort. 
The sitting-room and kitchen should always be 
the largest rooms in the house ; and eight rooms, 
with these two rooms reduced, will always be 
found less comfortable than six with these two 
rooms spacious. 

These important rooms should also receive 
the sun a portion of every day. A room with- 
out sunshine is only half furnished. The semi- 
darkness which envelopes some houses is very 
unwholesome. A tadpole without light will 
never become a frog. A child deprived of 
light becomes an idiot, as witness the goiter and 
cretinism, among the dwellers in the gorges of. 
the Swiss Valois, where the direct sunshine 
never reaches. A large proportion of the in- 
habitants are deaf, blind, incapable of articu- 
late speech, dwarfed, and deformed. Epidemic 
attacks, as a rule, tho.se on the shady side of a 
street or house, and exempts those on the other 
front. Let in the sun! 

Paper Hanr/ings. — A proper selection here is 
of considerable importance; for the wall-paper 
is the background which holds in relief every- 
thing else in the room. And there is scarcely 
any article in which a bad selection produces 
such a wretched effect. Here the printers are 
greatly reprehensible for the low standard of 
popular taste, in the production of wall-papers 
of every degree of tawdry coloring and repul- 
sive design. 

The choice of a wall-paper should be guided 
in every respect by the character of the room 
in which it is to be used. The most important 
question is, whether it is to form a decoration 
in itself or become a mere background for pic- 
tures. In the latter case, the paper can hardly 
be too plain or too subdued in tone. Neutral 
shades, such as very light drab or buff, delicate 
pink or silver-gray, embossed white or cream 
color, will be suitable, and two shades of the 
same color will almost always be found sufficient. 
(575) 



576 



DOJIESTIC ECONOMV: 



Large flowing patterns are seldom in good 
taste ; tliey reduce the apparent height and 
size of a room, and wlien bright colors predom- 
inate, form the worst possible background for 
pictures. 

Any person of refined taste experiences a 
shock to his sensibilities on entering a room 
whose w:ills are papered with misshapen daubs 
and scrawls, a foot square, in brick-red, blue, 
and yellow, connected by gaiuly strands, each 
figure repeated in endless iteration, thougli 
bearing a likeness to nothing in heaven above 
or earth beneath or the watcjs under the earth. 
As a rule, the simplest patterns are the best for 
every situation ; though wliere pictures are to 
be few tliere may be greater variety of figure. 
Intricate forms should be accompanied by quiet 
color, and a variety of hue sliouid be chastened 
by the phiinest possible outlines. Light, Krace- 
ful figures, in vines and Dowers, are suitable, 
and arQ agreeable objects upon wliich to rest 
the eye. Tiny branches of ferns and maiden- 
liair grouped together, and tied with wisps of 
variegated grass, scattered over a surface-tint 
of laveniler, made on faint rose-color, would 
light up prettily in chambers. 

Miss Mary E. Muktfei,dt offers some ex- 
cellent suggestions, in the Illinois Agricultural 
Report: "Small striped patterns, or where the 
figures are arranged in perpendicular lines, 
have the etfcct of increasing the seeming height 
of a room, and should always be chosen where 
the ceilings are low. For a small parlor, a 
delicate cream-eolored ground, with a gold leaf, 
is very pretty; or a white ground, with tiny 
clusters of flowers in pale colors. To our eye, 
however, the most beautiful paper of all, and 
one forming the most desirable and harmonious 
background for other objects in a room, is a 
satin paper of one color, pale but! or pink, 
heavily varnished, and finished with a rich, 
deep border of crimson and gold, or green and 
■gold. It would seem to be very plain, too 
plain, perhaps, for any but the most unpre- 
tending parlors, but one can scarcely imagine 
the air of elegance it imparts to a room." 

Kitchen walls should never he papered; they 
have a much more cleanly look with a fresh 
coat of whitewash every few months. 

For drawing-rooms, laveniler is a favorite 
hue; it is now customary to border with some 
rich, positive color, extending it along the top 
and bottom and down the corners. Crimson 
velvet and gold paper hangings are a charming 
background for statuary or pictures, and light 
up finely. Green and gold were popular at 



one time, until chemists discovered that Paris 
green, into the composition of which arsenic 
largely enters, was the chief coloring matter, 
and that the air became so surcharged with its 
baleful influence, that the health of the inmates 
was sadly affected. Green nmst, therefore, be 
avoided, although a favorite color. 

Bed-rooms should be hung with such pat- 
terns and colors as furnish repose to the eye, 
and do not admit of distortion by any freak of 
vision. Sophie O. Johnson, in Hearth and 
Home, offers some valuable suggestions on this 
point: "For family rooms we would prefer 
hangings in which the design is not apjiarent, 
and its repetitions can not be counted. When 
wearisome days and nights come to us; when 
forced to toss on beds of pain, we know, from 
experience, the positive suffering that such a 
paper hanging can inflict. We would select 
small traceries, or plain tinted papers — butT, 
tea, mode, rose, or lavender^to adorn rooms 
where we may be compelled to lie ill. 

" Papers are manufactured purposely for 
nur.series to amuse and instruct children. Dif- 
ferent countries, costumes, and aninmis, are 
introduced in pencil-tints, and they can be 
taught geography from the walls of their nur- 
series. On one side, India is depicted with its 
groves of palms, its temples, elephants, natives, 
etc. On the other, Africa is portrayed; the 
Nile is seen ; rhinoceroses, crocodiles, and hip- 
popotami in its waters, or on its shores, and in 
the distance the thatched huts of the blacks. 
Again, Germany's fair fields and Switzerland's 
huge mountains blend together. The effect is 
really charming; the children live in a mimic 
Zoological Garden." 

When a room needs to be repapered, all the 
old paper should be carefully removed, as an 
accumulation of it upon walls is very unwhole- 
some, and is apt to generate feyers. A little 
turpentine mingled in the paste at the time of 
papering, is a sure remedy against the depre- 
dations of all insects. 

Kalsomine wall-paper is an English inven- 
tion, and consists in coagulating the sizing with 
which the colors of paper hangings are mixed, 
by the aid of a solution of alum, by which 
means it is made insoluble, and the surface of 
the paper nuvy then be washed with as little 
damage as if it were covered with oil. 

Carpets. — The designers of carpets have vied 
with the wall-paper men in their lavish display 
of horrible patterns. They seem to have taken 
lessons from everything but Nature. The car- 
pet ought to bear an important part in the 



FURNITURE. 



577 



adornment of a room ; it oftener serves as a 
positive blemish. How frequently are floors 
concealed by a great gaudy blotch of confused 
colors — a spread of yard-wide "figures," sug- 
gestive of nothing but discord and ugliness! 

Mrs. Johnson well says: "To the woods, ye 
designers; study there the perfect beauty of 
coloring in that mossy carpet spread wide be- 
neath your feet; gaze upon the rare combina- 
tion of hues; the trailing vines which cover 
its velvety surface; the exquisite blending of 
pulidtied tints; here and there the coralline 
berries, and tiny white flowers sprinkled over 
it; and go ho^e to destroy your hideous de- 
signs, and prepare those whose colors will 
never weaiy the eye, and whose design will 
partake of the divine. We remember a carpet 
wliicli was to us perfectly beautiful; its grounu- 
work imitated the green mosses, with a dash 
of brown litchens, and over its surface were 
scattered bouquets of scarlet verbenas, inter- 
spersed with lilies of the valley and their lance- 
sha|ied leaves." It will be expedient to keep 
these suggestions in mind in the choice of a 
carpet, and to apply some of the general rules 
given for wall-paper. 

The carpet, however, should carry more posi- 
tive colors than the paper. The lovely neutral 
tints which are so attractive, soon grow dull 
and dingy, and their beauty is gone. "Dark- 
ground works, which are often chosen under 
the mistaken impression that they will not soil, 
quickly show the least bit of dust, and will not 
wear as long as a carpet of lighter hues. Dart 
browns and black will soon wear out — the dyes 
used in tliese colors seem to destroy the dura 
bility of the texture. White is the strongest 
color in a carpet, the wool retaining all its nat- 
ural strength, and it does not soil more quickly 
than light colors. Scarlet and green are colors 
of great durability; blue and crimson not as 
fast." 

Small figures should always have the prefer- 
ence in carpets; the warp runs under and over 
much oflener, thereby greatly increasing its 
thickness. Turkish and Persian patterns are 
highly recommended on this account; the de- 
signs are rich, and are most suitable for hall or 
dining-room. Scotch ingrain carpets are com- 
ing into great favor for floors which have much 
wear. The texture is strong and good, and the 
colors, like all Scotch dyes, invincible. They 
are reasonable; $1 2.5 to $2 00 per yard, and 
serviceable for nursery floors. Closely-woven 
ingrain carpets and the three-ply are best for 
common use. If well made, they are more de- 



sirable than the average Brussels, because they 
can be turned, and so will usually give longer 
service. 

Some of the most cliaste and elegant car- 
pets, conveying an impression of cut velvet, are 
those consisting of only one color, in difl'erent 
shades, or, perhaps, the various shades of two 
colors, skillfullj' blended. The carpets of sit- 
ting-room and parlor, especially, should be 
light and of cheerful contrasts. 

In furnishing a house, it is generally econom- 
ical to select a handsome carpet, and use the 
same pattern for several rooms — esf)ecially 
chambers. In this way tliere is less waste in 
laying, and as they wear out, portions of the 
most worn can be used to renovate the least 
worn. We have seen whole floors furnished in 
this manner to excellent advantage. 

Carpets should generally be cut in pieces 
two or three inches shorter than the room in 
which they are to be laid to allow for stretch- 
ing; and it is well to buy a couple of yards 
more thai are required, anticii>ating a possible 
transfer to a larger apartment, or the wearing 
threadbare of a place in front of piano or sofa. 

The "life" of any carpet may be prolonged 
for years by laying straw matting or any coarse 
drugget, or tow, under it; these are much bet- 
ter than loose straw, which gathers dust and 
tends to wear out the car|iet in spots. A car- 
pet-fork, a cheap and simple implement to be 
had at any hardware store, is aljuost iiidispeu- 
sable in carpet-hrying. 

Bed-rooms should have straw matting in- 
stead of carpets in Summer. Carpets gather 
-lust, besides which they are healing, and are 
inviting to insects. In England they use two 
or three small rugs about the bed, which are 
removed and aired every day, but straw mat- 
ting is more agreeable Oil-cloth or a painted 
floor may be substituted in the dining-room. No 
other country ases carpets so universally and 
indiscriminately as America. In Kurope pol- 
ishing the floors is found much more desirable. 

Stair-carpets may be protected by a very 
simple method — much better than by an un- 
sightly covering with linen or oil-cloth. In 
purchasing, buy two yards more than the length 
of stairs required, and in laying, fold under a 
part of the surplus at each end. Take up the 
carpet to sliake once in three or four weeks — 
as the dust accumulates rapidly and is very 
destructive — and on replacing it, double under 
more at one end and less at the other, so that 
the carpet will fold over the angles of the stairs 
in a new place every time. In this way stair- 



i78 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY: 



carpets will last twice as long as without such 
)iaiiis. Tliey may also be made more durable 
by placing thick folds of paper nearly as wide 
as the carpet and tive or six inches broad, over 
the edge of each stair, which prevents the 
wearing at that place. 

Tlie little machine called a carpet-sweeper, 
is preservative of the carpet as well as the 
housewife. It makes both last longer. Before 
using it, however, the carpet should be sprink- 
led with some damp tea leaves, or moist In- 
dian meal. A little salt is frecpiently used in- 
stead. .These are absorbents of dust, while 
they also tend to freshen the colors. Of course 
they should be swept away carefully. It is 
economical to frequently shake carpets tliat are 
much used. 

Carpets thai are .soiled can easily and safely 
be washed on the floor in the following man- 
ner: Take them up and shake thoroughly ; give 
the floor a good scrubbing; nail them down 
again, and scrub with scrulibing-brush in cold 
soap-snds, with a tea-cupful of ox gall mixed 
in to fix the colors. Wash oft' suds in plain 
cold water, and wipe with a drying-cloth. 
■Then rai.se the windows and open the doors, 
and do not let the room be used for two or 
three days. 

AH carpets, except Wilton and other plushes, 
can be washed in this way. Before washing, 
however, they shonld be somewhat cleansed, 
the stains being remov-ed with diluted ammo- 
nia, and the grease spots with a paste of pot- 
ter's clay ; or a dust of potter's clay, covered 
with brown paper, and the grease drawn out 
with a hot iron. Raw potatoes, grated on, are 
sometimes used to remove dirt. If there is any 
appearance of moths in carpets when they are 
taken up, sprinkle tobacco or black pepper on 
the floor before the carpels are put down, and 
let it remain there- 

Oil-cloth ought never to be wetted, if it can 
be possibly avoided, but merely to be rubbed 
with a flannel, and polished with a brush of 
moderate hardness, exactly like a mahogany 
table, and by this simple means the fading of 
the colors, and the rotting of the canva.s, which 
are inevitably attendant upon the orl-cloth be- 
ing kept ill a state of moisture or dampness, 
are entirely avoided. 

Other Articles of Furniture. — Modern artistic 
taste and mechanical skill have left very little 
to be desired, either in articles of use or orna- 
ment. Most of the commonest conveniences 
liave borrowed the semblance of beauty, and 
independent of their utility, would grace any 



apartment. About the only difficulty in this 
matter is to know where to stop furnishing, 
unless the purse dictates. Comfort demands a 
few articles; fashion many; a fancy for the 
novel and bizarre still more. 

Of course the style of furniture, especially 
that which is upholstered, sliould be adapted 
to the style of the rooms, the carpets and the 
general appointments. Our limits will not ad- 
mit of any particular descriptions of furniture, 
or any list of articles required for the various 
departments. 

We may remind our leaders, however, that 
there are two rules which should be kept in 
mind when equipping a house; first, if there 
must be a scarcity of furniture in any depart- 
ment, let it be in the parlor rather than the 
kitchen ; second, let the furniture be arranged 
so as to give an appearance of ease and grace- 
ful negligence to the general aspect of the par- 
lor and living room.s, avoiding all stiffness and 
formality. In the selection of furniture, per- 
sonal refinement will do more to insure success 
than mere wealth; good taste, supported by 
moderate means, will prove far more effective 
th^n uncultivated taste with an inexhaustible 
treasury. In fact, by attention to harmony of 
color and the disposition of drapery, and with 
some little constructive ingenuity, a house may 
be attractively furnished for a very small sum. 

FiUinff Beds. — Beds should be filled with 
barley straw in preference to rye, oaten, or 
wheat straw; and with clean split corn-husks 
greatly in preference to either. The husks of 
Indian corn, carefully selected, and slit into 
shreds, make an excellent article for beds. 
They are durable, clean, cheap, elastic, not 
very likely to absorb moisture, and are not ob- 
jectionable on account of making dirt. It is 
calculated that a good husk bed will last from' 
twenty to thirty years. 

Houseliold Ornaments. — A cheerful 
disposition, resuliing in family harmony and 
"goodwill to men," will do more than any- 
thing else to illuminate and decorate a house, 
but very useful adjuncts are to be found in 
flowers, pictures, brackets, and the countless 
bijouterie, many of which are elegant and in- 
expensive. Household ornamentation, with 
purchased trinkets, should of course be held 
subordinate to the provision of family necessi- 
ties and to the calls of neighborhood benevo- 
lence — duty before pleasure. 

Yet how cheaply can a room be decorated by 
a woman of taste! There are a hundred little 



HOUSEHOLD ORNAMENTS. 



579 



(rifles tliat cost notliiiig, but leiiil :m iiiliiiile airj 
(if refinement, and an assurance of liurniin sym- j 
p-.ahy. How tlie touch of a cnltnred hand 
li.;;hts up a room ! A flower-pot clinging to a 
window-ledge and holding a climbing vine up 
to the sun, tells that a poet lives there. 

F/oii'ers.— Here we take the liberty of quoting 
from an article by Harriet Bekcher Stowe, 
in Hearth and Home: " If you live in the coun- 
try, or can get into the country and have your 
eves opened and your wits about you, your 
house net'd nipt be condemned to an absolute 
bareness. 

" For example : Take an old tin pan con- 
domped to tlie retired list by reason of boles 
in the bottom, get twenty-tive cents worth of 
green paint for this and other purposes, and 
paint it. The boles in the bottom arc a recom- 
mendation for its new service. If there are no 
boles, you must drill two or three, as drainage 
is es.seiitial. 

"Now put a layer one inch deep of broken 
cliarcoal and potsherds over the bottom, and 
then soil, in the following proportions: Two- 
fmirths wood-soil, such as you find in forests, 
under trees; one-fourth clean .sand ; one-fourth 
meadow-soil, taken from under fre.sh turf. Mix 
with thitS some charcoal-dust. 

" In this soil plant all sorts of ferns, together 
with some few swamp-grasses, and around the 
edge put a border of moneywort or periwinkle 
to hang over. This will need to be watered 
once or twice a week, and it will grow and 
thrive all Summer long in a corner of your 
room. Should you prefer, you can suspend it 
by wires and make a hanging-basket. Ferns 
and wood-gra.sses need not have sunshine — they 
grow well in shady places. 

"On this same principle you can convert a 
salt-bo^x or an old fig-drum into a hanging- 
basket. Tack bark, and pine-cones and moss, 
upon the outside of it, drill holes and pass 
wires through it, and you liave a woodland 
hanging-basket, which will hang and grow in 
anv corner of your house. 

" We have been into rooms which, by the 
simple disposition of articles of this kind, have 
been made to have an air so poetical and at- 
tractive that they seemed more like a nymph's 
cave than any thing in the real world. 

" Another mode of disposing of ferns is this: 
Take a flat piece of board sawed out something 
like a shield, with a hole at the top for hanging 
it up. 

" Upon this board nail a wire pocket made of 
an ox-muzzle flattened on one side. Line this 



with a close sheet of moss, which aiipoars green 
behind the wire, net-work. Then you fill it 
with loose, spongy moss, such as you find in 
swamps, and plant therein great plumes of fern 
and various swamp-grMsses, they will continue 




to grow there, and hang gracefully over. When 
watering, .set a pail under for it to drip into. 
It needs only to keep this moss always damp, and 
sprinkle these ferns occasionally with a whisk- 
broom to have a most lovely ornament for your 
room or ball. 

"The use of ivy in decorating a room is be- 
ginning to be generally acknowledged. It needs 
to be planted in the kind of soil we have de- 
scribed, in a well-drained pot or box, and to 
have its leaves thoroughly washed once or twice 
a year in strong suds made with soft soap, to 
free it from dust and scale-bug ; and an ivy 
will live and thrive and wind about in a room, 
year in and year out, will grow round pictui'es, 
and do aliuost anything to oblige you that you 
can euggest to it." 

Ivy can be grown with marvelous success in 
vials of water, with no earth whatever, the vials 
hanging upon the walls of the room, holding 
the base of the cuttings. I<>om this simple 
nourishment, the hardy plant will thrive and 
put forth leaves, and climb and twine about 
windows and pictures with the utinost grace. 

A Wardian Case. — "But the cheapest and 
most delightful fountain of beauty is a War- 
dian case. Now, immediately all our econom- 
ical friends give up in despair. Wardian cases 
sell all the way from eighteen to fifty dollars, 
and are like everything else in this lower 
world, the sole perquisites of the rich. 

"Let us not be too sure. Plate-glass, and 
hot-house plants, and rare patterns are the es- 
pecial inheritance of the rich ; but any family 
may command all the requisites of a Wardian 
case for a very small sum. 

" A Wardian case is a small glass closet over 



580 



DOMESTIC economy: 



a well-drained liox of soil. You make a War- 
(liun case on a sra;ill scale when you turn a luni- 
Wer over a plant. The glass keeps the temper- 
ature moist and equable, and preserves tl\e 
plants from dust, and the soil being well- 
drained, they live and thrive accordingly. 
The requisites of these are the glass top and 
the bed of well-drained soil. 

" Now, suppose you have a common cheap 
table, four feet long and two wide. Take oti' 
the top boards of your table, and with them 
board the bottom acros.s tight and firm ; line it 
now with zinc. You will now have a sort of 
box or sink on legs. Now make a top of com- 
mon window-glass such as you would get for a 
cucumber frame; let it be two-and a half feet 
high, with a ridge-pole like a house, and a 
filanting roof of gl.iss resting on this ridge- 
pole; on one end let there be a door two feet 
square. 

" We have seen a Wardian case made in this 
way, in which the capabilities for producing 
ornamental effect were greatly beyond many of 
the most elaborate ones of the shops. It was 
large, and roomy, and cheap. Common win- 
dow-sasli and glass are not dear, an<l any man 
with moderate ingenuity could fashion such a 
glass closet for his wife. 

"The sink or bo.x part must have in the mid- 
dle of it a hole of good size for drainage. In 
preparing this for the reception of plants, first 
turn a plant-saucer over this hole, which may 
otherwise become stopped. Then, as directed 
for the other basket, proceed with a layer of 
broken charcoal and potsherds for drainage, 
two inches deep, and prepare the soil as di- 
rected in the beginning of this article, and add 
to it some pounded charcoal, or the scrapings 
of the charcoal-bin. In short, more or less 
charcoal and charcoal-dust is always in order in 
the treatment of these moist subjects, as it keeps 
moisture from fermenting and growing sour. 

"Now for filling the case. If you make a 
Wardian ease in the Spring, your ferns will 
grow beautifully in it all Summer, and in the 
Autumn, though they stop growing, and cease 
to throw out leaves, yet the old leaves will re- 
main fresh and green till the lime for starting 
the new ones in the Spring. But supposing you 
wish to start your case in the Fall, out of such 
things as you can find in the forest ; by search- 
ing carefully the rocks and clefts and recesses 
of the forest, you can find a quaiilily of beautiful 
ferns whose leaves the fro.st has not yet assailed. 
Gather them carefully, remembering that the 
time of the plant's sleep has come, and that 



you must make the most of the leaves it now 
has, as you will not have a leaf more from it 
till its wakingup time in February or March. 
But we have succeeded, and you will succeed 
in making a very charming and picturesque 
collection. You can make in your Wardian 
case lovely little grottoes with any bits of shells, 
and minerals, and rocks you may have — you 
can laj' down, here and there, fragments of bro- 
ken looking-glass for the floor of your grottoes, 
and tlie eflect of them will be magical. A 
square of looking-gl.iss introduced into the 
back side of your case will produce charming 
effects. 

"The trailing arbutns or May-flower, if cut 
up carefully in sods, and put into this Wardian 
case, will come into bloom there a month sooner 
than it otherwise would, and gladden your eyes 
and heart. But among the most lovely things 
for sucli a case is the partrijlge-berry with its 
red plums. The red berries swell and increase 
in the dampness, and become intense in color, 
and form an admirable ornament. 

"Then, the ground pine, the princess pine, 
and various nameless pretty things of the woods, 
all flourish. In getting your sod of trailing 
arbutus, remember that this plant forms its 
buds in the Fall. You must, therefore, exam- 
ine your sod carefully, and see if the buds are 
there; otherwise you will find no blos.soms in 
the Spring. There are one or two species of 
violets, al.so, that form their buds in the Fall, 
and these will blossom early for you. 

" A Wardian case has this recommendation 
over common house-plants, that it takes .so little 
time and care. If well made in the outset, and 
thoroughly drenched with water when the plants 
are first put in, it will, after that, need only 
to be watered about once a month, and to be 
ventilated by occasionally leaving open the door 
for a half hour or hour, when the moisture ob- 
scures the glass and seems in excess. 

" To women embarrassed with the care of 
little children, yet longing for the refreshment 
of something growing and beautiful, this glass 
garden will be an untold treasure. The glass 
defends the plant from the ine.x.pedient inter- 
meddling of little fingers, while the little eyes, 
just on a level with the panes of glass, can 
look through and learn to enjoy the beautiful, 
silent miracles of nature. For an invalid's 
chamber such a case would be an indescribable 
comfort. It is, in fact, a fragment of the green 
woods brought in and silently growing; it will 
refresh many a weary hour to watch it." 

Window Flou-crs. — EveiT house should have 



nOUSEHOLD ORNAMENTS. 



581 



its beautiful parterre — a minature green-house, 
even if it be but a single flower-stand, or a few 
pots fur a window. Tlie.se add not a few cliarms 
to the home-circle during the cold Winter 
months. Tliese sweet adopted children of the 
household must not be starved nor put off on 
half rations. Be sure to give them an annual 
supply of fresh earth. In the case of roses, 
geraniums, and other vigorous growers, tlie 
earth or "compost" in which they are potted, 
should be rich with fertilizing matter. For 
euch plants, equal parts of old barn-yard or 
stable manure, well-rotted sods (those from an 
old pasture are the best) and clean sand, well 
mi.xed together, will form an excellent potting 
compost. If the compost be prepared several 
months before using, so much the better. Equal 
parts of thoroughly rotten stable manure, swamp 
muck, and sand, have been u.sed with the very 
best results; the manure and muck were of the 
richest quality. Where it is not convenient to 
change the earth at least once in each year, 
liouse-plant.s should receive fiequent applica- 
tions of liquid manure. A table-spoonful of 
guano dissolved in a gallon of water, or a shov- j 
elful of old stable manure in three gallons of i 
water, will form a good liquid fertilizer for 
honse-phuiLs. It should be applied about once 
a week, in sufficient quantities thoroughly to 
penetrate the earth in the pots. 

A generou.s supply of warm water is neces- ' 
sary for most plants, yet too mucli, on the otlier 
hand, would ruin them when the temperature 
is low. Shortening in all straggling growth, 
removing every leaf and flower as soon as it, 
shows signs of decay, frequent sponging and 
syringing of the foliage, and judicious airing, 
will be apt to result in success. j 

Other Devices. — One of the prettiest and most 
simple of wall decorations is a sweet-potato 
vine. It resembles ivy in appearance, but has 
the peculiar advantage of growing very rapidly 
when once started. 

It can be grown in a shaded room, and will 
twine about household things in a familiar and 
graceful way peculrar to itself, creeping around 
the pictures and winding its tendrils about 
their cords; or, clustering in window-corners, it 
will play bo-peep among the curtains in quite , 
a charming way, and at last will send forth its 
pretty convolvulus flowers to brighten all 
the ri.n.-u. 

If you wish to prove this pleasant fact select' 
an ordinary-sized sweet potato, and place it in 
a large-mouthed glass jar. It is not absolutely 



necessary to have a glass jar, unless one wishes 
to watch the sprouting process, which is beau- 
tiful and interesting. Cover the potato with 
water nearly to its top, leaving only an inch or 
two uncovered, and replenishing every other 
day, to make up for what is lost by evaporation ; 
and in about five weeks it will begin to sprout. 
It requires subsequently but very little atten- 
tion, it being only necessary to keep the roots 
constantly covered with water. The vine will 
be found to grow much faster when suspended 
in the sunshine, though it grows rapidly any- 
where. Sometimes it is more convenient to 
place the vase containing it on a bracket hung 
against the wall. The pendant shoots will add 
to its pretty effect, while those which have a 
tendency to creep upward will soon find some- 
thing to which they can cling. 

To make a very pretty ornament, cut ofT the 
crown or top of a large carrot, leaving attached 
to it about half an inch of the carrot ; place it 
in a saucer of water, which you may conceal 
with moss. The beautiful fern-like sprays of 
the carrot wiU continue green and growing for 
.several montlis, and may be stirrounded with 
exotics, to which it will lend a grace. Or, cut 
ofl" two inches of the carrot, dig it out, and 
hang it, inverted, full of water, and it will soon 
present a very unique appearance. 

A beautiful and easily-attained show of ever- 
greens may be had by a very simple plan, 
which has been found to answer remarkably 
well on a small scale. If geranium branches, 
taken from luxuriant and healthy plants, be 
cut as for slips, and immersed in soap-water, 
they will, after drooping for a few day.s, shed 
their leaves, put forth fresh ones, and continue 
in the finest vigor all the Winter. By placing 
a number of bottles thus filled \n a flower- 
basket, with moss to conceal the bottles, a show 
of evergreen is easily insured for the whole 
Winter. All the difl'erent varieties of the 
plant being used, the various shapes and colors 
of the leaves blend into a beautiful efl'ect. 
They require no fresh water. 

Take a saucer and fill it with fresh, green 
moss. Place in the center a pine-cone, having 
fii-st wet it thoroughly. Then sprinkle it plen- 
tifully with grass-seed. The moisture will 
close the cone partially, and in a day or two 
the tiny grass spires will appear in all the in- 
terstices, and in a week you will have a perfect 
cone of beautiful verdure. It only wants a 
plentiful supply of water to be a "thing of 
beauty" all Summer. 



582 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY 



Phmts and Aquariums. — Aquariuius are now 
so well understood as to be in a fair way to be- 
come essentials in the room-gardening of all 
persons of taste. Growing plants, fishes, and 
water reptiles are placed in the same globe or 
tank of water, and the gases which the fish re- 
ject are the food of tlie plants ; while the plants, 
on the other hand, prepare the elements neces- 
sary for the use of the fish. By this beautiful 
principle of reciprocity, both plants and ani- 
mals remain in perfect health, without the 
water scarcely ever being changed. A tank for 
plants and animals might form the base of a 
pretty parlor (U'naiuent, a central portion con- 
sisting of a case for ferns and similar plants, 
' and a cage for birds on the top. 

To Restore Frozen Plants. — Ten chances to 
one, ladies, you will be tempted some of these 
fine days to put out the flower- pots in the sun; 
and by the same token, you will be tempted 
"out to tea," and of course to spend the even- 
ing, trusting that Sukey, Sally, Jane, or Joe, or 
some of them, will take in the flower-pots out 
of the freezing evening air. Vainho|ie! You 
return home to find a dozen of the choicest and 
most tender frozen to a crisp. Now, don't get 
in a passion, hot enough to thaw them, if you 
do you will kill them — and that is not all that 
is killed by passion either, in many a family. 
Order a tub of water deep enough to immerse 
the whole plant; bring the pots out of the cold 
one at a time an<l put them in the water about 
five minutes. Take them out and drain ofl'the 
water and dry them as well as possible; set 
them in a dark room and keep the temperature 
at 50° or 60° for a few days, and your sick pa- 
tients will recover. 

To Preserre a Bouquet. — A florist of many 
years' experience sends the following receipt for 
preserving bouquets to the American Artlzan : 

"When you receive a bouquet sprinkle it 
lightly with cold water; then put it in a vessel 
containing some soap-suds, which nourish the 
roots and keep the flowers as good as new. 
Take the bouquet out of the suds every morn- 
ing and lay it sideways in fresh water, the stock 
entering first into tJie water ; keep it there a 
minute or two, then take it out and sprinkle 
the flowers lightly by the hand with pure 
waler. Replace the flowers in the soap-suds 
and the flowers will bloom up as fresh as when 
gathered." 

Others preserve cut flowers by adding a pinch 
of nitrate of soda, or of saltpetre, to a tumbler 
of water, every time they change the water. 

Pictures, et-c. — A few pictures assist greatly 



in giving a house a furnished look, even if its 
.setting out be in other respects meager. Be- 
sides this, if well chosen, they are missionaries 
of refinement and morality. 

One good picture is worth twenty indifferent 
ones ; indeed, the greater number of poor pic- 
tures you have, the worse you are ofl', for they 
are a positive degradation and disfigurement. 
Blank walls are vastly better. A bad oil- 
painting is particularly odious, and nothing 
betrays viJgarity and ignorance more infallibly 
than walls hung with' wretched caricatures in 
oil, purchased of itinerant vendors "at a great 
bargain." These have done much to vitiate 
the taste of our people. 

If you can not aflbrd good oil-paintings, exe- 
cuted by known artists, then procure the best 
engravings from steel or stone ; or choice pho- 
tographs ; or some of the handsome German, 
French, or American chromo-lithographs. 

Of engravings, the very large copies are not 
so much in request; the small, delicate French 
engravings, or photographs, with a widebordei-, 
being much choicer. In chromos, which are 
printed paintings, the last few years have wit- 
nessed a great improvement, until some of the 
best pieces are very cheap and very beautiful — • 
scarcely less desirable than the oil-paintings of 
which they are copies, and far better than av- 
erage paintings that cost five times as much. 

Chronio-lithography marks the advent of 
Democracy in art; and Louis Prang, of Bo.s- 
ton, is rendering a raost valuable service in 
placing low-priced pictures, of real merit, 
within the reach of the great body of Ameri- 
cans. Already he has introduced some of the 
rarest inspirations of L.^ndseek, Kosa Bon- 
iiEUR, Church, Biekstadt, Eastman John- 
son, Tait, Britcher, and othcr.s, to the homes 
of the common people. To poultry and birds, 
and fruit and flower pieces, he has added land- 
scapes and life-groups, and his later produc- 
tions are equal to the German, while they are 
procurable at half the price. Cliromo-litliog- 
raphy is the apotheosis of printing. No other 
style of picture so combines cheapness with 
beauty, and it can not fail to elevate the public 
taste, as it supersedes the atrocious painted 
wood-cuts that still find room in our thousand 
wayside cottages and country homes. No peo- 
ple in Christendom buy so many pictures as 
Americans, and no people display upon their 
walls such artistic horrors. May chromo- 
lithography hasten the revolution in the popu- 
lar taste, until we shall no longer see Napo- 
leon crossing the yellow Alps on a blue horse, 



TUE LALNDRV. 



583 



or Abraham Lincoln borne by George 
Washington to a green sk_v. 

What Prang has done lor painting, KoG- 
ERS has done for the sister-art, sculpture; his 
cliarming statuettes finding tliousands of buyei-s 
who liave never before felt able to patronize 
art. Nothing can be prettier than these to 
render a parlor, library, or hall atti'active. 

It is not well to bang oil paintings or highly- 
colored chromos on the wall of the same room 
witli engravings; for, unless pictures correspond, 
the higher-toned will be likely, so to speak, 
to "drown" the more subdued pieces, even 
though the latter may possess the greater 
merit. To no pictures justice, they must be 
hung in a proper light and in harmonious 
company. They will not bear crowding. A 
picture should be hung so that the line of sight 
of a person standing in front will pass perpen- 
dicularly to the center of it ; this rule being 
slightly modified by the height of the room. 

To keep clean the gilding of pieture-lranies, 
dust them with a soft feather-brush or bit of 
cotton batting. 

For libraries and halls maps are more ap- 
propriate than pictures. In dining-rooms hang 
bird and fruit pieces. 

The I^auildl'y. — Washing-day should, 
as far as possible, be regular, and much is gen- 
erally giiined by assigning Tuesday, instead of 
Monday, to this work. This gives a day for 
collecting, assorting, and other preparations. 

On the evening previous to washing, all the 
clothes should be gathered up and assorted; 
woolens, linens, cottons, and fine clothes being 
bundled separately. If a washing preparation 
is used (and amid the great number sold there 
are a few which are doubtless an aid to the 
washer and not injurious to the clothes), this 
phould be got in readiness over night. Many 
of the little jobs which a family always re- 
quire done the first of the week can also be 
done by this arrangement before the washing is 
undertaken, and if the house and children are 
ijeat and tidy, the housewife is better prepared 
for other duties. 

All the clothes, except woolens and colored 
pieces, should be put asoak over night, the very 
dirty parts having soap nibbed on them. If 
you use washing-fluid it should be mixed in 
the soaking water; if you use no wash mixture, 
the next morning wring out the clothes, and 
proceed to wash them carefully through two 
warm lathers; then boil them in clean lather 
briskly, but not longer than half an hour. 



Wash them out of boil — rinse through two 
waters. The last rinsing water should have a 
delicate tinge of blue, likewise a small quan- 
tity of starch, for all cottons and linens ; re- 
serve those you wish stiffer for the last, and 
mix more starch in the water. 

Shirt-bosoms and collars, skirts — in short, 
anything you wish very stif!', should be dipped 
in starch while dry. Swiss and other thin 
muslins and laces should also be dipped in 
starch while dry, and then clapped in the 
hands in the right condition to iron. Calicoes, 
brilliants, and lawns of white grounds should 
be washed like any other white material, omit- 
ting boiling, until the yellow tinge they acquire 
hall have made it absolutely necessar)'. Un- 
bleaclied cottons and linens follow the white 
clothes through the same waters, but in no 
case should they be boiled or washed with 
them, as they continually discharge a jior- 
tion of their color, and so discolor the white 
clothes. 

In directing preparations for washing-fluids, 
we give the process employed with them ; but 
colored clothes can be washed in few of them 
without injury to the color. Calicoes, colored 
lace, and colored cottons, and linens generally, 
are washed through two suds and two rinsing 
waters; starch being used in the last, as all 
clothes look better, and keep clean longer, if 
a little stiffened. Many calicoes will spot if 
soap is rubbed on them ; they should be washed 
in a lather, simply. 

A table-spoonl'ul of ox gall to a gallon of 
water will set the colors of almost any goods 
soaked in it previous to washing. A tea-cup 
of lye in a bucket of water will improve the 
color of black goods. A strong clean tea of 
common hay will preserve the color of those 
French linens so much used in Summer by 
both sexes. If the water in which potatoes are 
cooked is saved, and boiled down, it stiffens 
black calicoes as well as starch, and .saves them 
from the dusty and smeared look they so often 
have. Vinegar in the rinsing water for pink or 
green calicoes will brighten them. Pearlash 
will answer the same end for purple and blue. 
Colored and white flannels must be washed 
separately ; and by no means wash after cotton 
or linen, as the lint from tliose goods adheres 
to the flannel. There should be a little bluing 
in the water for white flannels. 

Hard water may be softened by dissolving 
half an ounce of quicklime in nine quarts of 
water, and the clear solution put into a barrel 
of hard water, and it will become soft when 



584 



DOJIESTIC ECONOMY : 



clear. A little borax powder will have the 
same effect. 

'Clothes Lines. — Use the rope clothes line no 
longer; lor you can do much better. Go to the 
nearest telegraph station and buy their galvan 
ized wire for a cent a foot or less, and stretch it 
over your pole.s, between your trees, or upon 
your iVauie. The wire will last lor twenty 
years ivilhout rusting or breaking; it will not 
injure your clntlies in any way; it never needs 
to be taken in; you will have purchased for a 
trifle, a line, just as good because just the same 
as tlie patent '' White Wire Clothes Line," so 
extensively advertised and .sold at four times 
the price. And you will never use a hempen 
clothes line again. 

" Washing Made Easy." — Do not be hum- 
bugged out of a dollar lor anything with this 
title. We present below a variety of recipes for 
washiug-fluids and preparations, some of which 
have been sold for hniulreds of dollars in the 
aggregate, and all of which are of unquestion- 
able value as an auxiliary. The reader must 
test them to ascertain their relative merit. The 
borax is all that is claimed for it. We present 
no recipes for washing soap, because such soaps 
are now in general use, and can be purchased 
as cheap as they can be made, excepting in the 
ca.se of large establishments. 

Sal-Soda and Lime. — "Take one pound of sal- 
Rodii, half a pcjund of good stone lime, and five 
quarts of water, boil a short time, let it settle, 
and then pour off the clear fluid into a stone 
jug, and cork it for use. Soak your white 
clothes over night in simple water, wring out 
and soap the wristbands, collars, and stained or 
dirty places. Have your boiler half-filled with 
water, just beginning to boil; then put in one 
small tea-cupful of the fluid, stir and put in 
your clothes, and boil for half an hour, then 
rub lightly through one suds only, rinsing well, 
bluing as usual, and all is complete. Soak 
your calico and woolen in the sudsing water, 
while hanging out the white ones, then wash 
them as usual, of course washing out woolen 
goods before you do the calico. This fluid 
brightens, instead of fading, the colors in 
Ciilico. 

"This plan requires very little wash-board 
rubbing for white clothes, saves half the soap, 
and more than half tlije labor, and saves the 
wear of rubbing through two suds before boil- 
ing, and is a good article for removing grease 
from floors and doors and to remove tar and 
grease from hands and clothes." This is the 



washing-fluid most widely used, and is, pei- 
haps, as good as any. 

Mrs. Twelvelree's Becipe. — "To every twenty 
gallons of warm water, add one bar of soap, 
.seven table-spoonfuls of spirits of turpentine, 
and one of sal-ammonia, and let the whole 
stand for one night undisturbed. In the morn- 
ing put in the fine clothes, and let them soak 
one hour, or, if very dirty, one and a half hours; 
then take them out, wring, and rinse well in 
clear water; wring and rinse again in blue- 
water; then dry. Tlie coarse linen luMy be put 
in the same water and undergo the same jiro- 
cess. 2^0 rubbing is necessary, and the clothes 
will be perfectly clean and sweet. The com- 
position will not injure the fine.st fabric." Our 
readers will take, with a grain of allowance, 
the information that with this fluid " no rub- 
bing is necessary;" the best washing-fluid, if 
the clothes are uuich soiled, needs slight a.ssi.st- 
ance from the knuckles. But the above is an 
excellent cleanser. 

Borax. — The washer-women of Holland and 
Belgium, who are so proverbially clean, and 
who get up their linen so beautifully white, use 
retiued borax as a washing powder instead of 
soda, in the proportion of a large handful of 
borax powder to about ten gallons of boiling 
water ; they save in soap nearly half. All the 
large washing establishments adopt the same 
mode. For laces, cambrics, etc., an extra 
quantity of the powder is used, and for crin- 
olines (requiring to be made very stiff'), a 
strong solution is necessary. Bora-X, being a 
neutral salt, does not in the slightest degree 
injure the texture of the linen, and is less inju- 
rious to colored cotton fabrics than soda is. 

Its efl'ect is to soften tlie hardest water, and, 
therefore, it should be kept on every toilet 
table. To the taste it is rather sweet; it is used 
for cleansing the hair, is an excellent dentifrice, 
and in hot countries is used in combination 
with tartaric acid and bicarbonate of soda as a 
cooling beverage. Good tea can not be made 
with hard water; all water may be made soft 
by adding a tea -spoonful of borax powder to an 
ordinary sized kettle of water, in which it 
should boil. The saving in the quantity of tea 
used will be at least one-fifth. 

To Wash While Lace. — The following recipe 
for washing white lace is generally found more 
successful than any other. Cover a glass bottle 
with white flannel, then wind the lace round it, 
tack it to the flannel on both sides, and cover the 
whole with a piece of flannel or linen, which 



WASHING WOOLENS — SOAP MAKING. 



585 



sew firmly round it. Then steep the bottle 
over ni^lit in an ewer, witli soap and cold 
water. Ne.xt naorning wash it willi hot water and 
soap, the soap being rubbed on the onter cov- 
ering. Then steep it again for some Iiours in 
cold water, and afterward dry it in tlie air or 
near the tire. Remove the outer covering and 
tlie lace is ready, no ironing being required. If 
the lace is very dirty, of course it must be 
washed a great deal. 

To 11 a.sA Woolens. — The chief cause of the 
shrinking of flannels and other woolen goods 
is found in a sudden transition from hot to cold. 
The best way to avoid this is to shrink the 
cloth before it is made up into wearing apparel. 
Everybody knows that Uaiinel shrinks by suc- 
cessive washings, and garments often become 
valueless from this cause. A notable house- 
wife, of our acquaintance, prevents it as I'ol- 
lows : Before the flannel is made up, inclose it 
in a cotton bag, to prevent permanent staining 
by contact with the boiler, place it in clear, 
cold water over the fire, and apply heat till the 
water boils, then take the flannel out and dry. 
By this process it will shrink an inch or so to 
the yard, but it will never become distorted in 
shape by subsequent contraction. 

Or, make a strong suds and put in your flan- 
nel or white woolen stockings, while the water 
is boiling hot. Then squeeze and pound them 
with a pestle till the water is cool enough to 
put your hands to the work. You will find 
there is little need of rubbing. Rinse in water 
as hot as the hands will bear. 

An old merino may be made to look " as 
good as new" by first ripping to pieces the 
ekirt, and afterward washing each breadth 
separately in warm suds, being careful to rinse 
only in clean warm water-siids. Iron while 
quite damp, on the wrung side. Afterward 
fold once double on the right side, placing over 
it a clean newspaper, and iron with a very hot 
flat-iron, in this way making the seam fold in 
all new double-folded goods. 

Soft Soap. — -Mucli difficult)' is often expe- 
rienced by tho.se who manufacture their own 
Boft soap; frequently, indeed, the operation 
succeeds well, but sometimes it totally fails 
from unknown causes. Often when every pre- 
caution has been apparently taken, complete 
failure has been the con.sequenoe; and the time 
is not long past, when some have even declared 
that they believed their soap was bewitched. 
But if the rationale on which the process is 
founded, is but understood, the whole becomes 



simple and easy, and may be performed with 
an absolute certainty of success. 

Common soft soap is composed of oil (or fat) 
and potash. The potash is obtained from 
common wood ashes, by causing water to run 
through them, which dissolves the potash con- 
tained in the ashes, and leaves the re.-iidtie be- 
hind. The manner by which the oil or grease 
is obtained is well known. These are made to 
unite and form soap by being boiled and well 
stirred together. 

One of the first requisites in soap making is, 
that there should be a sufficient quantity of pot- 
ash dissolved in the w.ater, or in other words, 
that the lye should he stro7i(/ ; this is readily 
ascertained by an egg; if the egg floats the lye 
is sufficiently strong ; if it sinks, it is too weak, 
and must be increased in strength by evaporat- 
ing a part of the water by boiling, or by passing 
it again through ashes. The best .soft soap, 
such as will keep through our insect-haunted 
Summers, can not generally be made with a 
smaller proportion of alkali to grease than 
pound for pound. 

The following is a good recipe: Take twenty 
pounds of potash, and dissolve it in twenty-five 
gallons of cold soft water (an iron kettle is the 
best to put it in). It will take five or si.\ days 
to dis.solve it unless the weather is perfectly 
warm. When dissolved, take twenty pounds 
of clean grease, or rough grease that will make 
that weiglit, and cleanse it with white lye; then 
strain it through a sieve or cullender in a soap 
barrel, and add the potash lye, being careful 
not to disturb the sediment; then soak the sed- 
iment of the potash with a few more gallons of 
soft water, and pour it into the barrel, so as to 
save all the strength of the potash. 

But it not unfrequently happens that the lye 
is found by trial to be strong, and yet good soap 
can not be produced. This is almost always 
owing to the potash of the lye not being causiic, 
or capable of corroding the skin, which state is 
absolutely requisite to succe.ss. Potash in its 
purest state is highly caustic; but where ashes 
liave been for some time exposed to the air, 
they gradually absorb from it a portion of the 
peculiar kind of air existing in small propor- 
tion in it, known by the name of carbonic acid, 
which destroys the caustic properties of the pot- 
ash and renders it unfit for the maiuifaeture of 
soap. Now as quicklime has a stronger attrac- 
tion for carbonic acid than potash has, it is 
only necessary to place a quantity of lime, in 
the proportion of half a bushel of lime for a 



586 



DOMESTIC economy: 



hogshead of good ashes, in the bottom of the 
lee. h before filling it, and it will abstract the car- 
bonic acid from the potash ofthe lye, as it passes 
downward, leaving it in a comparatively pure 
and caustic state. In order to prevent failure, 
therefore, this should always be done. In order 
to ascertain if lye contains carbonic acid, pour 
a few drops of sulphuric or nitric acid into a 
wine-glass of the lye, when if it contains much, 
a violent effervescence (or boiling up of bub- 
bles) will instantly take place, owing to the es- 
cape of the carbonic acid. The carbonic acid 
may be removed from the lye and render it tit 
for soap making, by boiling the lye with quick- 
lime. 

If the lye be strong, if it be rendered caustic, 
and if there be a sufficient quantity of tolerably 
clean fat, there can be little danger of success. 
The proportions should be about thirty pounds 
of fat to eight or ten gallons of lye. 

Soft soap should be kept in a dry place in the 
cellar, and not be used until three months old. 

Hard Soap consists of soda instead of potash, 
united with fat ; and is commonly made by 
adding common salt (which consists of muriatic 
acid and .soda) to well-made soft soap, while it 
is yet boiling. The soda of the salt unites with 
the fat, and forms hard soap, while the potash 
unites with the muriatic acid of the salt, and 
separates by falling to tlie bottom ofthe vessel. 
DifTerent degrees of hardness in .soaps are ob- 
tained by using potash and soda, at the same 
time, in different proportions. Hence, grease 
from salt meat has a tendency to increase the 
hardness of soap, unless the salt be previously 
removed by boiling in water. 

Soap of tallow is m;ide in England, and 
largely in the United States, and is the best in 
common use; when scented with oil of cara- 
way seeds and cast into a mold, it is u.sed for 
the toilet and is called Windsor soap. Otiier 
toilet soaps are made with butter, hog's lard, 
or with almond, nut, or palm oil. Sometimes 
fish oil is used for coarse soaps, as well as lin- 
seed oil; and rosin is often added to give a 
yellow color, and odor. The following propor- 
tions (by weight) have been given for a good 
yellow soap: tallow twenty-five, oil four and a 
half, rosin seven, barilla (soda) eighteen, set- 
tlings of waste lye, evaporated or calcined, ten, 
and palm oil a half part. 

Soaps are colored blue, by indigo, yellow by 
turmeric, etc-; and marble or veined soaps are 
made thus : To the soap just separated from the 
spent lye, new lye is added, and then copperas 
dissolved in water; red oxide of iron (or colco- 



thar) mixed with water, is stirred in, and by 
manual dexterity, is so mixed as to produce 
the peculiar appearance. 

The Cold Process — In Virginia there is a 
mode of making .soap, adopted by the country 
people, which they call the " cold process," 
that deserves to be made generally known. It 
is thus described by a farmer's wife: "I put 
my barrel (a common fish barrel) in the cellar 
where it is intended to stand, and fill it nearly 
full of strong lye; then add as much grease 
without melting it, as I think sufficient, stirring 
it once every day or two. In a few days I can 
tell whether I have put too much or too little 
grease, and add lye or grease as the case may 
require. In two or three weeks it becomes ex- 
cellent soap. We call it the cold process. In 
this way we make better soap, get rid of the 
trouble and risk of boiling, and can make it as 
suits our convenience, or occasion requires." 

White Hard Soap. — Put a box of the "con- 
centrated lye " into two quarts of boiling water; 
when dissolved, take three pounds of soft fat 
(or lard) and two pounds of tallow; melt it; 
strain if necessary, and then stir the lye in the 
fat gradually, until it becomes thick and siuootli 
as cream ; then cover it well, and allow it to 
cool gradually. When done and cold, cut in 
cakes or bars. This makes a very nice soap, 
and if desired, perfumery may be added. 

Washing Soap. — The following is a recipe for 
making the labor-saving soap already referred 
to for washing. The recipes for making have 
been sold at from S5 to $10, and the soap seven 
cents per pound; but can be manufactured for 
about two cents. Take two pounds of sal-soda, 
two pounds of yellow bar soap, and tew quarts 
of water ; CHt the soap in thin slices, and boil 
all together two hours, then strain it through a 
cloth; let it cool, and it is fit for use. Direc- 
tions for using the soap: Put the clothes in 
soak the night before you wash, and to every 
pail of water in which you boil them, add one 
pound of soap. They will need no rubbing; 
tBerely rinse them out, and they will be per- 
fectly clean and white. • 

Toilet Soap. — To four quarts slaked lime 
add two pounds sal-soda. Dissolve the soda 
in two gallons of soft water. Then mix in the 
lime, and stir it occasionally for one hour. 
Then let it settle; pour ofi' the clear liquor, 
then add two pounds of clean grease. Boil 
until all is dissolved, then pour it off into some 
vessel to cool, and cut into such shape as 
suits the fancy. You can flavor this soap with 
anything you desire. It will inake the hands 



STARCHING, REMOVING GREASE STAINS, ETC. 



5S7 



soft, and prevent them from cracking, and is 
far better and clieapcr than anv toilet soap that 
can be bought at the stores. 

I'lain Starching. — This requires some care 
and attention. The best vessels to make it in 
are tliose of brass, bell-metal, copper tinned, or 
eartlienware pipkins. If starch were made in 
a tin saucepan, it would be a cliance if it did 
not burn. An iron saucepan would burn it 
black. It would be di.scolored by copper, if tlie 
inner surface of the copper were not tinned. 
The very best vessel for starch-making is a 
bell-metal skillet. Mix the starch with cold 
water till it is of the consistence of common 
piisle, carefully* pressing abroad all the lumps. 
Then pour upon it boiling water in the propor- 
tion of a pint to an ounce of starch. If the 
starch is pure, and without blue, add the quan- 
tity of blue necessary to give it the proper tint, 
to tlie boiling water, before it is poured on the 
starch, which is effected by putting the blue 
into a flannel bag and letting the water dis- 
solve a sufKcient quantity. Set the skillet 
over the fire, and stir the starch with a clean 
wooden spoon. When the starch has boiled up, 
remove it from the fire. When the starch is 
required more than usually stifT, a little isin- 
glass may be dissolved and mixed with it after 
it is removed from the fire. 

Clear Starching. — This is accomplished by 
rinsing the articles to be starched carefully 
in three waters. Then dip them in the starch, 
which should be previously strained through 
muslin, squeeze and shake then gently, and 
hang up to dry. When dry, dip them in clear 
water, and agijin squeeze them, spread on 
linen, and roll up and let remain an hour be- 
fore ironing. In ironing, use highly polished 
irons, and you will be astonished at the beauti- 
ful gloss imparted. 

Cold Starching. — There is economy in stiffen- 
ing the collars and wristbands of shirts with 
nnboileil starch. Take as much of the best raw 
starch as will fill half a common tumbler, or a 
half-pint cup. Fill it nearly up with very clear 
cold water. Mix it well with a spoon, pressing 
out all the lumps, till you get it thoroughly 
dissolved. Next, add a tea-spoonful of salt, to 
prevent its sticking. Then pour it into a 
broad earthen pan, and add gradually a pint 
of clear cold water, and stir and mix it well. 
Do not boil it. 

Tl'.e shirts having been washed and dried, 
dip the wristbands into this starch, and then 
squeeze it out. Between each dipping, stir it 
up from the bottom with a spoon. Then 



sprinkle the shirts, and fold or roll them up 
with the collars and wristbands folded evenly 
inside. They will be ready to iron in an hour. 

This quantity of cold starch is sufficient for 
the collars and wristbands of a dozen shirts. 
Ladies collars may be done up with cold starch, 
if the muslin is not very thin. Muslin dresses 
and curtains can also be profitably cold-starched 
if they are ironed promptly; by this method 
they put on an appearance of newness scarcely 
attainable in any other way. 

Gloss on Linen. — To restore the gloss com- 
monly observed on newly-purchased collars 
and shirt bosoms, add a spoonful of gum-arabic 
water to a pint of the starch as usually made 
for this purpose. Two ounces of clear gum- 
arabic may be dissolved in a pint of water, and, 
after standing over night, may be racked off, 
and kept in a bottle ready for use. This prep- 
aration will add a gloss to linens, and will give 
to lawn.s, either white or printed, a look of 
newness, when nothing else can restore them 
after they have been washed. 

Grease Stains. — These are from grease, oil, etc., 
and are simply removed by alkalies or soap, or 
by essential oil dissolved in alcohol. Alkalies, 
such as solutions of saleratus or liquid ammonia, 
will remove them safely from all substances 
without color. Grease spots may also be re- 
moved by a compound made of equal parts of 
soft-soap and fuller's earth. For colored sub- 
stances, the alcoholic solutions spoken of will 
do, and among them burning-fluid answers a 
good purpose. But tlie best of all is the prepa- 
ration termed benzine or benzole, which excels 
anything else we know of in efliciency. Lay a 
paper under the fabric and apply the liquid. 
Oil spots, and stains from candle snufi', on 
woolen table covers, paint spots on garments, 
etc., are thus perfectly removed, without the 
slightest discoloration. Magnesia is sometimes 
used with good eflect, being rubbed on the cloth, 
some clean paper laid over, and a hot iron 
applied. 

Another good solvent of oily matter is the 
following: To half a pint of pure alfohol add 
ten grains of carbonate of potash, half an ounce 
of oil of bergamot, and one ounce of sulphuric 
ether; mix, and keep in a glass-stoppered bottle. 
Apply with a piece of sponge, soaking the cloth 
thoroughly when the grease is not recent. 

Grease may be removed from carpets and 
other woolen fabrics as follows: Cover the grease 
spot with wliiting, and let it remain until it be- 
comes saturated with the grease; then scrape it 
ofi", and cover it with another coat of whiting, 



588 



DOMESTIC economy: 



and, if tliis does not remove the grease, repeat 
the iipplication. For wall-paper, make a paste 
of fuller's earth, ox-gall, and water, 

Tlie followin;; metluiu n)ay sometimes be used 
advantageously: "As soon as possible after oil 
has been spilled upon a garment, take and im- 
merse it in clear cold water. After soaking 
awhile, the oil will begin to float upon the sur- 
face; when this takes place, change the water. 
By frequently renewing it, the oil will gradu- 
ally, in the course of a few hours, become com- 
pletely removed, without lubbing or washing; 
when dry, iron it, and no vestige of the oil will 
remain, nor will any change in the color be 
visible." 

There is nothing better for coat-collars, etc., 
than ammcmiated alcohol. Strong pearlash 
water mi.xed with sand, and rubbed on grease- 
spots on floors, is one of the most effective 
things that can he used to extract the grease. 

Acid Stains. — These may generally be known 
by reddening black, brown, and violet dyes, and 
all blue colors except Prussian blue and indigo. 
Yellow colors are generally rendered paler, ex- 
cept the color of annotto, which becomes orange. 

These stains are neutralized by alkalies. A 
spot, for instance, on a woolen coat, from strong 
vinegar or sulphuric acid, may be entirely 
removed by applying a solution of saleratus. 
Apply it cautiously until the acid is exactly 
neutralized, which may be known by the resto- 
ration of color; and then sponge off the salt 
thus made by means of a sponge. Acid stains 
may sometimes be removed by letting the cloth 
imbibe a little water, and holding a lighted 
match netir it, or exposing to the fumes of 
burning brimstone. Ammonia is better for 
delicate fabrics. 

Sweat stains are chiefly occasioned by a little 
muriate of soda and acetic acid — which pro- 
duce nearly the same effects as acids generally, 
and are to be removedyn the same way, ope- 
rating cautiously. 

AlkaH'tie Stains. — These are the opposite of 
acid stains — they change vegetable blues to 
green, red to violet, green to yellow, yellow to 
brown, and annotto to red. They are to be 
treated with acids. "The writer once had a 
new pair of dark cloth pantaloons changed to a 
liglit brown below the knees, by riding on a 
load of fresh lime in a storm. ' Oh ! you have 
ruined your clothes ! ' was the exclamation ; 
but be deliberately procured a cup of vinegar, 
and sponging the cloth gradually, completely' 
restored the color, and then again sponging oflf 
the compound, left them as good as before." 



Iron Stains. — These come from iron-rust, ink, 
etc. To remove them, the iron is first dis- 
solved by a solution of oxalic acid in water. 
The oxalate of iron thus produced, which, un- 
like iron-rust, is soluble, is readily removed by 
washing or soaking. Ink spots (tanno-gallate 
of iron) upon the printed leaves of books, are 
removed in the same way — but the lamp-black 
of the printer's ink is not at all effected. If 
fresh, such spots may be wholly effaced ; if old 
and dry, a very little will remain. 

Wheel grease makes a compound .stain of 
grease and iron. The grease may be taken out 
first by alkali; and then the iron by oxalic 
acid. If tar has been used on the wheel, rub 
on lard, which will dissolve it, and then apply 
the alkali. Turpentine will answer nearly the 
same purpose as lard. 

Vegetable Stains. — These include fruit stains, 
and may be removed with chlorine or sulphur- 
ous acid. A diluted solution of chlorine will 
remove them; or, if practicable, chlorine in 
a gaseous state will be better, the place be- 
ing wet. Sulphurous acid, or the strong fumes 
of burning sulphur, on the moistened stain will 
effect the same purpose, but much more slowly, 
and perhaps more safely. Both these sub- 
stances will, however, remove any other veget- 
able color which may have been used for dyeing 
the fabric. 

To remove stains from calico or other colored 
substances, without affecting the original hue, 
requires not only a knowledge of the materials 
used in dyeing, but of those which will di.spel 
the stain without aflecting these dyes, and 
would be too extended a subject for our present 
limits. 

Ammonia, or spirits of hartshorn, diluted 
with water and applied with a sponge is excel- 
lent for this purpose. Dilute muriatic acid, 
two parts water to one of acid, will frequently 
succeed. Soak the stained parts two or three 
minutes, and rinse in cold water. Some faint 
stains may be removed by sour buttermilk. 
Fresh fruit stains upon calico or similar mate- 
rial may be removed by dipping the stained 
portion in boiling water. 

A few drops of carbonate of ammonia, in a 
small quantity of warm rain water, will prove 
a safe and ea.sy anti-acid, etc., and will change, 
if carefully applied, discolored spots, upon 
carpets, and, indeed, all spots, whether pro- 
duced by acid or alkalies. If one has the mis- 
fortune to have a carpet injured by whitewash, 
this will immediately restore it. 

Mildew. — Wet the cloth which contains the 



REMOVING STAINS, DISCOLORATIONS, ETC. 



589 



niililew with soft water; rub it well with white 
SOU]); then scrape some fine chalk to powder, 
and rub it well into the linen ; lay it out on the 
grass, ill the sunshine, watching it to keep it 
damp with soft water. Repeat the process the 
next day, and in a few hours the mildew will 
entirely disappear. 

Another : " Take two ounces of chloride of 
lime and pour on it a quart of boiling water ; 
then add tliree quarts of cold water. Steep 
the liiH'U in this for twelve hours, and every 
spdt will be gone." Citric acid and salt are 
siiiiietiiues used. 

.\lcohoI will remove almost any discolor- 
ation. 

Chliiroform is an excellent article for the 
removal of stains of paints from clothes, etc. 
Portions of dry white paint which successfully 
resisted the action of ether, turpentine, ben- 
zine, and bisulphate of carbon are at once 
dissolved by chloroform. 

The following will restore scorched linen: 
Peel and slice onions, and extract the juice by 
ponnding and squeezing; add half an ounce of 
shred white soap, two ounces of fuller's earth, 
and half a pint of vinegar; boil together, and 
when cool spread it over the scorched linen, 
and let it dry on ; then wash out the linen. 

To Bleach White Woolen Goods.— Take a dry 
goods box, or a barrel, if it be large enough, 
stretch some strong cords across it, and upon 
them hang the articles you wish to bleach. Get 
a pound of brimstone, pound it fine; put an 
old pan or kettle into your box, and put in 
some live hard wood coals, upon which sprinkle 
a table-spoonful of the brimstone; cover closely 
and do not open it for three hours; then add 
more coals and more brimstone ; repeating the 
process until the garments are sufficiently 
white. Be careful not to inhale the smoke for 
it is very deleterious. The articles must be 
quite olean, and be wet in clean soft water 
when they are put into smoke. You can 
bleach white kid gloves. 

Ink Slaina. — If soaked in waim milk before 
the ink has a chance to dry, the spot may usu- 
ally be removed from any fabric. This is one 
of the very best remedies. Oxalic acid is used 
by some, and is excellent for white, but there 
is great danger of injuring colored goods, even 
with an after application of ammonia. Sal- 
ammonia is also effective, but, like oxalic acid, 
it sometimes removes more color than is desi- 
rable. Another resource is a saturation of 
melted tallow; rub till the tallow comes out, 
and tlie ink will generally accompany it. Tar- 



taric acid and lemon juice are each often 
effective. 

To take ink out of a white table-cloth, use a 
plentiful mixture of salt and pepper on the 
spot promptly, and all trace of the ink will 
soon disappear. A lady describes the success- 
ful use of oxalic acid as follows: "My first 
thought was that the dress was ruined ; the sec- 
ond was to dip the skirt at once into warm 
water, rinsing as much ink out as possible, but 
what was left made a rueful sight — hand- 
breadths of doleful thunder dark color, over 
the light Summer dress. Quick, it was plunged 
into a warm solution of oxalic acid — hot, that 
it might take effect sooner. Care was taken to 
dip only the spots into this liquid (there are 
some people so stupid they will need to be told 
to do this), and in a minute they fided, of 
course, taking the color of the stripes with 
them. The linen was rinsed in warm water 
again, and wet with a dilution of ammonia, 
which changed the skirt to its original color, 
and the dress was as good as ever." 

A saturation of milk is generally the most 
convenient, and is almost always effective. 

To Clean Kid Gloves. — Have ready a little 
new milk in one saucer, and a piece of brown 
soap in another, and a clean cloth or towel 
folded two or three times. Qii the cloth spread 
out the glove smooth and neat. Take a piece 
of flannel, dip it in the milk, then rub off a 
good quantity of soap on the wetted flannel, 
and commence to rub the glove toward the 
fingers, holding it with the left hand. Con- 
tinue this process until the glove, if white, 
looks of a dingy yellow, though clean ; if col- 
ored, till it looks dark and spoiled. Lay it to 
dry, and the operator will .soon be gratified to 
see that the old glove looks nearly new. It 
will be soft, glossy, smooth, and elastic. 

By a much simpler process, soiled gloves 
of all colors may be \^slied with alcohol, or 
alcohol and camphene, without either stain- 
ing them, or leaving an unpleasant odor about 
them. The gloves are merely drawn upon the 
hand and carefully rubbed with a piece of clean 
white flannel, wet with alcohol, until the soil is 
removed, (hen hung up to dry, and afterward 
slightly stretched, when the original color re- 
appears. Tills we have from one who has tried 
it successfully. 

Spirits of turpentine and benzine are also 
used with great success. 

Directions for Cleansing Silk Goods. — When 
silk cushion.s, or silk coverings to furniture, 
become dingy, rub dry bran on them gently, 



590 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY : 



with a woolen cloth till clean. Remove the 
grease spots and stains. Silk garments should 
have the spots extracted before being washed. 
Use hard soap for all colors but yellow, for 
which soft soap is the best. Put the soap into 
liot water, beat it till it is perfectly dissolved, 
then add sufficient cold water to make it just 
hikc-wnrni. Put in the silks, and rub them in 
it till clean; take them out without wringing, 
i:uil rinse tlieni in fair lukewarm water. Rinse 
tlicm in another water, and for bright yellows, 
crimsons, and maroons, add sulphuric acid 
enough to the water to give it an acid taste, 
before rinsing the garment in it. 

To restore the colors of the different shades 
of pink, put in the second rinsing water a little 
vinegar or lemon-juice ; for .scarlet u.se a solu- 
tion of tin ; for blues, purples, and other 
shades, use pearlash; and for olive greens, dis- 
solved verdigris in the rinsing water; fawns 
and browns should be rinsed in pure water. 
Dip the silks up and down in the rinsing 
water; take them out of it without wringing, 
and dry them in the shade. Fold them up 
while damp; let them remain to have tlie 
dampness strike through all parts of them 
alike, then put them in a mangier; if yon 
have not one, iron them on the wrong side with 
an iron just warn^enougli to smooth them. 'A 
little isinglass or gum-Arabic dissolved in the 
rinsing water of gauze sliawls and ribbons, is 
good to stiffen them. The water in which pared 
l>otatoes have been boiled is an excellent thing 
to wash black silks in ; stiffens and makes them 
glossy and black. Beef's gall and lukewarm 
water, is also a nice thing to restore rusty silk, 
and soap-suds answers very well. They look 
better not to be rinsed in clear water, but they 
should be washed in two different waters. 

If a little powdered magnesia be applied on 
the wrong side of silk, as soon as the spot is 
discovered, it is a never-failing remedy, the 
stain disappearing as if by magic. Salts of 
ammonia, mixed with lime will take out the 
stains of wine from silk. Spirits of turpentine, 
alcohol, and clear ammonui are all good to 
remove the stains from colored silks. 

To Cleun a HTiiVe Ostrich Feather. — A lather 
should be made with lukewarm water and 
white curd soap ; the feather must then be 
shaken in the lather for some time, occasion- 
ally passing it between the fingers, until, from 
the state of the water, the principal part of the 
dirt appears to have been removed. A second 
lather must then be used, but not containing 
quije so much soap. After well rinsing the 



feather in this, it must be gently pressed with a 
soft clean handkerchief, and then waved back- 
ward and forwaid before the fire, but at a little 
distance from it, until quite dry. A very small 
quantity of soda and a .slight coloring of blue 
should be added to the water before the lather 
is made. 

2'o Renew Veils. — Black tissue veils may be 
renewed by dipping them in thin glue water; 
shake them till nearly dry, and tlien smooth 
with a moderate iron. A black cloth sliould 
be spread over the ironing-sheet. 

To Renew Old Crape. — A bit of glue dissolved 
in skim-milk and water Will restore old crape. 
.\nother way is to lay it out over night in the 
dew, bring it in moist in the morning, and lay 
it, folded, in a paper under a slight pressure 
until it is dry. 

A good way of cleaning oil-cloth is to sponge 
it well with skim-milk, as it brightens it and 
preserves the color. 

To Cleanse Feather Beds and Mattresses. — • 
When feather beds become soiled or heavy, 
they may be made clean and light by being 
treated in the following manner, considerably 
practised in New England : Rub the ticks over 
with a stiff brush dipped in hot soap-suds. 
When clean, lav them on a shed, or any other 
clean place, where the rain will fall on thera 
and drench the feathers. When thoroughly 
soaked, let them dry in a hot sun and wind for 
six or seven successive day.s, shaking them up 
well, and turning them over each day. They 
should be covered over with a thick cloth du- 
ring the night; if exposed to the night air 
they will become damp and mildew. This way 
of washing the bed-ticking and feathers, makes 
them very fresh and light, and is much easier 
than the old-fashioned way of emptying the 
beds, and washing the feathers separately, while 
it answers quite as well. Care must be taken 
to dry the bed perfectly before sleeping on it. 

Dyeing'. — It is essential that articles to be 
dyed should be perfectly clean ; if they be dirty 
or greasy, the color will be likely to rub off". 
Iron vessels are best for dark dyes, and brass 
or copper vessels for light ones. The dye 
should be carefully strained and clear, and "the 
articles wet in soft water before dipping. The 
cloth should be well soaked and frequently 
lifted up and down in the kettle. If, on re- 
moving it, the color be too light, dry aiul im- 
merse again ; meantime, adding more of the 
dyeing compound if the solution requires. The 
dve should not be crowded with goods so as to 



591 



liimler tliem from being moved in it and kept 
under wiiliout difficulty. When goods are first 
put in the dye, tliey sliould be liept moving in 
it lor at least twenty mituites, so tliat they will 
color even. 

The best way to f\x yarn for coloring is to 
put the skeins on sticks made out of pine an 
inch or so in diameter, and from a foot to a foot 
and a half long, according to the size of the 
kettle. Cut some notches near eacli end of the 
stick.s, then tie strong cords in the notches at 
one end. The cords should be about si.x inches 
longer tlian tlie sticks; put the yarn on the 
sticks and tie the cords at each end, then you 
can handle the yarn in the dye without getting 
it tangled. 

Keraove any previous color by boiling in a 
soda washing-fluid. 

Black. — Dissolve six ounces sulphate of cop- 
per (blue vitriol) in a kettle of water, heated 
to nearly a boiling point; then run in your 
yarn, or flannel, forty-five minutes; take it out 
and rinse well in cold water; empty your ket- 
tle, put in fresh water, add three pounds of 
logwood, and a half pound of madder, boil 
well, cool with a little cold water, run in your 
goods one hour; then cool, boil your dye well, 
and run in one hour more. If too blue, add a 
little madder; if too brown, add more logwood ; 
run in again, and you will have a good black 
that will neither fade nor crack. The above is 
fur ten pounds of yarn, ten yards of fulled 
cloth, or fifteen yards of flannel. Wash well 
before and after coloring. 

Yellow. — Simmer your hanks of %'arn in 
strong alum-water; then put a layer of peach- 
tree leaves in a tub, then a layer of yarn, then 
le ives, till all are in ; then pour over them the 
boiling-hot alum-water to cover them. Let it 
set all night; wring out and air it; then heat 
the dye and put in fresh leaves with the same 
yarn, in layers, and pour over the hot dye for 
several days. Wring it each day till you get it 
the shade you like. Set it with strong suds. 
This makes a fast color, that grows brighter by 
washing in strong suds. 

Fustic, tumeric powder, saffron, barberry 
bark, and marigold flowers are each somewhat 
used for this color. 

Orange. — Boil the skins of ripe onions half 
an hour ; take out the skins, and add one ounce 
cif alum to one quart of dye; put in the silks 
or woolens and stir often for half an hour; dry, 
wash, and iron quite damp. Black alder, set 
with lye, also makes an orange. 

Red. — Half a pound of wheat bran, two gal- 



lons of soft water, and three ounces powdered 
alum boiled in a brass vessel. Add an ounce 
each, of cream of tartar and cochineal, tied in 
a bag. Boil for fifteen minutes, strain, and dip 
the articles. 

Or, take one pound of madder for every two 
pounds of yarn, or cloth ; soak the madder in a 
brass or copper kettle one night in warm water, 
enough to cover the yarn you wish to color ; 
next morning put in two ounces of madder com- 
pound for every pound of madder you have 
soaked, then wet your yarn or cloth in clean 
water and wring it out; afterward put it in the 
dye; now put the kettle on the tire and bring it 
slowly to a scalding heat, which will take half 
an hour; keep it at this heat about half an 
hour, if a light red is wanted, and longer if a 
dark one, the color depending upon the time 
it remains in the dye. When the color is made, 
rinse the cloth immediately in cold water, and 
it will then be finished. 

Blue. — For dark blue, boil two gallons of 
water with four ounces of copperas stirred in. 
Dip the articles; then, before they are dry, dip 
in a strong decoction of logwood, boiled and 
strained. Wash thoroughly in soap-suds. 

For light blue, use the " blue composition ; " 
sixty drops to a gallon of soft water. Dip and 
rinse thoroughly. 

An exchange asserts that yarn, plain or 
mixed, can be colored a firm blue, even su- 
perior to that attained with indigo, by mixing 
common purslane macerated fine, and boiled for 
some hours with logwood chips, in the propor- 
tion of half a bushel of the former and a quarter 
of a pound of the latter. Two ounces of alum is 
used as a mordant for every pound of purslane. 

Pink. — Buy a saucer of carmine at the apoth- 
ecaries and follow directions that accompany 
it. Borgamot blossoms with a little cream of 
tartar in the water, are somewhat used. 

Green. — Mix yellow and blue in some con- 
venient way. It is usual to color first in yel- 
low, then dip into blue. 

Nankeen. — Boil equal parts of annotto and 
common potash in water, till dissolved. This 
will produce the pale-reddish buff .so much 
admired. 

Buff. — Tie a tea-cupful of potash in a bag 
and put in two gallons of hot (not boiling) 
water; add an ounce of annotto in another bag. 
After half an hour put in the article, having 
first moi.stened it with strong potash water. Dip 
and rinse in soap-suds. Buft' also results from 
birch bark and alum. 

Dove and Slate. — A tea-cupful of black tea' 



592 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY : 



and a tea-spoonful of copperas, boiled in an 
iron vessel, properly diluted, make dove and 
slate of all shades. 

Olive. — Fustic and yellow bark boiled to- 
gether and set with copperas, make a good 
olive. 

Silver Gray. — Wool may be dyed a silver-gray 
color by boiling for half an hour in a bath com- 
posed of four ounces glauber salts; four ounces 
sulphuric acid ; iodine violet according to the 
shade desired ; and a small portion of indigo 
and carmine. This mi.^ture will be sufficient 
to dye ten pounds of the wool. 

The Toilet.— We shall not, under this 
head, indulge in an chiborate treatise on dress, 
but ofl'er to the reader some directions and rec- 
ipes for a proper care of the person. We 
venture, however, to invade the empire of 
fashion, so far as to copy the following from 
the Central Baptist: 

" Wearing Mourning. — We long for the day 
when this custom shall be obsolete. It is un- 
becoming the truly afflicted one. The wearer 
says by the black garments, ' I have lost a near 
friend; I am in deep sorrow.' But true grief 
does not wish to par.nde itself before the eyes 
of the stranger; much less does it assert its 
extent. The stricken one naturally goes apart 
from the world to pour out the tears. Keal 
affliction seeks privacy. It is no respect to the 
departed friend to say we are in sorrow. If we 
have real grief it will be discovered. 

"When God has entered a household in the 
awful chastisement of death, it is time for re- 
ligious meditation and communion with God 
on the part of the survivors. How sadly out 
of place then are the milliner and dressmaker, 
the trying on of dresses and the trimming of 
bonnets. There is something profane in ex- 
citing the vanity of a young girl by fitting a 
waist, or trying on a hat, when the corp.se of a 
father lies in an adjoining room. It is a sacri- 
lege to drag the widow forth from her grief, to 
be fitted for a gown, or the selection of a veil. 

" It is often terribly oppressive to the poor. 
The widow left desolate with a half-dozen little 
children, the family means already reduced by 
the long sickness of the father, must draw on 
her scanty purse to buy a new wardrobe 
throughout for herself and children, throwing 
away the good stock of garment.^ already pre- 
pared, when she knows not where she is to get 
bread for those little ones. Truly may fashion 
be called a tyrant, when it robs the widow of 
■ her last dollar. 



"Surely your .sorrow will not be questioned, 
even if you should not call in the milliner to 
help you display it. Do not, in your affliction 
help uphold a custom which will turn the afflic- 
tions of your poorer neighbor to deeper pover- 
ty, as well as sorrow." 

There may be added another reason for di.s- 
pensing with "mourning goods" quite as im- 
portant as any of the above. Death is never a 
permanent separation of loving ones, but only 
a new and higher birth of the soul that goes 
before. Crape might be appropriate to express 
annihilation or endless misery, but in this en- 
lightened age, flowers seem more becoming to 
decorate the portals of immortal life. 

Bathing. — Not only the laws of health, but 
the conditions of personal neatness require that 
the whole human body should be bathed or 
sponged all over very often. There is scarcely 
anything that is so conducive to long life. The 
skin is chie8y composed of a close interlacing 
of minute nerves and blood-vessels, .so compact 
that a needle's point can not find room between 
them. There is more nervous matter in the 
the skin than in all the re.st of the body united, 
and its pores throw otf more than a pound of 
waste matter every twenty-four hours. It is 
constantly exhailing insensible perspiration, 
and if this be not removed, the follicles be- 
come closed, and disease is likely to ensue. 

The Hair. — We have the following apparently 
excel lent advice from Hall's Journal of Health: 
"As to men, we s.iy, when the hair begins to 
fall out, the best phin is to have it cut short, 
give it a good brushing with a moderately stiff 
brush, while the hair is dry ; then wash it well 
with warm soap-suds ; then rub into the scalp, 
about the roots of the hair, a little bay rum, 
brandy, or camphor water. Do this twice a 
month ; the brusuing of the scalp m.iy be profit- 
ably done twiue a week. Dampen the hair 
with water every time the toilet is made. Noth- 
ing is better for me hair than pure soft water, 
it the scalp is kept clean in the way we have 
mentioned. Tlie use of oil or pomatums, or 
grease of any kind, is ruinous to the hair of 
man or woman. We consider it a filthy prac- 
tice, •■■'•nost universal though it be, for it gath- 
ers dust and dirt, and soils whatever it touches. 
Nothing but pure soft water should ever be 
allowed on the heads of children. It is a dif- 
ferent practice that robs our women of their 
most beautiful ornament long before their 
prime." 

Poisonous Hair "Restorers." — At the present 
time there is quite a rage for the use of hair 



THE TOILET. 



598 



"washes," or "restorers," which, while the 
charge of their being "dyes" is indignanlly 
repudiated, yet in a short time "restore" the 
color ol" the hair. The active agent in these 
washes is, of course, lead. In the majority of 
cases, probably, a moderate use of such a lotion 
would be unattended with mischief; but it is 
worth remembering, that palsy has been knoti-n 
to be pro<luced by the long-continued use of 
cosmetics containing lead, by persons of an 
extreme susceptibility to the action of poison. 

The journal of Chemistry mentions several 
cases, in which total or partial paralysis has 
thus been induced. There are thirty or more 
different maker^ of the article tliroughout the' 
countiy, and as many ditierent names given it. 
It may be known by the heavy sediment which 
is usually present in the bottles and which 
requires to be shaken up with the liquid portion 
before using. The "lead comb" advertised, is 
for similar reasons, objectionable. 

Glycerine, perfumed with rose water, im- 
parts lo tlie hair a soft, silky brilliancy. Peo- 
ple who will use pomades must be careful that 
they do not contain injurious coloring matter. 
The roseate pomades are always harmless in 
this respect. 

Having prefaced with good advice, we add 
a variety of recipes. 

Hair Restorative. — The following will gener- 
ally restore gray hair to its natural color, but 
it is frequently poisonous, as above indicated : 
1. Put one ounce of hic sulphur and one ounce 
of sugar of lead into a quart of pure alcohol; 
shake well and use. 

2. (An instantaneous dye.) No. 1. — Mix 
one-half dram gallic acid with four ounces 
alcohol. 

No. 2. Mix one dram crystallized nitrate of 
silver; one ounce of water; twenty drops spirits 
of hartshorn. 

Previous to applying, the head and hair 
should be thoroughly cleansed with warm soap- 
suds, or a sliMUipooing mi.xture. When nearly 
dry apply No. 1 to every part of head and hair, 
with hands or sponge, and while wet apply No. 
2 with tooth-brush and comb. A pair of old 
gloves should be worn when No. 2 is applied, 
to keep the dye off the hands; India rubber 
gloves are well adapted for tlie purpose. 

3. Put equal quantities of rum and sweet 
oil into a bottle, imd before using, shake them 
well together. This mixture should be applied 
with a soft brush to the roots of tlie hair every 
night; it should be tried for a month at least, 
before any improvement can be expected. 

38 



Fresh beer also tends to prevent the hair from 
falling, but it is apt to leave it dry. 

Tliere is nothing better to restore faded hair 
than a wash of strong black tea. 

To Dye the Hair Flaxen. — Take a quart of 
lye, prepared from the ashes of vine twigs, 
briony, celandine roots, and turmeric, of each, 
one-half an ounce; saffron and lily roots, of 
each two drams; flowers of mullein, yellow 
stech.as, broom, and St. John's wort, of each 
a dram. Boil these together, and strain off 
the liquor clear. Frequently wash the hair 
with this fluid, and it will change it, we are 
told, in a short time to a beautiful fl.axen color. 

It is always vulgar to try to change the nat- 
ural color of the hair, for there is a correspond- 
ence between liair and complexion wliich is 
violated by such tampering. 

Hose Pomatum. — Take half a pound of beef 
marrow and half a pound of fresh lard ; melt 
them together, and stir in half a pint of castor 
or sweet oil. Have a gill of alcohol in which 
an ounce of alkanet root has been kept for two 
or three daj's. Strain this into the mixture to 
■give it a crimson color. Perfume with oil of 
roses. 

Good Hair Oil-- — Perhaps the very best ole- 
aginous hair application consists of a mixture 
of castor oil and alcohol, two parts by measure 
of the former, to one of the latter, the whole 
perfumed according to taste. The circumstance 
should here he mentioned that castor oil is the 
only oil that alcohol will dissolve. 

Glycerine Hair Tonic. — Glycerine, bay rum, 
each one ounce; tincture cantharides, lialt- 
ounce; rose water, four ounces; aqua ammonia 
one-fourth ounce ; mix. This tonic will often 
stop the hair falling off', willefl'ectually remove 
dandruff, and, as a dressing, will far surpass 
any of tbo pomatums or greasy preparations 
in use. 

Shampooing or Cleaning Mixture. — Half an 
ounce of borax dissolved in a pint of hot 
water. This is the wash generally used by 
hair-dressers. 

Another and undoubtedly far superior way 
to clean the head and hair, is to use the whites 
of one or two eggs, which should be washed 
out of the hair with warm water. The hair 
will be left soft and silk-lite, while the borax 
will make the hair rough and coarse, and 
require so much oil as to soon get dirty again. 

Curling the Hair. — At any time, ladies may 
make their hair curl the more easily by rubbing 
it with the beaten yolk of an egg, washing it 
off afterward with clear water, and then putting 



504 



DOMESTIC ECONOMT : 



on a little poiuatmu before they put np tlie curls. 
It is well always to go through this process on 
changing to curls, after having worn the hair 
plain. 

Bandoline. — This article, intended to keep the 
hair stiffly in place, is not much used during 
the present predominance'of friz, but the whirl- 
gig of fashion may restore the plastering cus- 
tom before our book is out of press. Therefore : 

Mucilage of quince-seed is used; mucilage of 
picked Irish moss, carefully strained is said to 
answer still better. Flax-seed tea is also some- 
what resorted to. 

To Remove Superfluous Sair. — Caustic, or 
quicklime, will certainly destroy hair; but 
when the hair is growing upon the human skin, 
it requires both patience and careful applica- 
tion, in con.sequence of its action upon the 
skin. Take a piece of the best lime about two 
ounces weight, put it into a saucer, and pour 
on it boiling water till it slakes ; spread the 
paste thickly over the hair to be removed, and 
let it remain till no longer bearable. Then 
take an ivory or bone paper-knife, and imitate 
the process of shaving; finally, wash the part, 
and apply a little rose cold-cream to allay any 
irritation of the skin. If this be not effectual 
by one operation, the process must be repeated 
next day, even to a third operation if the hair 
be strong or black. A more effectual depila- 
tory consists of lime slaked to powder, three 
ounces; orpiment (sulphuret of arsenic), half 
an ounce; well mixed and made into a paste 
with water, and applied as the above. This 
preparation must, of course, never be used but 
with extreme caution. However, if there be 
any irritation of the skin, the application of 
cold-cream will remove it in a few hours. 

Cleansinrj Hair BruAes. — Saleratus and soda 
are considerably used in the water, but they 
are apt to injure the brushes. It is best to use 
a solution of ammonia or borax with lukewarm 
water, afterward rinsing in clean water. 

The Teeth. — Children should yot be permit- 
ted to neglect their teeth for a day ; they should 
be habitually and frequently cleansed, not only 
as a needful preservative, but to promote an 
agreeable appearance, and to sweeten the breath. 
The saliva deposits tartar on the teeth, which 
destroys the enamel, and the teeth then rapidly 
decay. 

One other caution is necessary; always buy a 
Boft brush, and never use it oftener than once 
a day. Many have destroyed their teeth by in- 
oes.santly scrubbing them with charcoal, ashes, 
and other coarse powders. All tooth powders 



should be applied gently, and with great carei. 
To keep the teeth clean is all that is required. 

To Beautify the Teeth. — Dissolve two ounce-s 
of borax in three pints of boiling water, and 
before it is cold add one teavspoonful of the 
spirits of camphor, and bottle for use. A table- 
spoonful of this, mixed with an equal quantity 
of tepid water, and applied daily with a soft 
brush, preserves and beautifies the teeth, extir- 
pates all tartarous adhesion, arrests decay, in- 
duces healthy action of the gums, and makes 
the teeth pearly white. ' 

Orris Tooth Powder. — Powdered orris root, 
one ounce ; powdered myrrh, half an ounce ; 
prepared chalk, eight ounces; powdered castile 
soap, one dram; oil of lemon, fifteen drops; 
mix and put through a fine sieve. This makes 
a soft and excellent powder. 

Orris Tooth Paste. — Take four ounces each 
pulverized orris and rose pink ; prepared chalk, 
two ounces; oil of cloves, five drops; mix with 
honey enough to form a paste of proper con- 
sistence. 

Orris Tooth TT''a.s7i.— Take pulverized orris, 
four ounces; myrrh, one ounce; galls, half an 
ounce; raix with two quarts of proof spirit. 
Let it stand for two weeks, frequently agitating 
it, and then filter and bottle for use. 

For Chapped Hands. — I. Wash with soap and 
water with a table-spoonful of Indian meal, 
using the meal until the hands are dry. Then 
wet with pure glycerine water and dry at the 
fire. 

2. Mix a quarter of a pound of unsalted hog's 
lard, which has been washed in common, and 
then in rose water, with the yolks of two new- 
laid eggs, and a large spoonful of honey. Add 
as much fine oatmeal or almond paste as will 
work into a paste. Use often. 

Wash for the Face. — 1. A learned chemist 
gives the following recipe for making a harm- 
less, useful, and cheap wash: " A piece of gum 
tolii the size of a walnut, thrown into a wash- 
bowl of soft water, half an hour before using, 
will soften the skin, and after a few applica- 
tions, will remove, to a great extent, tan, 
freckles, and roughness. The tolu imparts to 
the water an agreeable aromatic odor. Ten 
cents worth of this, \sith a cake of fine soap 
freely used, will be more effectual in beautify- 
ing a young lady's complexion than many 
costly and injurious cosmetics. The tolu may 
be kept in a china cup, and wlien used, the cup 
can be placed in the bowl of water, thus avoid- 
ing the trouble of removing the gum." 

2. Tan may generally be removed from the 



THE TOILET. 



595 



face by mixing magnesia in soft water to the 
consistency of paste, wliich eliould then be 
spread on the face and allowed to remain a 
minute or two. Then wash off with castile 
soap-suds, and rinse with soft water. 

To Cure Freckles. — Take two ounces of lemon 
juice, a half-dram of powdered borax, and one 
dram of sugar. Mix together, and let them 
stand in a glass bottle for a few days ; then rub 
it on the hands and face occasionally. 

Diluted corrosive sublimate, with tlie oil of 
almonds, is sometimes used, and is a certain 
remedy, but somewhat dangerous. 

To make Cold Cream for Cosmetic. — Take two 
ounces oil of almonds, half an ounce of sperm- 
aceti, one dram white wax ; melt together, and 
add two ounces rose water, and stir it constantly 
until it is cold. 

To Blacken the Eye-Lashes. — The simplest 
preparations for this purpose are the juice of 
elder berries, burnt cork, and cloves burnt at 
the candle. Some employ the black of frank- 
incense, resin, and mastic; this black, it is said, 
will not come off with perspiration. 

Breath Tainted by Onions. — Leaves of parsley 
eaten with vinegar will prevent an offensiveness 
of breath after eating onion.?. 

The Noils. — To preserve and beautify the 
finger nails requires some skill and consider- 
able attention. The nails are placed at the 
extremities of the fingers and toes to cover and 
protect from injury the numerous sensitive 
nerves of touch. The nails of the fingers, 
when well formed, contribute greatly to the 
evMimetry of the h.and. They constitute in the 
lady an important feature of personal attrac- 
tion. According to European fashion, they 
should be of an oval figure, transparent, with- 
out specks or ridges of any kind ; the semi-lnnar 
fold, or white half-cii'cles, shouVd be fully de- 
veloped, and the pellicle or cuticle, which forms 
the contiguration around the root of the nail, 
thin and well defined, and when properly ar- 
ranged, should represent, as nearly as po.ssible, 
the shape of a half filbert. 

Properly to arrange the nails is to cut them 
of an oval shape, corresponding with the fnrni 
of the finger. They should not be allowed to 
grow too long, as it is difficult lo keep them 
clean, nor too short, as it allows the end of the 
finger to become flattened and enlarged by being 
pressed upward against the nails and give them 
a clum.sy appearance. The epidermis which 
forms the semi-circle around and adheres to 
the nail, requires particular attention, as it is 
frequently dragged on with its growth, drawing 



the skin below the nail so tense as to cau.se it 
to crack and separate into what are called ag- 
nails. This is easily remedied by carefully 
separating the skin from the nail by a blunt, 
half-round instrument. 

The nails should be cleansed with a brush, 
not loo hard, and the semi-lunar skin should 
not be cut away, but only loosened, without 
touching the quick, the fingers being afterward 
dipped in tepid water, and the skin pushed 
back with a towel. This method should be 
practiced daily. It will keep the nails of a 
proper shape, prevent ag-nails, and the pellicle 
from thickening or becoming ragged. The 
biting or picking of the nails is an unfortunate 
and pitiful habit, which can seldom be pre- 
vented, and frequently continues for life. 

There are sometimes white specks upon the 
nails, called gifts. These may he removed by 
the following preparation : Melt equal parts of 
pitch and turpentine in a small vessel; add to 
it vinegar and powder of sulphur. Apply this 
mixture to the nails, and the spots will soon 
disappear. Pitch and myrrh, melted together, 
may be used with equal snccess. 

To whiten the nails: Diluted sulphuric acid, 
two drams; tincture of myrrh, one dram; • 
spring water, four ounces ; mix. First cleanse 
with white soap, and then dip the fingers into 
the mixture. 

To prevent nails growing down into the toes: j^^'-'o 

Take a sharp-pointed knife, and cut a little 
furrow all along the top of the nail lengthwise. 
As it fills up scrape it out again. This will 
cause the nail to contract at the lop, and so 
loosen its hold from the flesh. Persevere until 
the difficulty is entirely overcome. 

To Make Cologne Water. — Put into a pint of 
alcohol one dram each of the oils of laven- 
der, lemon, rosemary, and burgamot, and eight 
drops each of the oils of cloves and cinnanmn. 
To Make Rose Water. — 1. The following recipe 
will make rose water far preferable to the dis- 
tilled article, either for a perfume or for culi- 
nary purposes. Otto of rose, twelve drops ; 
nib it up with half an ounce of white sugar 
and two <lrams carbonate magnesia ; then grad- 
ually add a quart of water, and two ounces of 
proof spirit, and filter through paper. 

2. Take two. pounds of ro.srf leaves, place 
them on a napkin lied around the edges of a 
basin filled with hot water, and put a dish of 
cold water upon the leaves; keep the bottom 
water hot, and change the water at the to]) as 
soon as it begins to grow warm. By this kind 
of distillation you will exuact a gnat quantity 



596 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY: 



of the essential oil of the roses by a process 
which can not be expensive, and will prove 
very beneficial. 

To Make Lavender Water. — Take one ounce 
of oil garden lavender, and add tliirty drops 
bergaraot, twenty drops essence of musk, or 
ambergris, ten drops oil orange, eight drops 
otto rose ; mix with two quarts proof spirit. 

Milk of Boses. — Put into a small bottle two 
ounces of rose water, one tea-spoonfiil of oil 
of sweet almonds, ten drops of oil of tartar. 
Shake the bottle until tlie whole are combined. 
A beautiful cosmetic, to be applied with a 
corner of a towel or a cambric handkerchief, 
after the morning's ablutions. 

Camphor Balls, for chapped hands, etc. Sper- 
maceti, white wax, each half an ounce; almond 
oil one ounce; alkanet, to color. Melt, strain, 
and add three drams of powdered camphor. 

Castor Oil Cream. — An agreeable and effica- 
cious compound, rendering the skin pleasingly 
Boft and delicate, and acting as a refreshing 
cosmetic after exposure to the sun, dust, or 
harsli winds, etc. Castor oil, one ounce; tlie 
best eau de cologne, one ounce; spermaceti, 
one ounce. Liquify the spermaceti, add to it 
castor oil, stir it up until it is reduced to a 
transparent liquid, remove it from the fire, and 
add, a little by little, eau de cologne, in stirring 
tintil it is cold. 

Persian Sweet-Scent Barp. — Take one ounce 
lavender flowers; two drams pulverized orris; 
half ounce bruised rosemary leaves; five grains 
musk ; five drops otto of roses; mix all well; 
sew up in small fiat muslin bags, and cover 
them with fancy silk or satin, when they will 
be ready for use. 

Antidote to Perspiration Odor. — The unpleas- 
ant odor produced by perspiration is frequently 
the source of vexation to persons who are sub- 
ject to it. Nothing is simpler than to remove 
this odor much more effectually than by the 
application of such onguents and perfumes as 
are in use. It is only necessary to procure 
some of the compound spirits of ammonia, and 
place about two table-spoonsful in a basin of 
water. Washing the face, hands, and arms 
with tliis, leaves tlie skin as clean, sweet, and 
fre-sh as one could wish. The wash is perfectly 
harmless, and very cheap. It is recommended 
on the autliority of an experienced physician. 

Houseliold Pests. — When it is remem 
bered how many persons have lost their lives 
by swallowing in mistake mixtures of strych' 



nine, ratsbane, corrosive sublimate, etc , which 
are usually employed for this purpose, it will 
seem best to use, as far as possible, means of 
defense against insects and other pests that are 
not a deadly poison to man. Kerosine, so well 
known as a detergent, has been recently tried 
on a number of insects and has generally proved 
an efficient repellant. It is cheaper and of 
more ready access than some of t!ie remedies 
given in this article, and is well worthy of trial 
in all cases where it can be conveniently ap- 
plied. It is said that " two drops of benzine 
are sufficient to suffocate tlie most redoubtable 
pest, be it beetle, cock-<;liafer, spider, slug, cater- 
pillar, or other creeping thing. Even rats and 
mice decamp from any place sprinkled with a 
few drops of benzine. A singular fact con- 
nected with this application of benzine i.s, that 
the bodies of insects killed by it become so rigid 
their wings, legs, etc., will break rather than 
bend, if touched." 

Ants. — The following serves as a very effect- 
ive ant-trap: Procure a large sponge, wash it 
well, and press it dry, which will leave the cells 
quite open; then sprinkle over it gome fine 
white sugar, and place it near where the ants 
are most troublesome. They will soon collect 
upon the sponge, and take up their abode in 
the cells. It is then only necessary to dip the 
sponge in scalding water, which will wasli them 
out dead by ten thousands. Put on more sugar, 
and set the trap for a new haul. This process 
will soon clear the house of every ant, uncle, 
and progeny — if it is perseveringly followed 
up. Ants may also be numbered among the 
" can't-get-aways " by trapping them in a plate 
of lard. 

Camphor is very oflensive to ants, and in- 
deed to all house insects. They also dislike 
sage, and will not cross a barricade of sage 
leaves on a shelf. Oil of cedar and turpentine, 
mixed, equal parts, in a bit of cotton, will scat- ' 
ter them " not for a day only, but for all time." 
Salt rubbed on shelves is also a defense against 
ants. 

Bed-Bugs. — This nocturnal prowler is no 
more attractive, when we christen him in Latin, 
" cimex lectularius." Washing a bedstead thor- 
oughly with a strong decoction of salt and 
water, filling the cracks with salt will generally 
banish these night-walkers that play so many 
tricks upon travelers. 

Benzine will expel them, and is the main 
reliance of thousands of housewives. It is, 
however, less cleanly tlian some other washes. 



HOUSEHOLD PESTS. 



597 



Soap suds, laid on with a brush, is another 
repellant. So is a wash of strong alum water, 
ajiplied hot. 

One of the afflicted recommends concentrated 
lye as "better thnn salt" for a wash and in- 
secticide. Another rises triumphant from the 
contest with the following : " As to bed- 
bugs, we would say, that quicksilver beaten into 
fine globules in the white of an egg and applied 
in their hiding-places, is the only sure and per- 
manent remeily. It will remain for years and 
liill every bug and keep them killed." 

Cock- Roaches. — The cock-roach (Croton bug 
in New York), ifi a disgusting guest, but is not 
very hardy or difficult to expel. The most 
liimple and efiectual relief is finely powdered 
borax. Sprinkle it freely into the crevices, and 
about hot-water pipes, where the roaches in- 
luibit. You will find they will all leave. To 
make it etTectual its use should be continued for 
a few weeks, renewing it every few days- It 
will not fail. 

Another equally sure means of expulsion is 
in cucumber peelings, spread on the floor, 
shelf, or sink where they frequent. They will 
eat voraciously for two or three nights, and 
vanish forever. 

Other poisons may be made by mixing gyp- 
sum with double the quantity of oat meal ; or 
by compounding equal quantities of red lead, 
Indian meal, and molasses to the consistency 
of a paste. 

Also try kerosine. 

Fleas atid Vermin may be got rid of on dogs 
by bathing in a strong infusion of lobelia lor 
two or three mornings, and afterward washing 
with soap and water. 

Fties. — Cleanliness is the most efTectual de- 
fense against house-flies. If no food is left 
exposed, there is nothing to entice the swarms 
and furnish them with the means of sub- 
sistence. Keep the floor, shelves, tables, and 
vessels clean, and carefully cover and put 
away every article of food, and flies will never 
become very numerous on the premises. It is 
luirdly .possible to keep a house so immacu- 
lately neat but that a few flies may be ex- 
pected; these should be carefully driven out 
every day, and the window-blinds be drawn 
together during the brightest sunshine. 

Flies may generally be driven from a room 
by hanging up a bunch of plaintain or flea-wort 
plant after it has been dipped in milk. A wash, 
with a decoction of walnut leaves, is perhaps 
better, as it will expel without first enticing. 



It is stated that strong tea, well sweetened, 
is death to flies. 

Another poison, more instantaneous, is com- 
pounded of arsenate of potassa, two ounces; 
red lead, half an ounce; sugar, ten ounces; 
mix. Put a small quantify on a plate, and 
moisten with water. 

The following simple mixture we can vouch 
for, as one of the best destroyers of the house- 
fly: Take equal porcions of fine black pepper, 
fresh ground, and sugar, s.iy enough of each to 
cover a ten-cent piece; moisten, and mix well 
with a spoonful of milk (a little cream is bet- 
ter); keep that in your room, and you will 
keep down your flies. One advantage over 
other poisons is that it injures nothing else; and 
another, that they never die in the house, but 
seek the air through open windows. 

To protect from fly-specks: Boil three or 
four onions in a pint of water. Then, with a 
gilding brush, go over your glas.ses and frames, 
and the flies will not light on the article washed. 
Tills may be used without apprehension, as i*. 
will not do the least injury to the frames.. 

Moths. — These insects are very hardy, and 
never "die in aromatic pain." The miller is 
impelled by the strongest instinct to perpetuate 
her species, and no trifling impediment of cedar 
closets, or bits of cigar boxes, or even tobacco, 
will intimidate her. Beczine will restrict her 
movements; so will turpentine; so will carbolic 
acid. Camphor is, perhaps, more used than 
anything else, and is efTective — probably the 
best thing to expel moths when they are once 
in possession. 

The preservation of furs is perfectly simple. 
When their Winter service is finished (say in 
April), give them a good beating, shake them 
well, put a bit of camphor in, sew them up 
tiglit in a cotten or linen bag, and hang the bag 
high in wood-house or garret. 

The cloth lining of carriages can be secured 
by washing or sponging with a solution of cor- 
rosive sublimate of mercury in alcohol, just 
strong enough not to leave a white stain on a 
black feather. 

Moths can be got out of carpets by a thorough 
beating, and kept out by use, or by passing a hot 
iron over a piece of muslin, laid on the carpet 
after being soaked in a solution of two ounces 
of camphor well cut in a quart of whisky. 
Upholstered furniture should be frequently 
taken out and whipped. 

Ifusketoes. — Good pennyroyal is a defense 
against these sanguinary serenaders. Camphor 



DOMESTIC economy: 



is also a powerful agent to drive them away, 
when it is hung up by the casement in a bag, 
or, as a liquiii, suspemled in a sponge over tlie 
bed. Caraphorateil .■spirits nppligd as a perfume 
to the face and liauds will act as an eflVctual 
preventive; but, when bitten b_v them, aromatic 
vinegar is the best antidote. 

Bats and Mice. — Caklyle says th:it when 
tlie Maker loulced upon a rat and found he liad 
made a mistake, he called the cat into being as 
an antidote. Like the honey-bee, the rat is 
one of the advance-guards of civilization, and, 
quite unlike the honey-bee, he is one of the 
most impudent, tliievish, and mischievous 
wretches that ever infested the habitations of 
nun. 

One good eat is worth a dozen trap.s and 
any quantity of arsenic and corrosive subli- 
mate. The old-fasliioncd box-trap, open at 
both ends, is one of the best trap.s. A Con- 
necticut man says his way of driving rats from 
liis premises is to catch one, dip it in red paint, 
except the head, and let it go again. 

Then there are various internal mechanical 
contrivances: Cork or sponge cut up and sweet- 
ened, which swells up within the victim and 
kills him; also, glass, ground or pounded fine, 
and mixed with equal parts of flour and meal, 
and flavored with a few drops of aniso; or un- 
slaked lime mixedwith meal, which makes the 
eater intensely thirsty, and when he drinks 
causes him to explode. 

There are various things warranted to kill 
rats or drive them away, thus: AVild pepper- 
mint will (sometimes) keep them from barns 
and granaries; they have an aversion for yellow 
ocher, for a solution of coppera.s, and for chlo- 
ride of lime. Eats and mice speedily di.sn])- 
pear by mixing equal quantities of strong cheese 
and powdered .squills. 

Poisons may be prepared thus: Take a bunch 
of matches and soak them over night in a tea- 
cupful of water; then take out the matches, 
thicken the water with Indian meal to a stifl' 
dough, adding a tea-spoonful of sugar and a 
little lard; lay it about the premises where 
the rats and nothing else will get it. " Mix 
two ounces of carbonate of barytes witli one 
pound of suet or tallow, and place portions of 
the mixture within the holes and about the 
haunts of the rats. It is greedily eaten, produces 
great thirst, and death ensues after drinking. 
This is a very effectual poison, because it is 
both odorless and tasteless." Where there are 
children, poisons must be used with great care. 



The Care of Utensils, etc.— One 

piece of iron, a nut, or a pipe, screwed upon 
another, can be removed when rusted by the 
application of heat by an iron or wet cloth, to 
the outer section. Ground stoppers may be 
removed from bottles by cooling the stopper, 
and heating the neck of the bottle. 

An Iron Dhh-Cloth — Is, undeniably a good 
thing. They are in common use in Euroj^e, 
especially for pots and kettle-s, but are little 
known in this country. They are each ma<le 
of some two hundred little iron rings, number 
fifteen, linked together, and are about six or 
eight inches square, looking somewhat like 
chain-armor. They are very flexible. Every 
kitchen maid who has scoured the inside or 
outside of a kettle with one pronounces it fat- 
better than scraping with a knife and scouring 
with cloth and sand. It is also very useful to 
put under anything hot from the stove. Of 
course, the iron dish-cloth is well-nigh inde- 
structible. 

To Repair a Looking-glass. — To repair the 
silvering on tlie back of a looking-glass, clean 
the bare portion of the glass, by rubbing it 
gently with fine cotton, taking care to remove 
any trace of dust and grease. This cleaning 
must be done very carefully, or defects will 
apjiear around the place repaired. With the 
point of a knife cut upon another looking* 
glass around a portion of the silvering of the 
required form, but a little larger. Upon it 
place a small drop of mercury, tlie size of a 
pin's head for a surface equal to the size of 
your nail, the mercury spreads immediately, 
penetrates the amalgam to the point where it 
it was cut ofi' with the knife, and the required 
piece may now be lifted up and removed to the 
place to be repaired, very carefully ; pres.s 
liglitly the renewed portion with cotton ; it 
hardens almost immediately, and the glass 
presents the same appearance as a new one. 

To Clean Glass. — ^To clean looking-glasses or 
window-panes, rub with clean paper moistened, 
then with dry paper. A still better way is, 
apply whiting and rub with chamois skin. 

To Freshen Gilt. — Alum and common salt 
of each one ounce, purified niter two ounces, 
water one-quarter of a pint. This much im- 
proves the color of gilt articles, it being laid 
over them with a brush. 

To Clean Paint. — Smear a piece of Qannel 
in common whiting mixed to consistency of 
paste in warm water. Eub the surface to be 
cleaned quite briskly, and wash ofi' with cold 



CLEANING MARBLE, GOLD, SILVER, BRASS, ETC. 



599 



water. This will leave a clean and bright 
fiurfaoe. 

To Remove MarH frmn Tables. — Hot dishes 
Bometimes leave whitish marks on varnished 
tables when set, as they should not be, care- 
lessly upon therii. For removing them, pour 
some lamp-oil on the spot, and rub it hard 
with a soft cloth. Pour on a little spirits and 
rub it dry with another cloth, and the white 
mark will disappear, leaving the table as blight 
as before. 

To Clean Clocks. — "Common brass clocks may 
be cleanseil by immersing the works in boiling 
water. Eoiigls as this treatment may appear, it 
works well, and I have for many years past 
boiled my decks, whenever they stop from any 
accnnmlation of dust or thickening of oil upon 
the pivots. They should be boiled in pure rain 
water and dried on a warm stove or near the 
lire. I write this by the tick of an eight-day 
clock, which was boiled a year ago, and has 
behaveil perfectly well ever since." 

To Clean Marble. — Never wash marble man- 
tels and tables with soap-suds — the potash of 
tlie soap decomposes the carbonate of lime, and 
in time destroys the polish. To clean marble, 
take two parts of common soda, one part of 
] umice-stone, and one part of finely-powdered 
clialk ; sift it through a fine sieve, and mix it 
with water; then rub it well jil! over the mar- 
ble, and the stains will be removed ; then wash 
the marble carefully, and it will be as clean as 
ever. To remove iron stains from marble : 
Take an equal quantity of iresh spirit of 
vitriol and lemon-juice, being mixed in a 
bottle, shake it well ; wet the spots, and in a 
few minutes rub with soft linen till they dis- 
appear. 

Removinrj Putty from Saxh. — Great difficulty 
is frequently experienced when glass is acci- 
dentally broken, in removing the old patty to 
replace the pane. Moisten the putty with 
nitric or muriatic acid, and it may be removed 
at once. Where these can not be had, vinegar 
or strong soap laid upon the putty will in a few 
hours loosen it from the wood so that the new 
glass can be set without difficulty. The appli- 
cation of a hot iron will also joften it. 

To Clean Gold Chains. — Put the chain in a 
small glass bottle, with warm water, a little 
tooth-powder, and some soap. Cork the bottle 
and shake it for a minute violently. The fric- 
tion against the gla.'^s polishes the gold, and the 
soap and chalk extract every particle of grea.se 
and dirt from the interstices of a chain of the 
most intricate pattern. Kinse it in clear cold 



water, wipe with a towel, and the polish wili 
surprise you. 

To Clean Srass. — Kub the .surface of the 
metal with rotten-stone and sweet-oil, then wipe 
dry with a piece of cott(jn flannel and polish 
with soft leather. A solution of oxalic acid, 
or even vinegar, rubbed over tarnished brass 
with a cotton rag soon removes the tarnish, 
rendering the metal bright. The acid must be 
immediately washed off with hot water, and 
the brass rubbed with whiting, in jiowder, and 
soft leather. Campheiie and rotten-stone also 
effects a brilliant and durable polish on most 
metals. 

To Clean Plate. — The usual method of clean- 
ing silver is with whiting, pulverized very fine 
and sifted through book-muslin, and made into 
a cream with alcohol — or spirits of wine, which 
is better. Spread the cream on the silver with 
a sponge, and lay the articles in the sun or at a 
little distance from the fire, to dry. Then dust 
ofTand polish with a buckskin or chamois skin. 

German silver and brittania ware may be 
cleansed and burnished siiuilarlj' ; or sweet oil 
may be added to the above mixture. 

To Clean Tin Ware. — Acids should never be 
employed to clean tin ware, because they attack 
the metal and remove it from the iron of which 
it forms a thin coat. We refer to articles made 
of tin plate, which consists of iron covered with 
tin. Rub the article first with rotten-stone and 
sweet oil, the same as recommended for brass, 
then finish with whiting and a piece of soft 
leather. Articles made wholly of tin should 
he cleaned in the same manner. In a dry at- 
mosphere, planished tin ware will remain bright 
for a long period, but will soon become tanii.-'lied 
in moist air. 

To Prevent and Remove i?us(.— •Polished steel 
articles, if rubbed every morning with leather, 
will not become dull or rusty ; but if the rust 
has been sufTered to gather, it must be immedi- 
ately removed by covering the steel with sweet 
oil, and allowing it to remain on for two days; 
then sprinkle it over with finely powdered un- 
slacked lime, and rub it with polishing leather. 

To protect unused tools from rust: Take 
three pounds of lard and one pound of resin, 
melt them together in a basin or kettle, and rub 
them over all iron or steel surfaces in danger 
of being rusted. It can be put on with a brush 
or a piece of cloth, and wherever it is applied 
it most efiectually keeps air and moisture away, 
and of course prevents rust. When knives and 
forks, or other household articles liable to be- 
come rusted or spotted, are to be laid away, rub 



600 



DOMESTIC economy: 



them over with this mixture, and they will 
come out bright and cleap even years after- 
ward. The coating may be so thin as not to be 
perceived, and it will still be effectual. Let 
every one keep a dish of this preparation on 
Land. ' As it does not spoil of itself, it may be 
kept ready mi.\ed for months or years. 

Some persons employ an acid to remove rust 
from knives. This should never be done under 
any circumstances. 

Scourlmj Knives. — A. small, clean, raw potato, 
with the end cut od', is a very convenient article 
with which to apply brick-dust to knives for 
scouring purposes, keeping about the right 
moisture for the dust to adhere, while the juice 
of the potato a.ssisis in removing stains from 
the surface. A better polish can be got by this 
method than by any other, and with less labor. 
One of the best substances for cleaning knives 
is charcoal, reduced to a fine powder, and ap- 
plied in the same nuiuner as brick-dust is used, 
this is a recent and valuable discovery. Cork 
is preferred to the raw potato by some house- 
kee|iers. 

To Remove Slarch or Stist from Flat-irons. — 
Tie up a piece of yellow beeswax in a rag, and 
when the iron is almost, but not quite hot 
enough to use, rub it quickly with the wax, 
and then with a coarse chith. 

To Clean Knife Handles. — When the ivory 
handles of knives get stained or turn yellow, 
nii.K a table-spoonful of water with a few drops 
of spirit of salt; rub it well on, wash it off with 
colli water and wipe perfectly dry. 

To Toughen Glass. — Put the glass vessel into 
a vessel of cold water, and gradually heat the 
water boiling hot; then allow it to cool gradu- 
ally of itself, without taking out the glass. 
Goblets treated in this way may, when cold, 
be filled with boiling water without cracking. 
Lamp chimneys may also be made tougher by 
this process. 

Cement. — Home-made cement is probably bet- 
ter and certainly cheaper than that purchased 
at the stores. We give recipes for several 
kinds: 

1. For a china or earthen dish : Bind the 
fragments carefully together, and put in warm 
milk fresh from a cow. Some find boiling in 
milk more effective. 

2. Kub the edges of the broken ware with the 
well-beaten white of an egg. Take powdered 
quicklime and sift it thick over the edge rubbed 
witli the egg, press and bind the pieces together, 
and let the binding remain several weeks. 

3. Stir plaster of Paris into a thick solution 



of gum-arabic, till it becomes a viscous paste. 
Apply it with a brush to the fractured edges, 
and draw the parts closely together. In three 
days, more or less, according to dryness and 
temperature of the air, it will be perfectly dry, 
and the article can not be broken in the same 
place. It is white and does not show. 

4. Take a small quantity of isinglass and 
dissolve in spirits of wine, by the aid of heat. 
This will unite broken glass so as to leave the 
crack nearly imperceptible, and is equal to tlie 
best glass cement sold at the stores. 

5. Diamond Cement. — White glue, four pounds ; 
dry white lead, one pound; water, four quarts; 
alcohol, one quart. Boil the glue and the lead 
in the water until the glue is dissolved, stir- 
ring all the while. Let it cool, and when blood 
warm, stir in the alcohol until all is mixed. 
Pour into vials for use. This will join china, 
wood, leather, or glass. 

Stove Cement. — When a crack is discovered 
in a stove, through which the fire or smoke 
penetrates, the apperturcs may be completely 
closed in a moment, with a composition consist- 
ing of wood ashes and common salt, made into 
paste with a little water, plastered over the 
crack. The good effect is equally certain, 
whether the stove, etc., be cold or hot. 

Aquarium Cement. — "I have tried fifty differ- 
ent cements for an aquarium, and find the best 
composition is, one part common pitch, one- 
half part gutta-percha; they can be melted in 
a little turpentine. To make it work easier, 
there must be no coal oil in the turpentine, or 
the pitch will soften and be destroyed. You 
will find this mixture gives a little with the 
material that the tank is made of, as the 
changes of heat and cold affect it; and it will 
adhere to glass, wood, or iron." 

A Cement for Roofs. — A cement which is a 
good protection against weather and water, and 
also fire, to a certain extent, is made by mixing 
a gallon of water with two gallons of brine, 
then stir in two and a half pounds of brown 
sugar, and three pounds of common salt; and 
put it on with a brush like paint. 

White lead paint, w ith fine sand intermixed 
to stiffen it according to need, answers a good 
purpose to mend a leaky roof. Gas tar, or any 
kind of tar, similarly stiffened, will make an 
excellent water-proof, frost-proof application. 
Another, and a very good cement, is made of 
four pounds of resin, a pint of linseed oil, and 
an ounce of red lead, to be applied hot, with a 
brush. 

Preserving Shingles. — Every farmer knows 



CHEAP, ENDURING PAINTS, KTC 



601 



that the cost ol' the roofs of his huililin;;s, as 
well as keeping them in repair, is a lar};e item 
ill his expenditures. Experiments siiould be 
made to lessen this cost. We ohserve tlie fol- 
lowing in a late paper: When putting on the 
roof, dip the shingles in a tub of whitewash 
made of lime and salt. Line with red chalk. 
The carpeiiler may get a little lime on liis 
hands and linen pantaloons, but this difficulty 
is not a very formidable one. The lime will 
harden the wood, and prevent its wearing 
away, and will effectually exclude moss, a com- 
mon hasierier of decaj'. It is said that shin- 
gle roofs will la«t twice as long when treated 
in this way. Whitewashing each successive 
layer of shingles when laying down, is also a 
good preservative. 

A Cheap Out-Door Paint. — Colonel James 
Boyle, of Annapolis, Maryland, an instinctive 
writer on rural affairs, contributes a recipe lor 
making cheap and good paint: "Having been 
so frequently applied to for the following 
lecipe, until it has become troublesome to give 
copies of it, I send it for publication : To make 
paint without white lead and oil, take three 
quarts of skimmed milk, two ounces of fresh 
slaked lime, five pounds of whiting. Put the 
lime in a stone-ware vessel, pour upon it a suffi- 
cient quantity of milk to make a mixture re- ] 
sembling cieani; the remainder of the milk is 
then to be added; and lastly the whiting is then 
to be crumbled and spread on the surface of the 
fluid, in which it gradually sinks. At this 
period it must be well stirred in, or ground as I 
you would other paint, and it is tit for use. 

"There may be added any coloring matter 
that suits the fancy. It is to be applied in the' 
same manner as otlier paints, and in a few 
lioura it will become perfectly dry. Another I 
coat will then be added, and so on until the 
work is completed. 

"This paint is of great tenacity, and posses- 
ses a slight elasticity, which enables it to bear 
rubbing, even with a coarse woolen cloth, with- 
out being in the least degree injured. It has 
little or no smell even when wet, and when 
dry is perleclly inodorous. It is not subject to 
he blackened by sulphurous or animal vapors, ' 
and it is not injurious to health. All which 
qualities give it a decided advantage over white 
lead. The quantity above mentioned is suffi- 
cient lor covering seventeen square yards with 
one coat. ' 

Another: Any quantity of charcoal, pow- 
dered, a sufficient quantity of litharge as a 
dryer, to be mixed smoothly with linseed-oil. 



The above forms a good black p;iint; and by 
'adding yellow ocher, an excellent green is 
produced, which is preferable to the bright 
green used by [lainters for all garden work, and 
does not fade with the sun. After fourteen 
years usage and out-door exposure, this' paint 
has been found apparently as perfect as when 
first put on. 

Paint to Endure. — Boiling coal tar with 
slacked lime, will make a shining surface on 
wood-work, and walls of any clay, or turf, 
which is as imperishable as stone; it is, there- 
fore, better than all the paints in the world, 
for the outside work of these houses, and I'oi: 
wooden, water, and eaves troughs ; .iiul it has 
been proved that rough surfaces may be made 
[in this way, as durable and hard as cast-iron, 
by using the dust from a smith's forge, over the 
tar, as soon as it is brushed on. 
j To Preserve Wood- Work. — The following is 
the mode of making a composition for preserv- 
ing wood-work, given in Young's Calendar, 
who says "it will preserve planks and boards 
forages." It is easily made and applied, and 
its efficacy tested. Melt twelve ounces of resin 
in an iron pot, add three gallons of train oil, 
and three or four rolls of brimstone ; when 
melted thin, add as much Spanish brown, or 
brown ocher, first ground fine, with as much 
oil as will give it the required color; lay it on 
with a brush ;is hot and thin as possible; and 
some days after the first coat is dry, lay ou 
another. 

Windows, Crystallized. — Dissolve Epsom salts 
in hot ale or solution of gum-arabic ; wash it 
over the window, and let it dry. If you wish 
to remove any, to form a border or center- 
piece, do it with a wet cloth. 

Selection and Care of Brushes. — When select- 
ing brushes, see that the handles are not liiose, 
that the hair does not come out. Brushes 
are very apt to burst loose from the bind- 
ing. Before using paint-brushes or white- 
wash-brushes, they should be placed witii -the 
hair end up, and some good varnish pourAl- 
down against the butt end of the handle, which 
will spread among the hair and become so hard 
in a few days, that the hair and handle will be 
so firmly united' as to prevent the bursting of 
the brush or shedding of hair. By turning a 
few spoonfuls of good varnish into a white- 
wash-brush, and by giving the leather band a 
good oiling, iis durability will be increased 
sometimes more than one-half. 

To Make Cabinet Ware Polish. — Take, one 
gallon of strong alcohol, and put in it half a 



602 



DOMESTIC economy: 



poniul nf gum shellac, or more if it will dis- 
solv-e. Aild to it also one ounce of gum sanda- 
rac, one ounce gum mastic, anil half an ounce 
of gum eluni. Dissolve by placing the bottle 
in warm wiiter, or leaving it in the sun, and 
shaking itoftaii through the day until it is dis- 
solved. 

To Make Excellent roniisA. — Take eight 
pounds finest African copal, fuse carefully; add 
clarified linseed oil, two gallons ; boil gently for 
four and a half hours, or until quite stringy; 
cool a lillle, and thin with tliree and a lialf 
gallons rectified si)irits turpentine. 

Furniture Polish. — Take two ounces of bees- 
wax, cut fine ; spirits of (nrpeiitine, one ounce 
one dram of powdered resin ; melt at a gentle 
heat, and add two drams of Indian red to give 
it a mahogany color. 

Varnish for 3Iaps and Drawings. — Dissolve 
one pound of shellac, a quarter of a pound of 
camphor, and two ounces of Canada balsam in 
one gallon of alcohol. 

Whitewashing. — Notliing attended with so 
little expense and trouble, does more toward 
beautifying a homestead than whitewash. Ev- 
ery farmer should see to it that in the Spring 
of the year his stables, garden-fence, and out- 
liouscs are whitewashed. It will always prove 
a satisfaction to him and his family during the 
Summer, and give a pleasant appearance to the 
eye of the passer-by. More particularly, for 
health and comfort, should the cellar, chicken- 
house, and inside of stable be thoroughly 
cleaned and whitened. 

Whitewash is a purifying agent and a disin- 
fectant, and the benefits conferred in this regard 
compensate for all the labor and e.xpense in- 
volved in whitewashing; but the clean, tidy ap- 
pearance wliich it gives to farm premises is most 
plejising and salutary. In no w:iy can a fanner 
make so imposing and even elegant a show for 
a trifling expenditure as by a free use of white- 
wa.sh. Even old buildings glow and glisten 
under the whitewash brush, and assume a new 
appearance. Buililings, in the eye of the owner 
as well as those of his neiglibors, have a higher 
money value after the process is completed. 

The following is a good recipe for whitewash: 
Procure fresh-burnt lime — not that partly air- 
slaked. Tlie large lumps are best; the fine 
portions and small lumps will not make a wash 
that will stick well. For tliis reason, lime tliat 
has been burnt several months, is not so good as 
that just from the kiln. Put a pound or two in 
a vessel, and pour on water slowly, until it is all 
slaked and is about as thick as cream ; then add 



cold rain water until it will flow well from the 
brush. Stir often when using it. A few drops 
of bluing added will give it a more lively color. 
One or two table-spoonsful of clean salt, and 
one-fourth pound of clean sugar to a gallon of 
the wash, will make it more adhesive. If the 
walls have been whitewashed, let them be swept 
thoroughly, and if colored with smoke, wash 
them clean with soap-suds. A brush with long 
thick hair will hold fluid best, when applying it 
overhead. If a person has the wash of the 
right consistence, and a good brush, he can 
whitewash a large parlor without allowing a 
drop to fall. When it appears .streaked after 
drying, it is too thick, and needs diluting with 
cold water. .■il>ply the wasli back lind forth in 
one direction, and then go crosswise, using a 
paint brush at the corners, and a thin piece 
of board to keep the brush from the wood-work, 
or the border of tlie paper. 

Coloring matter may be mingled with the 
wasi), to give it any desired tint. To make .1 
light peach-blow color, mingle a small quantity 
of Venetian reil. For a sky-blue, add any kind 
of dry blue paint, stirring it well while mixing. 
To make a wash of a light straw-color, minglu 
a few ounces of yellow ocher or chrome yellow. 
The coloring matter should be quite fine, to 
prevent its settling at the bottom of the vessel. 
A small quantity of green paint, and a little 
red, will form a desirable color for out-dool 
work. The true way to blend colors is to take 
a small quantity of the wash in a vessel, and 
mix a little at once, marking the proportions 
of each kind. When buildings or fences are to 
be whitewashed, prepare the wash as directed 
above, keeping it warm when using it by means 
of a kettle of burning coal; and mingle about 
a pint of good paste made of wheat fl(mr, with 
a gallon of the wash. A bushel of lime will 
make wash enough for a barn, or yard fence. 

Brilliant Stucco Whitewash. — The following is 
the recipe for making the handsome whitewash 
used on the east end of the President's house, 
at Washington: Take half a bushel of nice 
unslaked lime, slake it with boiling water, 
cover it during the process to keep in the 
steam, strain the liquid through a fine sieve or 
strainer, and add to it a ptck of salt previously 
well di-ssolved in warm water, three pounds of 
ground rice, boiled to a thin paste and stirred 
in boiling hot, half a pound of powdered Span- 
ish whiting, and a pound of clean glue which 
has been previously dissolved by soaking it 
well and then hanging it over a slow tire in a 
small kettle within a large one filled with 



LIGHTS — INKS. 



603 



water; ail J five gallons of hot water to the 
mixture, stir it well and let it stand a few days 
covered from the dirt. It should be put on hoi. 
It is said that about a pint of this mixture 
will cover a square yard upon the outside of 
a house, if properly applied. 

Liquid Glue. — The following recipe, the dis- 
covery of a French chemist, is selling about the 
country as a secret, for various prices, from $1 
to $5. It is a handy and valuable composition, 
as it does not gelatinize nor undergo putrefac- 
tion and fermeiitalicm, and become offensive,and 
can be used cold for all the ordinary purposes 
of glue in niakipg or mending furnilnre, books, 
or biiikc-n vessels that are not exposed to water, 
etc. In a wide-mouthed bottle dissolve eight 
ounces of best glue in lialf a pint of water, by 
setting it in a vessel of water and heating it 
till dissolved. Then add slowly, constantly 
stirring, two and a half ounces of strong aqua 
fortis (nitric acid). Keep it well corked, and 
it will be ready for use. 

An excellent article of family glue can be 
made as follows: Crack up the glue and put in 
a bottle; add to it common alcohol (or vinegar 
will answer), shake up, cork tight, and in three 
or four days it can be used. It requires no 
heating; will keep for almost any length of 
time, and is at all times ready to use, except in 
the coldest of weather, when it will require 
warming. It must be kept tight, so that tlie 
alcohol will not evaporate, else it will become 
dry and hard. A little aqua fortis is some- 
times added, to prevent the glue from harden- 
ing, when cool. 

fasle. — Adhesive I'aste, made of lye flour, 
wet np with strong beer, with a little alum 
added while it is boiling, is almost as strong 
as glue. 

Adhesive Gum. — The gum used on envelopes 
and postage-stamps is a preparation of starch, 
called dexlrine, and results from scorching rye- 
flour before wetting it up. When well made 
it is better than gum-arabic. 

Lifg'bts. — If you burn gas, learn to read 
your own gas meter, and you will probably 
save a large fraction of your gas bill. 

How to Save Kerosetie Oil. — A. Pennsylvania 
journal says ; " A short time ago we published 
an article from an exchange to the efifeet that 
in a kerosene lamp was a great saving of oil. 
We have since fully tested it, and it is a greater 
saving than was stated in the article referred 
to. Fill the lamp half full of common salt, 
then fill up with oil. It burns with a clearer 



flame, and it is a saving of more than twenty- 
five percent, in oil. Try it." ' 

To make Tallow Candles. — Take two pounds 
of alum for every ten pounds of tallow ; dis- 
solve it in water before the tallow is put in, 
and then melt the tallow in the alum water, 
with frequent stirring, and it will clarify and 
harden the tallow, so as to make a most beau- 
tiful candle. 

Another: Very hard and durable candles 
are made in the following manner: Melt to- 
gether ten ounces of mutton tallow, a quarter 
of an ounce of camphor, four ounces of bees- 
wax, and two ounces of alum. Candles made 
of these materials burn with a very clear light. 

To make Candles in imitation of Wax.—\. 
Throw quicklime in melted mutton-suet; the 
lime will fall to the bottom, and carry along 
with it all the dirt of the suet, so as to leave it 
as pure and as fine as wax itself. 

2 Now, if to one part of the suet you mix 
three of real wax, you will have a very tine, 
and to appearance, a real wax candle; at least 
the mixture could never be discovered, not 
even in the molding way of ornaments. 

Inks. — Cheap Black.— Take one pound of 
logwood, one gallon soft water; boil slightly, or 
simmer in an iron vessel one hour; dissolve in 
a little hot water twemy-four grains bistir 
chromate of potash; twelve grains prussiate of 
potash, and into the liquid while over the fire; 
take it ofi" and strain it through a fine cloth. 
This ink can be made for five cents a gallon, 
and it sells from one dollar to three dollars. 
It is of a bright jet black, flows beautifully 
from the pen, and it is so indelible that oxalic 
acid will not remove it from paper, No other 
ink will stand the te.st of oxalic acid; hence its 
value for merchants, banks, etc. 

Indelible Ink. — This m.ay be made much 
cheaper than purchased, as follows: Two drams 
of nitrate of silver, added to four drams of a 
weak solution of tincture of galls. Another: 
Nitrate of silver one dram, mixed with a solu- 
tion of half an ounce of gum-arabic in half a 
pint of pure rain water. Moisten the cloth 
previously with a strong solution of pearl, or 
salt of tartar and iron it dry. 

To Remove Indelible Ink Stains. — To remove 
indelible ink or nitrate of silver stains from 
white fabrics, wet the part with water, then 
apply tincture of iodine, which converts the 
nitrate into iodide of silver; then wash with a 
diluted solution of common caustic potash; 
then wash well with hot water and soap. 



COl 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY : 



Ink for Secret Correspondence. — Dissolve mu- 
riate of niumonia in water, and write with it. 
Tlie writing will be invisible. When you 
wiiulil nuike the writing appear, heat the paper 
by the fire, anJ the writing will become black 
and legible. 

Care or Boots, Harness, etc.— Oils 

.Tppliid to dry leallier alniost invariably be- 
coine rancid and injure it. It is better to wash 
the article in cast-steel soap-suds over night, 
and oil in the morning. Never use vegetable 
oils on leather; and of animal oils, neat's-foot 
is the best, applied with considerable elbow- 
grease. Nothing is better for ordinary protec- 
tion from water. Thoroughly soaking in soft 
soap will restore boots and shoes that have 
been .scorched. 

Wnter-Prnnf Dressing fur Shoes. — We give the 
following difl'erent preparations : 

1. Take neat's foot oil, five ounces ; wax, one- 
lialf ounce; Burgundy pilch, one-quarter ounce; 
oil of tu."pentine, one-half ounce; melt together 
and apply until the leather is saturated. 

2. Suet, resin, beeswax, and lamp-black 
melted and applied. 

3. A solution of India-rubber, two drams, 
and oil of turpentine, fifteen ounces; mixed, 
when dissolved by heat, with one pint of boiled 
oil. 

4. India-rubber, one part; copal varnish, six 
parts; turpentine, sixteen parts. Dissolve with 
a gentle heat; then add beeswa.x, one part, 
previously dissolved ir) boiled oil, twelve parts; 
lastly, add litharge, three parts. Boil a few 
minutes, and cool. 

5. With twenty-one parts melted tallow mix 
three parts resin, and add to seven part* good 
washing-soap and seven parts rain-water, wliile 
boiling together. 

6. Melt a pound each of tallow and -erin ; 
mix and apply until neither the sole nor ;pper 
will soak any more. If it is desirous that the 
boots should immediately take a polish, dis- 
dissolve an ounce of wax in a tea-spoonful of 
turpentine and lamp-black, and apply. 

Shoe-Jiluckbiri. — Take four ounces of ivory- 
black, three ounces of the coarsest sugar, a 
table-spoonful of sweet-oil, and a pint of small- 
beer; mix them gradually, cold. 

Plaster of Paris, passed through a fine sieve, 
twenty parts; brewer's nuilt, ten parts; lamp- 
black, five parts ; and olive oil, one part. The 
malt nmst be first macerated in water nearly 
boiling; the jdaster and laiup-black are next 
mixed, in a basin, with the malt liquid, and 



when evaporated to the consistence of paste, 
the olive oil is mixed with it. In place of 
plaster, potter's clay may be used, made fine. 
Oil of lemon is used to perfume it. 

To make Varnhh for Leather. — To ten quarts 
of alcohol, add one pound of black sealing- 
wax, one pint of Venice turpentine, and one 
pound of gum shellac. 

Cleaning Suddte.% etc. — The following is a 
good recipe which will give saddles and bridles 
a good polish and he entirely free from all 
stickiness: — The white of three eggs evapo- 
rated till the substance left resembles the com- 
mon gum ; dissolve in a pint of gin, and jiut into 
a common wine bottle, and fill up with water. 

Neat's Fool Oil and Glue. — A supply of neat's 
foot oil should be kept on hand in every house 
for use on harness, carriage-tops, boots, shoes, 
etc., and applied often enough to keep them 
soft and pliable. To prepare it, break and cut 
into small pieces the shin bones and hoofs of 
an ox or cow, and put them into a kettle. 
Keep them covered with water, and boil them 
until the oil is extracted and rises to the sur- 
face. While boiling, water enough should be 
added from time to time to supply that lost by 
evaporation, so that the oil shall not come in 
contact with the bones and be again absorbed. 
The process will be hastened by keeping the 
kettle closely covered to retain {he heat. When 
cold, the oil may be dipped ofl', and kept in 
jugs or bottles, tightly corked. 

After the oil is taken ofT, the water is strained 
to separate from it any fatly particles that may 
remain, and then it is boiled again, until, upon 
trying, i* is found it will settle into a stifl' jelly. 
It is then poured into flat-bottomed dishes, and 
when cold, cut into suitable sized pieces. It 
hardens in a few days, and you will then have 
a very fine article of glue, free from impurities 
of every kind, sufficient for family use for a 
twelve-month. 

Beverages— Summer Drinks.— 

Nothing but water is capable of satisfying 
thirst. Other drinks answer this purpose only 
in proportion to the quantity of this fluid they 
contain. Water, if pure, and only moderately 
cool, may be drank at all times with imjjunity, 
on condition that it be taken slowly, with an 
interval for breathing after every swallow. By 
sipping, or swallowing gradually, not only is 
all danger of over-drinking avoided, but the 
thirst is more jiromptly and thoroughly satis- 
fied. Taken willi such precaution, iced-water 
is the best of all Summer drinks. 



BEVERAGES — SUMMER DRINKS. 



605 



Science and experience comljine to condemn 
the use, particularly in hot weall\er, of all 
spirituous beverages, such as brandy, gin, and 
whisky. Of wliatever use the carbon of alcohol 
may he in the cold of Winter, all agree in re- 
jecting its compounds as Summer drinks. In- 
deed, it is probable that they are never useful 
as beverages, as they act upon the brain and 
nervous systems as direct poisons. 

Wine. — If stimulants are at all required, gen- 
uine French wines are the best, because they 
are the purest and the lightest. 

It has been truly said that wine is a thing 
not made by mgn at all, but only modified by 
him at most. It is a production of nature. In 
the purest and best grape wine, this fact is 
most remarkably exhibited. The grapes are 
easily pressed by a wine, or even cider-press, 
and can be kept separate from the lees, or al- 
lowed to ferment on them as strength is re- 
quired. Not one drop of water, not even a 
lump of sugar is requisite if the grape is suffi- 
cientlj" sweet, though most of the wines in this 
country are made with both. The fermenta- 
tion is all an act of nature herself. She it is 
who makes our wine, and all that men have to 
do while the fermentation is going on, in the 
juice, is to watch it and let it alone. And when 
the fermentation has erased, the drawing off 
into a clean cask, and keeping it undisturbed 
in a dark cellar by itself, is all that man can 
do. A lump of loaf sugar in each bottle, when 
bottled, may give a champagne fresliness to it, 
but the simpler, the purer, the less cookery in 
wine, tlie better for it and those who have the 
good taste to prefer it thus. The pure juice of 
grapes is best in sickness. The best of grapes, 
and if sugar be added, only the best and purest 
of sugar should be used. 

We hardly grow any grape east of the Mis- 
sippi that yields wine that is palatable to our 
people generally, without sugar to supply the 
want of saccharine matter in the fruit. Por- 
tions of Missouri, Kansas, and the territory 
south-westward through New Mexico to Cali- 
fornia, produce considerable excellent wine. 
California and the adjoining States are be- 
coming the vineyard of the continent, and 
will doubtless soon produce wines that for 
lightness ond delicacy of flavor will rival the 
choicest wines of the best districts of Europe. 

The iiielhods of making wine are fully treated 
elsewhere. We trust that a supply of harmless, 
cheap, light wine to our people, is not far dis- 
tant, for it seems certain that in such a supply 
lies the solution of the problem of our national 



Drunkenness — that the way "out of the woods" 
is through the Vineyard. 

Currant Wine. — Take the best and ripest red 
currants, any quantity. Free them entirely 
from stems and leaves. Crush them, and strain 
off the juice through a thick linen cloth. Cur- 
rant juice contains a large amount of acid, and 
it is necessary to dilute largely with water. 
To every quart of pure juice add three quarts of 
pure water. To every gallon of this mixture 
add three and a half pounds of the best crushed 
white sugar. Let it be fermented three week.s 
in iugs, jars, or clean casks, etc., and return it. 
Partially close the bung or cork, but not so as 
to hinder fermentation. . Bung tight after fer- 
mentation. Let the wine stand two montlii! 
longer, and then bottle it putting a raisin or a 
small lump of white sugar in each bottle, and 
hermetically seal, driving the corks very firmly 
before sealing. Put the bottles into a dry cool 
cellar This wine will keep any length of time 
and improve by age. 

All the vessels, casks, etc., should be per- 
fectly sweet, and the whole operation should be 
with an eye to cleanliness. In such event, 
every drop of brandy, or other spirituous liq- 
uors added, will detract from the flavor of the 
wine, .and will not in the least degree increase 
its keeping qualities. This is a pleasant and 
cheap wine, and makes an agreeable beverage 
for the sick and convalescent. 

The following recipe makes a delicious drink 
and may be indulged in with impunity by apia- 
rists; Di.ssolve eight pounds of honey in fifteen' 
gallons of boiling water, to which, when clari- 
fied, add the juice of ten pounds of- red or 
while currants ; then ferment for twenty-four 
hours. To every two gallons add two pounds 
of sugar, and clarify with white of eggs. 

.\ quart of cracked walnuts to a barrel of cur- 
rant wine will improve the flavor greatly. 

The white Dutch currant makes, of course, a 
paler wine than the red, and of very superior 
flavor. The black currant requires one-third 
less water, and produces a wine slightly resem- 
bling port; it also makes a syrup excellent for 
sore throat. 

Blackberry Trine. — The following recipe is 
highly commended: "To make a wine equal in 
value to port, take ripe blackberries or dew-ber- 
berries, and press them; let the juice stand 
thirty -six hours to ferment; skim off whatever 
rises to the top; then, to every gallon of the 
juice add one quart of water and three pounds 
of sugar (brown sugar will do); let this stand in 
open vessels for twenty-four hours; skim and 



U06 



DOMESTIC ECON'OJIT: 



strain it; tlien barrel it, leaving a small vent 
for fermentation, for six weeks. In March it 
sIioiiUl be carefully racked off and bottled. 
Blackberry cordial is made by adding one 
pound of white sugar to three pounds of ripe 
bhickberries, allowing them to stand twelve 
hours; then pressing out the juice, straining it, 
and putting a tea-spoonful of finely powdered 
allspice in every quart of the cordial, it is at 
once fit for use. This wine and cordial are 
very valuable medicines in the treatment of 
weakness of stomach and bowels, and are espe- 
cially valuable in the Summer complaints of 
children." 

lirtuphcrry Wine. — Bruise the finest ripe rasp- 
berries witli the back of a spoon ; strain them 
through a flannel bag into a stone jar, allow one 
pound of fine powdered loaf sugar to one quart 
of juice; stir the.se well together, and cover the 
jnr closely; let it stand three day.s, stirring the 
mixture up every day; then pour off the clear 
liquid, and put a quart of slierry to eacli quart 
of juice or liquid. Bottle it off, and it will be 
fit for use in a fortnight. By adding two quarts 
of cognac brandy instead of one of sherry, the 
nii.'cture will be raspberry brandy. 

Elderberry Wine. — This i.s the English recipe: 
"Mix twelve gallons of ripe elderberry juice 
and forty pounds of sugar with thirty-five gal- 
lons of water that has had six ounces of ginger 
boiling in it; add nine ounces of pimento, 
brui.sed and drained off, and when rather le.ss 
tlian milk-warm, almost cold, add one pint of 
good yeast, and let it ferment fourteen days in 
the barrel. Then bung it close, and bottle it in 
si.'k months." 

Strawberry Wine. — First, get a stout oaken 
liarrel with capacity of forty gallons, if j-ou 
would make so much. Then, gather, as soon 
as may be, five bushels of sound, ripe straw- 
berries, and put them into a tub of suflicient 
capacity, and mash, adding water to facilitate 
tlie process. Pass the liquor and pulp through 
a strainer. Two thicknesses of common mos- 
quito-bar cloth will answer the purpose very 
well. After pressing the pulp once, wash it 
through water again and squeeze. These two 
processes take all that it is desirable to get from 
the berries, and save the taste of hulls and 
stems which a longer manipulation would im- 
part to the liquor. Be careful not to add so 
much water as to increase the liquor to more 
tlian thirty-three gallons. Then to the thirty- 
three gallons add one hundred and twenty 
pounds best white sugar, stir and dissolve, and 
liaving put the barrel in a cool and convenient 



place, pour in the liquor. There will be about 
two or three gallons left over. Reserve the two 
gallons to keep the barrel full to the bung, aa 
the spume works off, as it will begin to do in 
about twenty-four hours. At a temperature of 
seventy-five to eighty degrees the liquor will 
have worked itself pretty clear in six or eight 
days. When the fermentation is completed, 
stop liglitly. Let it stand three months, draw 
off, and bottle. This recipe has been sold for 
thousands of dollars in the aggregate. 

Rhubarb Wine. — To every pound of bruised 
green stalk,s, put a quart of spring water; let it 
stand three days, stirring it twice a day ; then 
press it and strain it through a sieve, and to 
every gallon of the liquor put two and a half 
or three pounds of good loaf sugar; barrel it. 
and to every five gallons add a bottle of white 
brandy ; hang a little isinglass in the cask, sus- 
pended by a string, and stop it closely; in six 
months, if the sweetness be sufficiently off, bot- 
tle it for use, otherwise let it stand in the ca.sk 
somewhat longer. Be as particular as possible, 
for the wine will not be worth much when you 
get it made. 

Erjg Nog. — Take the yolks of eight eggs, beat 
well with powdered sugar; then add wine to 
the taste; tlien beat all well together, and add 
boiled milk sufficient to disguise the liquor; 
add a little nutmeg; beat the whites of the 
eggs to a stiff froth, and put on top. 

Best Ginger Beer. — Two gallons of ginger 
beer may be made as follows : Put two gallons 
of cold water into a pot, upon the fire ; add to 
it two ounces of good ginger, and two pounds 
of white or brown sugar. Let all this come to 
a boil, and continue boiling for half an hour. 
Then skim the liquor, and pour it into a jar or 
tub, along with one sliced lemon and half an 
ounce of cream of tartar. When nearly cold, 
put in a tea-cupful of yeast to cause the liquor 
to work. The beer is now made; and after it 
has worked for two days, strain and bottle for 
use. Tie the corks down firmly. 

The following will give a quicker result: To 
a pail of water add two ounces of ginger, one 
pint of molasses, and a gill of good yeast. In 
two hours it is fit for use. 

Lemon Beer. — To a gallon of water add a 
sliced lemon, a spoonful of ginger, a half pint 
of yeast, and sugar enough to make it quite 
sweet. 

Corn Beer. — Boil a gallon of shelled corn ill 
ten gallons of water until the grains burst. To 
this liquor, when strained off in a cask, put 
half an ounce of bruised ginger root, half an 



EEVERAr.KS — SUMMER DIUKKS. 



607 



ciince uf cream of (.-irlar, ami lialf a gallon of 
niolasnes, und a tea-cnp of yoast. When llie 
bper ferments it is ready for use, and will sour 
in a few days. 

J/o/assm, or Bran Brer. — Put five quarts hops 
and fi%'e of wheat bran into fifteen gallons of 
water ; boil it three or four houi-s, strain it and 
pour it into a cask with one bead taken nut ; 
put in five quarts of molasses, stir it till well- 
mixed, throw a d-oth over the barrel; when 
moderately warm, add a quart of good yeast 
which must be stirred in ; then stop it close 
with a cloth and board ; when it has fermented 
and become (juile clear, bottle it; the corks 
should be soaked in boiling water an hour or 
two, and the bottles perfec'Iy clean and well- 
drained. 

Boot Beer. — Take a pint of bran, a handful 
of hops, some twigs of spruce, hemlock, or 
cedar, a little sassafras root if you have it ; 
roots of various kind.s, plantains, burdocks, 
docks, dandelions, etc.; boil and strain through 
a coarse linen cloih. Turn it into an earthen 
jar, and when sufficiently cool (i. e., not hot 
enough to scald), add one or two cups of yeast. 
Stir well, replace the cover of the jar, and 
when fermented (this occurs in the course of 
(en or twelve hours) bottle and leave in a cool 
place. 

- Spruce £eer.— Boil a handful of hops, and 
twice as much of the chi[ipings of sassafras 
root, in ten gallons of water, strain it and pour 
ill, while hot, one gallon of molasses, two spoons- 
ful of the essence of spruce, two spoonsful of 
powdered ginger, a.nd one of pounded allspice; 
put it in a cask ; when sufficiently cold, add 
half a pint of good yeast; stir it well, stop it 
close, and when fermented and clear, bottle 
and cork it tight. 

Spruce and root beers admit of a large dis- 
play of genius in their manufacture, which is 
exercised with marvelous results in some por- 
tions of the rural districts. John H. An- 
thony, of Connecticut, produces an article of 
root beer that attracts from all the country 
round people whose appetites are still unper- 
verted. He seems to be specially inspired in 
the manufacture of beer. Root beer, well made, 
gives health and a mild satisfaction, while alco- 
holic drinks are full of headaches and disap- 
pointments. 

Buitpberry Shrub is one of the pleasantest and 
nicest beverages that can be made in the family. 
Raspberries are placed in a jar and covered 
with strong vinegar, and set in a cool place for 
cwenty-lour hjurs. The next day as many 



more berries are added as the vinegar will 
cover, and so for a third day. After the last 
berries have been in for a day, set the jar in a 
kettle of water, and bring it to a scald, and 
then strain out the juice through a flannel. 
Add one pound of while sugar to every pint 
and a half of juice, and heat in a tin or porce- 
lain vessel to the boiling point, skim and bottle. 
Do not boil any longer than necessary to re- 
move the scum. Thus prepared, it will keep for 
years. Any other of the small fruits may be 
substituted for raspberries. 

Apple Wine. — Take pure cider, made from 
sound, ripe apples, as it runs from the press, 
put sixty pounds of common brown sugar into 
fifteen gallons of the cider and let it dissolve; 
then put the mixture into a clean barrel, fill it 
up within two gallons of being full, with clean 
cider; put the cask info a cool place, leaving 
the bung out for forty-eight hours ; then put in 
the bung with a small vent, until fermentation 
wholly ceases, and bung up tight, and in one 
year it will be fit for use. This wine requires 
no racking ; tlie longer it stands upon the lees 
the better. This wine is almost equal to grape 
wine when rightly managed. 

Cherry Cider. — A Shaker recipe : "Thirty 
gallons of apple cider, eight quarts of dried 
black cherries, two quarts of dried blueberries, 
one quart of elderberries, seventy-five pounds 
of brown sugar. If you desire to make smaller 
quantities, proportion the quantities of the in- 
gredients accordingly." 

Mead. — Boil in a little water two ounces of 
allspice, and an ounce each of cloves, cinnamon, 
and orange peel, to be made clear by adding 
three eggs, or some isinglass. Put the whole 
into about nine gallons of cold water; then 
boil and strain it, adding one gallon of honey, 
and a pound of loaf or crushed sugar; skim it, 
when it is well boiled, add two ounces of gin- 
ger. Now stir it briskly for ten or fifteen min- 
utes and strain again ; then when the whole is 
about blood heat adtl one pint of good yeast — 
take it oft', and let it work about eight hours ; 
alter which draw it oft', put it in clean, tight 
kegs, or bottle it, with a r.aisin in each bottle. 

To Make Good Cider. — The apples should be 
ripe and sound. Don't press the cheese until 
the cider runs clesir. Let no water be used 
on the straw. After filling the barrels remove 
immediately to a cool cellar — let them stand 
with the bung open until the sediment begins 
to go down ; then close them, and pretty soon 
after, give it the first racking. About three 
ackiugs will remove all the sediment. Bottle 



COS 



DOMESTIC economy: 



before the weather becomes warm enough for 
the trees to put out; fill the bottles one-half 
inch from tlie corks ; let them stand twenty 
four hours after filling; then take a Tbowl of 
boiling water, dip the ends of cork to go in the 
bottle in the water; hold the bottle in the left 
hand by the neck, and drive the cork in with a 
piece of fence lath. The bottles are then buried 
in the sand in the cellar. By this process our 
best apples will make cider that may be drank 
by epicures for champagne, and will not change 
for years, only seeming to get more body. In 
packing away keep the corks up. 

To Make the Very Best Cider. — Few are aware 
liow rich a drink cider is when made pure, free 
from water and the taste of straw, and all the 
impurities that, under the old-fashioned system 
of cider-making, are incorporated into its com- 
position. AVhen pure and well made, it is 
doubtless far healthier than wine, and for liver 
(nniplaiut is a sovereign remedy. On this 
account alone, the portable cider-mills that 
make eider without straw are a benefit to the 
community, and when the farmer will lake the 
same pains with his cider that the vine grower 
does with his wine, he will find an unlimited 
demand for it at highly remunerative prices ; 
and, if the severe excise tax on whisky will 
turn the attention of the people to cider, it will 
confer an "inestimable benefit. 

Pick all the apples, rejecting those not sound, 
and wash them clean, and afterward let them 
lie and get dry. Grind and press them, using 
no water or straw, or any substance that will 
give the cider an unpleasant taste, as on the 
l)urity and cleanliness of the apples depends 
I lie quality of the cider. Strain the juice 
through a woolen or other close bag, put into 
clean barrels, and set in a moderately cool 
]ilace, keeping the barrel full all the time, so 
that the impurities may work off at the bung. 
After it lias done working, rack it carefully off, 
let it st.md a few days, and bung it up. As the 
air tends to sour the cider, it is a good plan to 
provide a bent tube, one end fastened in the 
bung, and the other to drop down in a bucket 
of water. This will let all the gas pass oft, 
and not let the air get to the cider. The 
quicker the pomace is pressed after being ground, 
the li;ihter will the color be, and darker if not 
jiressetl for twenty-four hours after being ground. 
The cider from the second and third pressing 
will be the richest — the reverse is the case in 
making wine, as a severe pressure on grapes 
nuikes sour wine. 

Apple Champagne. — Let the pure juice, drawn 



as above recommended, run directly from the 
press into a filter consisting of a suitable box, 
about a foot deep by six inches square, filled 
with a mixture of pulverized charcoal and clean 
sand, or fine gravel, about half and half. A 
thin layer of straw is put into the box before it 
is filled with the filtering material, and the bot- 
tom of the box is perforated with fine hole.s. 
The juice runs through this filter into bottles, 
which should be immediately corked to exclude 
the atmosphere, which gives it the appearance 
of the real champagne; and our informant, who 
has used the process, assures us that the wine, 
after remaining in the cellar awhile, presents 
the action and flavor of the imported article, 
with the advantage of being a much more 
healthy beverage, while its cost does not ex- 
ceed two cents a quart bottle, where apples are 
plenty. In lieu of filtering, very good cider- 
champagne can be made by transferring it from 
one cask to another three or four times, while 
it is working, and putting a little piece of rock 
candy into each bottle when bottling. 

'To Keep Cider Sweet. — If it is brought to a 
boiling heat, and canned air-tight, while hot, 
precisely as fruit is canned, cider will keep half a 
dozen years without any change of taste. Grated 
horse-radish roots — half apeck to a barrel — will 
also arrest fermentation at any desired stage; 
but it imparts a flavor which is unpleasant to 
many. A quart of sifted ashes, a pint of pul- 
verized charcoal, two ounces of sassafras bark, 
and a handful of salt will preserve a barrel of 
cider. Sulphate of lime arrests fermentation, 
but it renders the beverage insipid. Probably 
the best article is cracked mustard seed — half 
a pound to the barrel. They should be con- 
tained in a mu,slin bag, dropped in at the bung- 
hole. A few raisins may be added to it to give 
it "life." 

Tea and coffee serve admirably as harvest 
drinks. Made strong, and drank clear and 
hot, they are among the bcKt drinks that can be 
taken into the field ; being, doubtfnl as it may 
seem to some, decidedly cooling in the warmest 
weather, as many a farmer knows. 

Mulled Wine. — Mix a pint of wine, and a 
pint of water, and place it in a kettle over the 
fire. Then beat eight eggs and add to the com- 
pound when boiling, stirring Kipidly for a few 
seconds, when it is done. 

Whip Syllabub. — One pint of thin sweet 
cream, one wine-glass of wine, two spoonsful of 
lemon extract, the white of one egg. Sweeten 
with pulverized sugar, and beat to a foam. 

An effective Ice Pitcher. — The following is 



CANDY CATSUPS. 



GOD 



a simple method of keeping ice frater for a I 
long time in a common pitcher or jug: Place 
between two sheets of paper (newspaper will 
answer, thick brown is better) a layer of cotton 
batting abont half an inch in thickness, fasten 
the ends of paper and batting together, form- 
ing a circle, then sew or paste a crown over 
one end, making a box the shape of a stove- 
pipe hat, minus the rim. Place this over an 
ordinary pitcher filled with ice water, maKing 
it deep enongh to rest on the table, so as to ex- 
clude the air, and the reader will be astonished 
at the length of time his ice will keep and the 
water remain cold after the ice is melted. 

To Clean Old Barrels. — The inquiry is often 
made by f;irmers, brewers, beef and pork pack- 
ers, etc., regarding the best method of deodor- 
izing and cleansing old eider and beer barrels, 
musty cans, bottles, etc. Chemistry furnishes 
an agent in the permanganate of potassa which 
fully meets this want. A pint of the perman- 
ganate turned into the most musty, filtby cider 
or beer cask, and rinsed about a few moments, 
will entirely decompose all fungoid growths 
and fermenting matter, and render the cask as 
sweet as those that are new. The deodorizing, 
disinfecting power of the permanganate, hold- 
ing, as it does, five equivalents of oxygen, is 
wonderful ; it will even deodorize carbolic acid. 
The only way to remove immediately the odor 
of carbolic acid from the hands is to immerse 
them in the liquid permanganate. 

Candy. — Taffy may be made by first Tuelt- 
ing, in a shallow vessel, a quarter of a pound 
of butter, and adding to it one pound of brown 
sugar. Stir them together for fifteen minutes, 
or until a little of the mixture dropped into a 
basin of water will break clean between the 
teeth without sticking to them. Any flavoring 
that is desired, as lemon, pine-apple, or vanilla 
should be added just before the cooking is com- 
pleted. The tafl'y, when done, should be poured 
into a shallow dish, which is buttered on the 
bottom and edges. By drawing a knife across 
it when it is partially cool, it can easily be 
broken into squares. Molasses may be used 
instead of sugar, in making taflTy, but it is not 
HO brittle. 

Molar.ses Candy. — Two quarts of West India 
molasses, one pound of brown sugar, the juice 
of two large lemons, or a tea-spoonful of .strong 
essence of lemon. Mix together the molasses 
and sugar, taking care to use West India mo- 
lasses, which is much the best. Boil to the con- 
sistency required. 

39 



Sugar Candy. — Six cups of sugar, one cup of 
vinegar, half a cup of water. Boil slowly 
alK)Ut half an hour without stirrinr/. Try a lit- 
tle in cold water, and add any essence yon 
choose when done. Stirrinr/ turns it back tc 
sugar. Pull it until white, and cut in sticks. 

Catsups. — These are mostly made of wal 
nut, tomato, or mushroom juice, procured bj 
bruising; the mass being slightly sailed, and 
after some hours severely pressed. The juice 
is then boiled to the consistency of cream, 
skimmed clear, and spiced like pickles. 

Cucumbers grated up free of seeds, and toma- 
toes chopj^d fine and then pressed dry, make 
delicious catsups. The dry pulp is .seasoned 
with salt and pepper, and made as liquid with 
vinegar as you like. 

Peaches, ma.shed to a pulp, and seasoned with 
sugar, nutmeg, and vinegar, is a nice and rare 
condiment. 

Currants may also be made into a delicious 
catsup without great difficulty. 

Tomato Catsup. — Take half a bushel of toma- 
toes, crush them thoroughly, and add half a 
tea-cupful of salt. Let them stand over night. 
Next morning boil in a porcelain kettle until 
they are soft, and strain through a sieve to re- 
move seeds and skin. Put pulp and juice back 
in the kettle, and while boiling sea.son with a 
table-spoonful of black pepper, a tea-spoon- 
fnl of cayenne pepper, a table-spoonful of whole 
allspice and cloves mixed, a few blades of mace, 
and a little more salt if required (some add a 
pint of vinegar). Boil down one-third. Strain 
through a sieve, bottle, and cork tight, and keep 
in a cool place. 

Some preserve their catsups in a less solid 
form by boiling a shorter time. Others make 
a fine liquid catsup by straining the tomatoes 
through a flannel bag instead of a cullender or 
sieve, and boiling down and flavoring as above. 

Oyster Catsup. — One pint of oysters, one pint 
sherry wine or strong old ale, one ounce salt, 
one-fourth ounce mace, one dram ground black 
pejiper ; boil for ten or fifteen minutes, remove 
from the fire afid strain; when cool, bottle for 
use, adding a spoonful of brandy to each bottle. 

Walnut Catsuj) — Bruise or chop ten dozen 
young (green) butternuts, or black walnuts, 
gathered when they will slice, add a quart of 
vinegar, and three-fourths of a pound of fine 
salt. Let them stand two weeks, stirring every 
day. Strain oflfthe liquor and add to it half 
an ounce of black pepper, whole; thirty cloves, 
half an ounce of bruised nutmeg, half an ounce 



610 



DOMESTIC ECONOMT: 



of ginger, and four sticks of mace. Boil an 
liour, strain and bottle tight. 

SyrupSi. — For simple syrup, which is the 
basis of all the fruit and vegetable syrups, take 
eight pounds sugar (crushed is best) to one gal- 
lon water; place over the fire, and allow it to 
come to a boil ; then strain while hot, and cool 
fur use. 

Lemon Syrup is made by souring the simple 
syrup with a solution of citric or tartaric acid, 
and flavoring with lemon. 

Raspberry Syrup. — Take equal parts simple 
.syrup and raspberry juice. 

Strawberry Syrup. — Take simple syrup, Oavor 
with extract strawberry, and color with the red 
coloring alkanet. 

Pine-Apple Syrup. — Simple syrup, flavored 
with extract of pine-apple, and colored very 
slightly with tincture tumeric. 

Sarsaparilla Syrup. — Take three parts best 
sugar-house syrup (or molasses) and one part 
simple syrup. Mix and flavor with essence 
of sassafras and winter-green. 

Jelly, Jam, and IMarniaiade.— 

For jellies, fresh picked and well-ripened fruit 
only shoulil be used — the poorer specimens be- 
ing kept for jams, wines, or syrups. Scald or 
slone the fruit with as little water as possible; 
strain, carefully, the juice through a soft linen 
bag ; add equal weight of the best sugar to 
juice, and boil ten or fifteen minutes, or until 
it "jellies;" add any flavoring extracts desir- 
able, and then strain through a coarse linen or 
flannel cloth, and put into wide-mouthed ves- 
sels to cool. When cool cover from the air 
with stout white paper p.isted over the edges. 

Apple Jelly. — Take apples of good quality and 
tart flavor; quarter but do not pare or core ex- 
cept to cut away decayed spots; put in a brass 
or porcelain kettle, with water enough to stew 
without burning. When boiled to a pulp pour 
into a woolen jelly bag. Let them strain all 
night, but do not squeeze. To every quart of 
juice luld a qusrt of white sugar and a sliced 
lemon, and boil and skim till it is thick enough 
(yon can tell by cooling a little), then strain 
again, and it is done. Put it into molds, and 
let it become cold before covering. Instead of 
adding lemon, either in slices or extract, some 
prefer 'to flavor with cinnamon or vanilla. 

Apple in Jelly. — Peel and quarter some good 
apples and take out the core. Put them in just 



are soft. Take out the pieces of apple with 
great care not to break the pieces, and arrange 
them in jars. Then boil the syrup until it will 
jelly, and pour it over the pieces of apple. 

Apple Marmalade. — Take any kind of tart 
apples, pare and core them, cut them in small 
pieces, and to every pound of apples put three- 
quarters of a pound of sugar. Put them in a 
preserving pan, and boil them over a slow fire 
until they are reduced to a fine pulp. Then 
put in jelly jars and keep in a cool place. 

Apple Jam. — Core and pare any quantity of 
good tart apples, weigh an equal quantity of 
good brown sugar, then chop up the apples; 
grate some fresh lemon peel, and shred some 
white ginger; make a good syrup of the sugar 
and skim it well; then throw in the apples, 
lemon peel, and ginger; let it all boil until 
the fruit looks clear and yellow ; this is a 
delicious jam. 

Apple-Butter. — This is an excellent Winter 
preserve, very cheap, and a good stand-by. 
For half a barrel, it requires a half-barrel brass 
or copper kettle to begin with, and fuel enough 
to keep fire all day or all night, to perpetuate 
the apple-butter frolics still enjoyed in Penn- 
sylvania. This quantity requires at least half 
a barrel of sweet cider, arul a bushel and a 
half of apples — sweet are the best. The cider 
is first boiled down a third ; (hen begin slowly 
to put in the apples — which have been peeled 
and cored — adding a pailful, and when these 
are cooked and partially dissolved, adding 
more, until at last all are in. The whole must 
be stirred inces.santly to prevent burning, aijd 
the boiling must be kept up until the apple 
and cider are so incorporated that they remain 
a consistent paste when spuoned out into a 
saucer. When nearly done, flavoring is added 
to suit, and .some sugar, if the apples were tart. 
It is then |mt in jars or earthen crocks to cool 
and keep till wanted. 

Quince, peach, or pumpkin-bulter can be 
made in the same way. 

A Delicious Dish of Apples. — Take two pound-it 
of apples, pare and core them, slice them into 
a pan ; add one pound of loaf sugar, the juice 
of three lemons, and the grated rind of one. 
Let tlie.se boil about two hours; turn into a 
mold, and serve it with thick mustard or cream. 

Blackberry Jam.^Gather the fruit in dry 
weather; allow half a pound of good brown 
sugar to every poutW of fruit; boil the whole 
together gently for an hour, or till the black- 



water enough to cover them, add .some slices of berries are soft, stirring and mashing them 
lemon and clarified sugar, and cook until they well. Preserve it like any other jam, and it 



SYRUPS — JELLY, JAM, AND MARMALADE. 



611 



will be found very useful in families, pailicu- 
larly for cliildrea — regulating their bowels, and 
enabling you to dispense with catliartics. It 
may be spread on bread, or on puddings, in- 
stead of butter; and even when blackberries 
are bought, it is cheaper than butter. 

Calfs, or Pig's Foot Jdly.— Boil four feet, 
nicely cleaned, in a gallon of water, till reduced 
to one quart; strain it, and when cool take ofi' 
tlie top. In taking out the jelly avoid the 
settlings. .\dd a half pound of sugar, the 
juice of two lemons, a little brandy, and, if you 
please, the whites of four eggs to make it clear; 
boil all together a few minutes, or until it will 
stitTen on ice, then strain it througli a flannel 
until perfectly clear, and mold. 

Cranberry Jelly. — Two ounces isinglass, one 
pound double refined sugar, three pints well 
strained cranberry juice. Make a strong jelly 
of the isinglass, tlien add tlie sugar and ci'an- 
berry juice, boil up and strain into sliape. 

Currant Jelly. — Place the currants in a stone 
or gla.ss jar, and suspend this jar in a vessel of 
boiling water until the currants are in a condi- 
tion to yield their juice re.adily; then place 
them while hot in a bag, and strain out the 
juice, pressing very gently. Add refined 
crushed sugar, pound for pound ; stir it until 
it is all dissolved ; set it over a gentle fire ; let 
it become hot, and boil for fifteen niinutes; then 
try it by taking a spoonful upon a cold plate, 
and if it will hold fast with the plate upside 
down, it is done, and should be removed from 
the fire. Should any scum arise, it may be 
skimmed off. Put the jelly while hot into jars 
and cover it tightly. 

Currant Jelly without Cooking.— Take the juice 
of red currants, and white sugar, in equal 
weights. Stir tliem gently and smoothly for 
three hours; put it into glasses, set in the sun, 
and in three days they will concrete into a 
firm jelly. 

Currant Jam. — Strip the currants free from 
stems; weigh three-quarters of a pound of sugar 
fcjr eacli pound of fruit; strain the juice from 
half of them; then crush the remainder and 
the sugar together, and put them with the juice 
in a kettle, and boil until it is a smooth, jellied 
mass. Have a moderate fire, that it may not 
burn the preserve. 

Cherry Jam requires a similar process; some 
of the kernels of the stones being added to im- 
part a pleasant flavor. 

Gooseberry Jam is the re.sult of the same 
treatment of eitlier green or ripe gooseberries ; 
but the berries must be broken with a wooden 



ladle while they are boiling. Require of sugar 
pound for pound. A little currant jnice im- 
proves it. 

Other Jellies, such as grape, raspberry, and 
.strawberry, are made in the same manner as 
that already described for apples and currants, 
while the remaining pulp is economically put 
into marnuilade. Almost all fruit will make 
jam, some of the best being made from pears, 
peaches, grapes, quinces, raspberries, rhubaib, 
and tomatoes. 

Lemon Jelly. — -Take five lemons, rub the oil 
out of two into a large piece of loaf sugar, 
squeeze tlie five into a pint and a half of cold 
water, taking the other half to dissolve five 
sheets Cooper's isinglass. If there is any diffi- 
culty in dissolving the isinglass, take from the 
lemonade and add to it ; when dissolved, add 
the lemonade and sugar. Strain it into forms. 

Orange Jelly. — Procure five oranges and one 
lemon, take the rind off two of the oranges and 
half of the lemon, and remove the pith, put 
them in a basin, and squeeze the'juice of the 
fruit into it; then put a quarter of a pound of 
sugar into a stew-pan with half a pint of water, 
and set it to boil until it becomes a .syrup, when 
take it off and add the juice and rind of the 
fruits; cover the stew-pan, and place it again 
on the fire; as .soon as boiling commences, skim 
well, and add a gill of water by degrees, wliicli 
will a.ssist its clarification ; let it boil another 
minute, when add an ounce and a half of isin- 
glass, dissolved, pass it through a jelly-bag, or 
fine sieve; then fill a mold and place it on 
ice; turn out. This jelly dues not require to 
look very clear. 

Rhubarb Marmalade. — Blanch the rhubarb by 
covering over the growing plant with an in- 
verted box, barrel, or even by shutting out the 
light by a frame of sticks and some straw or 
litter. This prevents the full access of light, 
the acid secretions and woody fibers of the 
plant are not fully formed, so that the stalks 
are tender and require much less sugar than if 
grown in the open air. They also grow' more 
rapidly and come on earlier. Pare and cut into 
very small pieces five pounds of rhubarb, add 
one and a half pounds of loaf sugar, and the 
rind of one lemon cut very thin and into very 
small pieces. Put the whole into a dish and 
let it stand till next day. Then strain off the 
juice and boil three-quarters of an hour, after 
which add the rhubarb and boil together ten 
minutes or a quarter of an hour. A little can- 
died lemon or orange peel cut very thin im- 
proves the marmalade. 



612 



DOMESTIC economy: 



Preserving and Canningr. — The 

nalural com|i1eruent of fniit-prcMlucing is fruit 
preserving. The latter secures the full benefit 
of the former, and in the two we witness the 
works of God and of man beautifully blended. 
The art of pre.serving fresh fruits in nearly 
their natural state, by hermetical .sealing in 
air-tight cans or bottles, is at once so simple 
and so satisfactory, that its superiority over the 
old method of making sweetmeats is universally 
admitted. It is not only superior to boiling in 
a kettle "pound for pound," but to the old 
|)ractice of drying fruit in the sun, and by the 
heat of stoves and ovens. The present process 
is more expeditious, and the results far more 
gratifying. By the old method some of the 
finest frails could not be preserved at all ; and 
it may be added in most cases where fruit was 
preserved by drying, the results were not en- 
tirely s.atisfactory ; the delicate flavor of fresh 
fruits was in no instance perfectly retained; 
while by the new method, nearly all kinds of 
fruit may be preserved with one-fuurth the 
amount of sugar, and with few e.xceplions the 
original flavor may be nearly retained; and in 
some instances appears to be even improved. 

This process is^so simple, and seem to be so 
desirable, that besides the numerous large com- 
panies exclusively engaged in it, hundreds of 
thousands of private families put up their an- 
nual supply of preserved fruits as regularly 
as they lay by a supply of vegetables for 
Winter use. 

Lime Preserving. — Xt the Russian court fruit 
is preserved by being packed in creosotized 
lime. The lime is slaked in water in which 
creosote has been dissolved, and is allowed to 
fall to powder. The bottom of a plain deal 
box is covered with it one inch thick, and over 
it is a sheet of paper. Upon this the fruit, 
well selected and cleansed, is arranged; over 
this another sheet of paper, and on top of this 
another .such stratum of prepared lime; in the 
corners a little finely powdered charcoal is put. 
The \v1u)le box is then filled in the same man- 
ner, and the well-fitting lid nailed down. Fruit 
kept in this manner will remain intact at least 
one year. 

Cans, Jars, etc. — The best and handiest ves- 
,sels for preserving fruit are the self-sealing 
glass jars. But these are patented and more 
expensive than many persons can afiord. Any 
sort of bottle, jar, or jug wliich can be sealed 
tight will answer the purpose, only if jugs 
or jars other than glass are used they should 
be stone ware. The red earthen ware is so 



porous that it will sometimes admit nir, and 
then all is lost. Small fruits and tomatoes may 
be put up in vessels with small necks. It is a 
little more work to get the fruit into them, but 
less trouble to cork and seal. Almost any 
family, liowever poor, can pick up, or buy at a 
trifling cost, old bottles enotigh to preserve a 
good supply of fruit which may be put up while 
it is cheap, to be used when it is dear. 

The fruit should be ripe, but not over-mellow, 
free from speck or bruise, and always as freshly 
picked as it can be procured. Green corn may 
also be put up in this way and kept as tender 
and sweet as when it fiist came from the cob. 

Process of Ccinnhig. — The process of ci\nning 
is very simple, but varies, .somewhat, in dilTer- 
ent Slates and families. The following is the 
method adopted at the Oneida Communily, in 
New York, by which that neat and thriving, if 
"peculiar," people put up from ten to twenty 
thousand quarts in a season : 

1. Can the fruit the same day it is gathered. 
More than half the secret of having fine pre- 
served fruit lies in this simple direction. 

2. The fruit is suitably prepared by hulling, 
assorting, or paring and cutting, as the case 
demands; and, in most instances, is immedi- 
ately placed in clean glass bottles, filling them 
full, and when such fruit as peaches, pears, 
quinces, etc., are cut in large pieces, it is best 
to take some pains to crowd the fruit into the 
bottle — otherwise the heating process will not 
leave the bottle properly filled with fruit. If 
any time elapses between quartering large fruit 
and piicking it in the cans, it should stand in 
cold water. 

3. Next prepare a syrup of melted refined or 
white sugar, and pour into the bottles by the 
following rule: Allow six ounces of sugar to 
one quart of fruit ; or melt ten pounds of sugar 
in one gallon of water, and give one-half pint 
of the syrup thus produced to one quart bottle 
of fruit. This rule is adapted to the straw- 
berry, cherry, peach, and other similar fruits. 
More acid fruits, like the currant, require a 
greater proportion of sugar. Sugar for a few 
years has been so high that the temptation has 
been great, for those who put up fruit for sale, to 
make the proportion of sugar much less thai.* 
the above rule requires, and some parties have 
acknowledged thai they had reduced the quan- 
tity of sugar to three ounces for one quart of 
fruit. Fruit put up air tight will, of course, 
keep just as well without sugar as with if, but 
it is thought nuich belter to heat llie fruit in 
syrup, rather than to heat it in water and apply 



PRESERVINO AND CANNING. 



611} 



Bugar as it is used for the table. Moreover, 
fruit kept in a proper quantity of sugar, is less 
apt to be "leathery." 

4. The filled bottles are then placed in a 
steaming box — best when made througliout of 
wood — the bottles rest on a false bottom of nar- 
row shits, covering tlie steam-pipe — cold water 
is then let into the box until the bottles are 
two-thirds covered; the fruit is then gradually 
heated to the boiling point by letting steam into 
the water, through a pipe leading from the en- 
gine-room in another portion of the building. 
It requires from fifty-five to sixty minutes to 
properly heat or cook most kinds of fruit. 
They are commonly allowed to boil five min- 
utes, but in some instances are taken out of the 
steam-box before they reach tlie boiling point. 
In the absence of a steam-box, of course, the 
cans may be heated in any kettle of boiling 
water. 

5. Corks are made sufficiently flexible by 
steaming them twents' minutes with the fruit. 
They should be large enough to fill the neck of 
the bottle tightly, and require some force to 
crowd them in. Formerly one cork, as pro- 
cured of dealers, was made to stop two bottles, 
but it is now considered better to use a whole 
cork for each bottle. 

C, Until last year the Community used for 
sealing-wax a compound of the following pro- 
portions: One pound of resin, one and a half 
ounces tallow, three ounces beeswax; but com- 
mon boat-pitch is now used, and is found to 
answer quite as well, and is much cheaper. It 
is prepared by first being boiled a few minutes, 
and then heated every time a batch of fruit is 
to be sealed. 

7. The fruit being sufficiently heated, the 
corks steamed, and the boat-pitch ready, the 
bottles are taken successively to a table and 
quickly corked. The corks may be forced in 
by a blow from a mallet, or better by a small 
lever arrangement, or best by such a machine 
as that used here, and in other fruit establish- 
ments, which, worked by hand and foot, per- 
forms this operation easily and rapidly. The 
portion of cork remaining above the bottle is 
pared ofT with a sharp knife, and left in con- 
vex form. 

8. Some fruit preservers, at this stage, pack 
(heir fruit away, laying the bottles down on the 
side and trusting to the cork, thus kept moist, 
to exclude the air, and iealing the bottles when 
they fill orders for the market, and when they 
are less hurried; but the Communitj' have 
always sealed their fruit immediately after it is 



corked, which is done bj- dipjiing the mouth 
of the bottle in the melted sealing-wux or 
pitch, so as to cover the bulb. Then transfir it 
to a basin of cold water, dipping to the smnic 
depth, to cool the wax. If the dipping is car- 
ried below the bulb or rim at the mouth of the 
bottle, there is danger of cracking the glass. 
Now, examine the sealed part to see if the wax 
has formed blistei's. If there are blisters rub 
them away with the finger, using a little tallow 
oi "■'}] to prevent sticking. 

9. The operation is now completed, and the 
fruit ready to be packed awaj' on shelves or in 
chests, in a cool, dry cellar. If placed on 
shelves, a cloth should be hung before them to 
exclude the light. In a few days after packing 
away, inspect the bottles to see if any show 
signs of fermentation, which may be detected 
by a foamy appearance of the fruit. If this is 
observed in any bottle, it denotes either a crack 
in the glass or that the sealing was imperfect. 
The bottle should be opened and examined, the 
contents scalded, and the process of sealing re- 
peated as before. In some cases during the 
season a little vegetable mold may be seen to 
gather on the surface of the fruit in the bottles, 
but this is not to be regarded, as it can be read- 
ily separated on opening the bottles, leaving 
the mass of fruit uninjured. 

To save time, when there is a large quantity 
of peaches, quinces, or other fruits to put up, 
it is usual to pare and stone them; and let them 
come to a brisk boil in a preserving kettle, 
with as little stirring as will prevent them from 
scorching ; the cans being already warmed by 
standing in hot water, are then filled from the 
boiling-kettle (which must be kept on the fire 
while the cans are being filled) and sealed im- 
mediately. This takes less time than filling 
with cold fruit and heating the can up in boil- 
ing water; and the fruit is as good, though 
more broken than when put up carefully. 

Connmg Tomatoes. — There is a variety of 
methods practised 'in preserving tomatoes.. An 
excellent process is to scald and peel them, and 
then place them in a steam-boiler, where they 
are boiled from twenty minutes to half an hour. 
The bottles are filled directly from the bailer — 
having been previously heated in the steam- 
box, so as to avoid the danger of bursting, and 
are then ready for sealing. Or, a cheaper way 
is to dip from the boiler into tin cans, and get 
a tinker to seal. Some slice and can witii 
syrup made from sugar — a quarter of a pound 
of sugar to a pound of fruit. 

Tomato Preseri'es. — Take the round, yellow 



614 



DOMESTIC economy: 



variety of tomato, as soon as tliey are ripe ; 
scald and peel ; then to seven pounds of toma- 
toes add seven pounds of white sugar, and let 
them stand over night. Take the tomatoes out 
of the sugar, and boil the svnip, removing the 
scum. Put in the tomatoes, and boil gently 
fifteen or twenty minutes ; remove the fruit 
again, and boil until the syrup thickens. On 
cooling, put the fruit into jars, and pour the 
syrup over it, and add a few slices of lemon to 
each jar, and you will have something to 
please the taste of the most fastidious. 

Tomato Figs. — Collect a lot of ripe tomatoes, 
about one inch in diameter, skin and stew them 
in the usual manner; when done lay them on 
dishes, flatten them slightly, and spread over 
them a light layer of pulverized white or best 
brown sugar; expose them to a Summer's sun, 
or place them in a drying-house; wlien as dry 
as fresh figs, pack in old fig or small boxes, 
with. sugar between each layer. If properly 
managed, the difference can hardly be delected 
from the veritable article. 

Sweet- Corn. — The Oneida Community every 
season puts up a few thousand cans of sweet- 
corn. It was formerly thought difficult to pre- 



Abont the time for early frost the corn will be 
suitable lor table use, when cut up the stalks, 
and shock it in the field. "When needed for 
the table in Winter, open a .shock, take out as 
much as wanted, and then close it again. This 
will furnish green corn in perfection." 

Apples. — Apples are put up, by some of the 
best manufactories, in fresh apple juice, and 
are thought to be much better than when put 
up in water. At Oneida, during the month of 
October, the preserving group is engaged in 
.bottling apples. One might at first questiim 
the expediency of bottling so common a fruit; 
but doubt on this point disappears when it is 
con.sidered that the labor of preserving apples 
in this way is scarcely more than the labor of 
preparing them for sauce or pies ; or cooking 
them in any form — that it is even less than the 
labor of drying them — that the bottled apples 
are just as good as green apples in their best 
condition — much better than green apples that 
have been kept a few months— altogether pre- 
ferable to dried apples, which are never of 
first-rate flavor, an<l are often damaged by par- 
asites ; and, further, that by this means Fall 
apples, and such fruit as would soon decay and 
serve this article, except by drying. There are j become worthless, are made just as available 
now establishments which put up sweet-corn "i fut'""e months as the best keeping varieties. 



very extensively. One in Camden, New York 
employs ninety persons, and puts up mainly 
corn, beans, and fresh meat. The process 
there followed is to put the corn in cans imme- 
diately after it is cut from the cob, seal it up, 
and then boil it in the cans five hours; then 
jiunch a hole in the top of the cans, to let ont 
the steam, and then seal up again, and pack 
away. 

The following directions are followed at 
Oneida : Cut the corn raw from the cob, and 
put it into tin cans, and add cold water to fill 
up the interstices, and seal up with solder. 
Piuich a small hole in the top and .solder that 
up. Put the cans in a boiler and boil them 
two and a half hours. Then take them up 
one at a time, and melt the solder from the 
small puncture, and let the steam blow off" 
while boiling hot, and again solder up the hole. 
Return them to the boiler and boil them two 
and a half hours more. 

There are two other methods of keeping 
corn; by drying it by sun or fire, Indian fash- 
ion, and by salting down — but either is inferior 
to the above process of canning. 

The Prairie Fanner commends the follow- 
ing: "Plant corn in the ordinary way, about 



Apple Presei-ves. — .^hnost everybody can make 
apple-sauce very good ; but this dish, for a va- 
riety, is quite a treat. Pare and core the 
apples, cutting them in halves or quarters, as 
you like. For every poun<l of apples take 
three-quarters of a pound of sugar and make a 
syrup, by adding water sufficient to keep it 
from burning, while beating it over a slow fire. 
AVhen the syrup is boiling hot remove it from 
the fire, put the apples in and let them stand 
one night. This will toughen and prevent 
them from falling to pieces. Then boi! them 
over a slow fire nntil they are cooked tender. 
If loaf sugar is used the preserves will be very 
clear and handsome. If the syrnp is made of 
brown sugar, it should be well skimmed before ' 
putting in the fruit, and also while cooking. 

Canning C'Aem'es.— Take the common sour 
cherries, stone them, fill your cans or bottles, 
set them into warm water, heat until air is ex- 
pelled, and cork as before directed. 

It will be necessary to have some reserved 
cherries to fill the bottles, as they shrink very 

uch, and there must be no space between the 
fruit and the cork. Stoning the cherries i.s 
quite a tedious process, but the rest of the work 
can be done very rapidly. There is no fruit 



the 15th of July, giving it the usual care. | keeps better than cherries, and, after being pre- 



PRESERVING AND CANNING. 



615 



pared in this way, they are much better, when 
stewed with hiiU'apoimd of sugar to one pound 
of fruit, than the richest preserves boiled in 
sugar syrup pound Tor pound. 

To Preserve Citron. — Prepare the rind, cut 
into any form you desire; boil very hard thirty 
or forty minutes in alum water, tolerably 
strong; take the pieces from the alum water, 
and put into clear cold water; allow them to 
stand over night; in tlie morning change the 
water, and put them on to boil ; let them cook 
until they have entirely changed color, and are 
quite soft; then make your syrup, allowing one 
and a half pounds of white sugar to one pound 
of fniit; then add your fruit, which needs but 
little more cooking. Mace, ginger, or lemon 
flavors nicely. 

To Preserve Citron for Cake. — Take a common- 
sized citron and cut it in four pieces ; to every six 
pounds of citron take a piece of alum the size 
of a hickory nut, dissolved in water enough to 
cover the citron. Boil until tender in the 
water, and then preserve j'our citron the same 
as for any use, "pound for pound." Wlien 
boiled sutiiciently in the sugar, take the pieces 
out on a plate, and let the syrup boil down as 
thick as possible, without burning. Put the 
citron in a moderate warm oven, and pour the 
syrup over it. As it dries, some add cloves and 
cinnamon. 

Canning Gooseberries. — Gooseberries, and all 
other berries, may be canned with excellent) 
results by the process we have given as that in 
vogue at Oneida. The ripe gooseberry, how- 
ever, is apt to lose its form. This is remedied 
by modifying the canning formula as follows: 
Pour boiling water over ripe berries; have the 
cms ready and warm ; lift the berries out of 
the water, and put into the cans immediately ; 
pour boiling water in until the can is full, and 
seal immediately. The fruit will remain per- 
fectly whole. 

Currants. — Currants may be canned as di- 
rected, or they may be preserved as follows: 
'lake ripe currant,s, free from stems; put a tea- 
cup of sugar to each pound; boil the syrup 
until it is hot and clear; then turn it over the 
fruit; let it remain one night; then set it over 
the fire, and boil gently until they are cooked 
and clear; take them into the jars or pots with 
a skimmer; boil the syrup until rich and thick ; 
then pour it over the fruit. Currants may be 
preserved witli ten pounds of fruit to seven of 
sugar. Take the stems from seven pounds of the 
currants, and cru.sh and pretis the juice from the 
reinaining three pounds ; put them into the hot 



syrup, and boil until thick and rich ; put it in 
pots or jars, and the next day secure as directed. 

Spiced Currants. — Take four quarts of cur- 
rants deprived of the stem, one pint of vinegar, 
two pounds of crushed sugar, one tea spoonful 
each of allspice, cloves, and cinnamon, pow- 
dered fine. Boil all together until about the 
consistency of jelly, then remove from the fire 
and put away in closely covered jars for use. 

Cucumber Preserves. — Cucumbers that have 
gone to seed, may be made an excellent use of 
in the following manner: Pare them and .scrape 
the seeds out; then slice them into strips, and 
boil them till they are a little tender; then lay 
them on a cloth to drain an hour or more; 
after the water is out, pack them down in a 
jar, treating each laj-er with a slight sprinkling 
of sugar and powdered cinnamon and cloves. 
Cover them with vinegar, and in twenty-four 
hours they are fit for u.se, and good enough for 
an epicure (if he be not a dyspetic). 

Grapes. — Grapes may be kept for many 
months, preserving even their bloom, by gath- 
ering when fully ripe, and packing in triple 
layers in oats, previously scalded and dried, 
letting the oats at top and bottom be at least 
four inches in depth; keep in a cold dry room. 

Grapes may be canned according to the direc- 
tions we have given for canning fruits. They 
are said to be better if the seeds are taken out 
and the skins left. 

Pumpkin Sutter. — Wash tlie pumpkin clean, 
take out the seeds, and scrape the inside out 
with a strong iron spoon. Boil till soft, and 
rub through a coarse sieve. When strained, 
put into a kettle, and boil slowly all day, stirring 
it often. Put in a large handful of salt. When 
nearly done, add a pint of molasse.s, or a pmnid 
of brown sugar to each gallon of pumpkin. 
Before it is quite done, add allspice, cinnamon, 
finger, and nutmeg, one or all, as you may 
fancy. Put it into jars when done — large ones 
are best, Tie it up tightly, and it will keep 
until April or May, in a cold place, if yon 
scald it when Spring comes on. It is a good 
sauce for table use, and is always ready for pies, ' 
with the usual addition of eggs and milk. It 
is much less trouble and liir better than "dried 
pumpkin." 

Peaches. — Can peaches as follows : Keniove 
the skin of the peaches by pouring hot water 
upon them, and afterward wiping them with a 
coarse cloth ; put them into glass or earthen 
jar.s, cork them up, and fasten tlie corks with 
wire or strong twine; then place the jars in a 
kettle of hot water until the atmospheric air ia 



616 



DOMESTIC economy: 



expelled from the jars; after which seal them 
up tiglit with wax. Peaches prepared in this 
way retain their original flavor, and are equally 
as delicious, when cooked in the ordinary man- 
ner, six months or a year after being put up, as 
if just taken from the tree. 

Preserve peaches thus: One pound of sugar 
to one of fruit; put on the sugar, let it corue to 
a boil, have the fruit cut and pared in large 
pieces, let them boil till thoroughly done, but 
not too soft; drain the fruit from the syrup, 
and place on flat dishes in the sun until they 
harden ; then boil the syrup till thick, and 
pour all into ajar; add a little mace, and tie 
up closely. A piece of writing-paper, cut to 
fit the jar, steeped in brandy and put over the 
fruit, will keep them. 

Tlie following recipe results in a superior 
article o[ dried peaches — far better than by the 
common method : Take the freestone peach 
when not too ripe, peel and halve them, taking 
out the stone, fill the cavities with sugar, and 
dry in hot sun or a warm oven. 

Pears. — Pears, plums, and quinces require 
the Same treatment as peaches in canning, ex- 
cepting that some very hard ones need longer 
heating to exclude the air. 

Rhubarb (Pie-Plant). — Prepare the rhubarb 
as follows: Take one pound of the stalks after 
lliey are pared, and cut them into short lengths, 
and put them into a quarter of a pint of water, 
previously boiled with si.x ounces of loaf sugar, 
and simmer the fruit in it for about ten minutes. 
It will then form a sort of compote, which is 
preferable to the undressed rhubarb for Spring 
tarts. 

Strawben'ies will more successfully preserve 
their color and flavor by canning them than any 
other way, but they require at least a pound of 
sugar (white sugar is best) to a gallon of fruit. 
Some prefer two pounds of sugar to a gallon of 
fruit, but we believe one pound as a rule will be 
sufKcient to preserve tl\era when canned. To 
preserve them without canning, it will require 
at least a pound and a half of sugar to a pound 
of fruit, to prevent fermentation, and they 
should be kept in a cool dry atmosphere. 

An important item in canning the strawberry 
is to have them thoroughly heated before put- 
ting in cans, and the sooner they are sealed after 
being snfiiciently heated, the better they retain 
their color and flavor. If heated in the cans, 
it requires a constant filling up, and when the 
cans are full, the fruit at the bottom of the cans 
is often stewed instead of being well heated, 
which is all it requires. We think it desirable 



to make a syrup of the sugar. A pound of 
sugar to a gallon of fruit, in which it is thor- 
oughly heated before putting in cans, sealing as 
quickly as possible afterward. Strawberries 
are excellent dried in sugar. A pound of sugar 
to a gallon of berries. Always select the smaller 
for drying and the larger for canning and pre- 
serving, as the smaller or even medium-sized 
strawberries will dry nearly as soon as the 
raspberry, if sprinkled with the sugar and laid 
on earthen plates in a moderately warm oven. 
They stew easily and regain their color and 
flavor when stewed. 

Paspberries are more easily canned than 
strawberries, and require only half the (juan- 
tity of sugar, but need the same attention to 
heating, sealing, etc. They also are excellent 
dried, and many prefer the dried to the canned 
raspberry, as tliey are always convenient, are 
easily stewed, and tlieir flavor and color are 
superior to the canned raspberry. They can 
be dried either in the sini or in a warm 
oven, but should be dried as quickly as pos- 
sible, and placed in strong cotton or paper 
bags (paper is best) and kept in dry j)aper or 
wooden boxes, or on shelves in dark closets, or 
almost anywhere where flies will not disturb 
them. 

Mokwses to Preserve Fruit. — The following 
process will render molasses much better suited 
for that purpose than a syrup prepared from 
the best loaf sugar, as it is not so liable to candy, 
nor if well prepared, to ferment. Take eight 
pounds molasses, bright New Orleans, or sugar- 
house, eight pounds pure water, one pound 
! coarsely-powdered charcoal, boil for twenty 
minutes, then strain througli fine flannel double, 
put it again in a kettle with the white of an 
egg, and boil gently, till it forms a syrup of 
1 proper consistency, and strain again. 
I To Clarify Sugar 'for Preserves. — Bi'eak as 
1 much as required in large lumps, and put a 
! pound to half a pint of water, in a bowl, and it 
will dissolve better than wlien broken small. 
Set it over the fire, with the well-whipt white 
of an egg; let it boil up, and when ready to 
run over pour a little cold water in to give it 
a check; but when it rises a second time, take 
it oft' the fire, and set it by in the pan for a 
quarter of an hour, during which the foulness 
will sink to the bottom, and leave a black scum 
on the top, which take ofT gently with a skim- 
mer, and pour the .syrup into a vessel very 
quickly from the sediment. 

PicKles. — Pickle-making is carried on as 



617 



an extensive business by many farmers in dif- 
ferent parts of the country; and if rightly man- 
aged, it is very profitable. A farmer in Illinois 
grew sixty acres of cucumbers in a single year, 
from whicli he put up sixteen hundred barrels 
ijf pickles — more than twenty-six barrels per 
acre. These cost him, delivered in Chicago, 
about sixly cents a barrel; and he sold thera 
for $18 a barrel — the total yield amounting to 
more than $28,000— $480 an acre. 

To Make Pickles Green wUfiout Poisoning. — 
Bra.ss and copper vessels should not be used in 
picUlins- CooUs frequently put pickles in them 
I hat they may acquire a rich green color, which 
they do by absorbing poison. Families have 
often been thrown into disease by eating such 
dainties, and have died in some instances, with- 
out suspecting the cau.se. Sour-krout, when 
permitted to stand some time in a copper ve.s- 
eel, has produced death in a few hours. From 
these metals comes a green substance; the car- 
bonate or protoxide of copper ; and from ves- 
sels glazed with lead comes the acetate of lead, 
equally poisonous. 

It is well to know that pickles may be 
made green by merely steeping the leaves of 
the grape- vine, or those of spinach or parsley, 
in the vinegar. 

Cucumber Pickles. — A satisfactory price for 
cucumber pickles depends upon their small 
tize. Large pickles will not sell. To be sala- 
ble, the cucumbers should never exceed four 
inches in length; three inches is still better, 
and from that down to two inches is preferable 
to a larger size.* It may, at first, seem that by 
pickling when so immature, the crop will be 
greatly reduced ; but it is not so, for the vines 
will produce a vastly greater number of small 
than of large cucumbers. There is extra work 
in picking, but this is thrice offset by the dif- 
ference in price. Gather small cucumbers, and 
put them up in good condition, and there is 
always a market for them at paying rates. 
Cut the encumbers from the vines with scissors; 
a knife will disturb the vines, and pulling off 
will lacerate the vegetable; leave half an inch 
of stem. Rinse but do not wipe them. Keep 
kegs or jars ready to receive your pickles as 
gathered. Those of no peculiar flavor, such 
as cucumbers, melons, etc., can be put together. 
Keep them in strong brine, a coarse cloth spread 
over them, and a weight, on a board, keeping 
them under brine all the time. 

Another method for making pickles is to put 
the cucumbers in a barrel, and sprinkle freely 
with fine salt. The moisture within dissolves 



the salt, and thus a strong, fine brine is formed. 
The fruit itself will shrivel, but the plump- 
ness will be restored as soon as it is put into 
vinegar. 

When you wish to prepare them for table 
use, soak them in a succession of clear water 
until free from salt. Then green them with 
grape leaves, in alum water, simmering them 
slowly. Scald them in strong vinegar for ten 
minutes, and tie up closely in jars. After a 
few days pour off this vinegar, and pour on 
Iheni strong boiling vinegar, with spices, horse- 
radish, mustard, pepper, or anything you like, 
strewed between the pickles in a jar. 

The following is the recipe for cold pickles : 
Let your pickles wither after gathering. Have 
yonr vinegar salted agreeably, and strongly 
spiced ; and cucumbers, nasturtiums, peaches, 
and many other fruits, are nicer for being 
pickled without sciilding. The pickles require 
time for perfection. 

Cucumber and Onion Pickle.^To a dozen fine 
cucumbers allow three large onions; pare the 
cucumbers and peel the onions, and cut both 
into thick slices; .sprinkle salt and pepper on 
them, and let them stand till next day. Drain 
them well, and put them in a stone jar; pour 
boiling vinegar on them, close the jar, and set 
it in a warm place. Next day repeat the boil- 
ing vinegar, and cork the jar. Next day re- 
peat the boiling with a bag of mace, nutmeg, 
and ginger. 

Green Pickle. — One peck of tomatoes, eiglit 
green peppers to be chopped fine, and soaked 
twenty-four hours in weak brine; then skim 
out, and add one bead of cabbage chopped fine, 
and scald in vinegar twenty minutes. Skira it 
out, and put in a jar, and add three pints of 
1 grated horse-radish and spices to suit the taste. 
Pour over cold vinegar. 

Ripe Cucumber Pickle. — Take large and ripe 
cucumbers before they become soft ; cut in 
rings, pare, divide in smaller pieces, and re- 
move the seeds; cook the pieces very slightly 
in water salted just enough to flavor well ; drain 
and put in a stone jar. Prepare a vinegar a« 
follows: Two pounds of sugar to two quarts of 
vinegar; a few slices of onion, some cayenne- 
pepper, whole allspice, whole cloves, cinnamon 
according to one's judgment and lasle. 

To Pickle Onions.— Gel white onions that are 
not too large, cut the stem close to the root 
with a sharp knife, put them in a pot, pour on 
boiling salt and water to cover them, stop the 
pot closely, let them stand a fortnight, chang- 
ing the salt and water every three days; they 



618 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY ; 



must be stirred daily, or those that float will 
become soft; at the end of this time take off 
the skin and outer shell, put them in plain 
cold vinegar with a little tumeric; if the vine- 
gar be not very pale, they will not be of good 
color. . 

To Pot Lubslers. — Half,boil them, pick out 
the meat, cut it into small bits, season with 
mace, white pepper, nutmeg and salt; press 
close into a pot and cover with butter; bake 
half an hour; put the spawn in. When cold, 
take the lobster out and put it into the pot with 
a little of the butter; bt'at the other buller in 
a mortar with some of the spawn, then mix 
that colored butter with as much as will be 
sufficient to cover the pots, and strain it; cay- 
enne may be added, it approved. 

Pichled Egi/K. — At the season of the year when 
eggs are plentiful, boil some four or six dozen 
in a capacious .sauce-pan, until they become 
quite hard. Then, after carefully removing 
the shells, hiy them in large-mouthed jars, and 
pour over them scalding vinegar, well seasoned 
with whole pepper, allspice, a few races of gin- 
ger, and a few cloves or garlic. When cold, 
bung down closely, and in a month they are fit 
for u.se. Where eggs are plentiful, the above 
pickle is by no means expensive, and is a 
relishing accompaniment to cold meat. 

Stuffed Peppers. — Take large bell-peppers and 
cut ofi' the tops, and take out the seeds; have 
ready a quantity of finely-cut cabbage, scraped 
horse-radish, white mustard-seed, and if con- 
venient, nasturtium-seed; stuff each pepper and 
sew the cover on; put in each pepper two or 
three whole cloves and allspice; then put thera 
in salt and water, and let thera stand twenty- 
four hours. Place them in stone jars and cover 
them with scalding vinegar, keeping them 
closely covered. The peppers will be milder 
if soaked in the brine before being stuffed. 

Pickled Walnuts. — Gather them dry, prick 
them with a large pin two or three times, put 
them into salt and water, shift them every three 
days for a fortnight, put them into a sieve and 
let them stand a day in the air, and then put 
them into an earthen jar. Boil as much vine- 
gar as will cover them well; pour it boiling 
hot over them; let them stand three days; then 
put them into a sieve and let them stand in the 
air another day; then take to every quart of 
fresh vinegar that may be wanted half an ounce 
of black mustard-seed, half an ounee of horse- 
radish cut into slices, a quarter of an ounce of 
long pepper, three cloves of garlic, a dozen 
cloves, four or five pieces of raw ginger, and a 



^w eschalots. Boil these ten minutes, and 
pour it boiling hot over your walnuts. Let it 
stand a fortnight; then put them into bottles 
corked close, and cover the corks with resin. 
They will keep for years. 

Pickled Cauliflower. — Have a kettle of boiling 
water, and put in one at a time, with top down, 
unless the kettle is large enough for more, and 
boil it until tender. Have ready a jar of cold 
vinegar, with cloves and mace; drain the cauli- 
flower well, and put into the vinegar while hot. 
Cover tightly, and it will be ready for use in a 
week or ten days. 

Piccalilli. — Of cut cucumbers, beans, and cab- 
bage, each four quarts; of cut peppers and 
onions two quarts each; celery and nasturtiums 
four quarts each. Pour on boiling vinegar, 
flavored strongly with mustard, mustard-seed, 
and ground cloves. 

Tomato Chow-Chow. — One-half bushel green 
tomatoes, one dozen onions, one dozen green 
peppers, chopped fine; sprinkle over the mess 
a pint of salt, let it stand over night, then drain 
off the brine; cover it with good vinegar, let it 
cook one hour slowly, then drain and pack in 
a jar; take two pounds of sugar, two table- 
spoonfuls of cinnamon, one of allspice, one 
each of cloves and pepper, one-half cup of 
ground mustard, one pint of horse-radish, and 
vinegar enough to mix thin; when boiling hot, 
pour over the mess packed in the jar, and cover 
tight. Then it is ready for use and will keep 
for months. Cabbage chow-chow may be made 
by substituting sliced cabbage lor tomatoes. 

'To Pickle Cabbage. — Take a firm, fresh cab- 
bage, remove the whole of the outer leaves, 
keeping the ball entire. Cut it into four quar- 
ters, and, subsequently, into .strips, and place 
them on a hair-sieve or a clean, dry clolh, and 
sprinkle with salt. Let them remain for three 
days to allow the brine to drain off. After 
they are thoroughly drained, put them into a 
clean jar. Take as much vinegar as will cover 
them, and let it simmer over a slow fire, witli 
allspice, whole black pepper, coarse brown gin- 
ger, and a little pimento. When the vinegar 
is sufficiently flavored let it cool, and pour 
it over the cabbage in the jar, which must be 
slopped down for use, and kept for three 
months. 

Sour-Krout. — Take solid heads of cabbage — 
the Drumhead Savoy is best, though the com- 
mon drumhead will answer well, and is larger — 
cut up the heads as for cole-slaw, though not so 
fine. A good way to do this is to put the heads 
into a clean barrel, and chop them with a com- 



SWEET PICKLES. 



619 



mon spade, gromul sharp. Put a few broad 
leaves at the bottom of the barrel in which 
you are to make tlie sour-kront, and sprinkle 
with fine salt. Now put in a layer of cut cab- 
bage, about six inches thick, and sprinkle with 
fine salt; with a wooden pounder compact it 
firmly together until the juice begins to show 
itself on the surfiice; then add another layer, 
and so on until the cask is full. Cover with 
leaves and a board or barrel-head, upon which 
place a clean stone of twelve or fifteen ^lounds 
weight. About three pints of salt is enough 
for a barrel.. The barrel must be perfectly 
tiglit, so the juice will not leak out, else the 
krout will spoil. 

In the course of a week, the scum that rises 
to the top should be removed. Kemaining 
from four to six weeks undisturbed, it is fit 
for use. The ves,sel should not be used for 
any other purpose, and eacli year thoroughly 
cleaned, so as to be free from any odor. The 
best place for keeping it is a cool cellar, but not 
so cold as to freeze. 

Pickled Beans. — Procure your young beans 
from a late crop ; boil them in water, slightly 
salted, till tender; throw them in a colander, 
with a dish over to drain ; when done dripping 
lay them out on a dry cloth and wipe. Pour 
boiling vinegar, spiced, over them, and you 
have an excellent pickle — these are. delicate 
for tea. 

S^veet Pickles. — Cherries, peaches, 
raspberries, tomatoes, plums, and crab apples 
may be made into very delicious sweet pickles, 
by adding something like half their weight of 
sugar to their full weight of spiced vinegar, 
when the spices are boiling in it, and pouring 
it over them while boiling. Peaches are soaked 
in lye and rubbed free of fur ; pears are peeled; 
plums pricked with a fork ; cherries and grapes 
wiili their stems, are laid in jars, the cherries 
with their leaves strewed between. 

One correspondent gives the following recipe: 
" For seven pounds of fruit allow three pounds 
of sugar, one ounce of cinnamon, and one- 
quarter ounce of cloves, both unground. Put 
in a stone jar a layer of fruit, then one of sugar 
and spice, then fruit again, and so on until the 
jar j»-full. Fill the jar with good cider vine- 
gar, and set it into cold water. Let it heat 
slowly at first. When the fruit seems to be 
cooked, take it out, and when cool it is ready 
for use. An easier way, and one that is equally 
good, is to boil tlie vinegar, sugar, and spice 
together, and pour boiling hot over tlie fruit. 



The next day pour it off, boil and put it on 
again. Do the saine the third day." 

Another: "If peaches, they are better to be 
mellow and nice for eating; peel, pack in a 
jar, and turn the pickle on boiling hot, but 
I never boil the fruit. For pears, pickle the 
same .as for peaches; peel and steam the pears; 
pack in jar; pour the pickle on hot. I use llie 
same pickle for seed cucumbers; to prepare the 
cucumbers, peel, cut open, scrape out the seeds 
and pulp clean, and cut into pieces of a conven- 
ient size; make a weak brine in a poruelaiu 
kettle; boil til! the fruit looks clear; take out 
as fast as it gels done, into a colander to drain; 
pack in a jar ; pour the pickle on hot. Green 
tomatoes make an excellent pickle, but require 
good sharp vinegar ; less sugar makes them 
good. Plums and cherries are also delicious 
pickled; tliey require no cooking — only pour 
the pickle on hot, the same as for peaches." 

Sweet pickles must stand several months 
before they are first-rate, and years only im- 
prove their quality. 

If you would make them quite plain, and 
cheap enough for every-day use, take but a 
quarter of a pound of sugar to a pound of any 
fruit; this will make a good but not very sweet 
pickle. 

Pickled Plums. — "After weighing, place the 
plums in a jar or crock, a layer at a time ; be- 
tween each layer scattering a few cloves, stick 
cinnamon, and allspice. Then to thfee jwunds 
of fruit allow one pound of sugar, and vinegar 
enough to moisten nicely; boil and pour over; 
set the jar in a kettle of warm water, and let the 
water boil till the plums are .soft, or drain them 
and pour over again till the juice will cover 
the plums." 

Sweet Tomato Pickle. — The following recipe, 
handed us by a friend, and thoroughly tried, is 
recommended as making the best sweet pickle 
we have ever tasted. Take eight pounds of 
green tomatoes, and chop fine. Then add four 
pounds of brown sugar, and boil down some 
three hours. Add a quart of vinegar, a tea- 
spoonful each of mace, cinnamon, and cloves, 
and boil about fifteen minutes. Let it cool and 
put into jars or other vessel. Try this once, 
and you will try it again. 

The following- is another tomato pickle — not 
so sweet: Slice one gallon of green tomatoes, 
and put a handful of salt to each layer of toni.a- 
toes. Let them stand twelve hours, then drain 
oft' the liquor, and add to them two green pep- 
pers, and from two to four onions sliced. Take 
two quarts strong cider vinegar, a little more 



620 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY: 



than one-lialf pint of molasses, and two table- 
spoonfnls of whole mustiiid, and a tea-spoonful 
of allspice, fame of cloves, and heat until it 
begins to boil. Tlien put in tomatoes, onions, 
and jieppers, and let them boil ten minutes. 
Pour them into a stone jar, and seal tight, and 
put them in a cool place for a fortnight, after 
which they will be ready for use, and will keep 
a year without scalding. 

Sweet Pickled Peaches. — "Pare clingstone 
peaches, just ripe. To four pounds of fruit 
allow two pounds sugar, half a pint of cider 
vinegar, one table-spoonful of cinnamon, and 
one of cloves, tied in a thin rag. Use a por- 
celain kettle. Boil the vinegar, sugar, and 
spice until the sugar is melted; then add the 
fruit, and boil until lender. Remove the fruit 
with a skimmer, and boil the liquor to a thick 
syrup; return the fruit, and simmer until done; 
pour out and let stand till cool; then seal up 
tight, removing the spice." 

Spiced Plums. — Take one pint vinegar, and 
add three pounds sugar, one tea-spoonful each, 
of chives, cinnamon, and allspice; *boil all 
together; have ready four quarts of plums; 
repeat the boiling of the liquor each day for 
nine days, and each time, while hot, pour on 
the plums. 

Vinegar. — The appetite for acids is quite 
as general, and also quite as natural and health- 
ful, as that for sweets. There should be at least 
two vinegar barrels in every household — one in 
which vinegar is always making, another in 
which vinegar is kept for use, and the la.sl 
should be constantly replenished from the first. 
The barrel for making vinegar, as it is intended 
to be a perpetuity, if not a fixture, should be 
stout, sound, iron-hooped, and painted, as it 
should siaud through the warm months out of 
doors, as vinegar forms much more rapidly in 
the sunshine. In Winter the process will go on 
much more slowly in a warm room or cellar. 

This barrel should have a close-fitting cover; 
in this cover, or near the top of the barrel, 
should be bored a number of auger holes, or 
the barrel may be laid on its side with the bung 
out. These are to promote free circulation of 
air; over them tack a fine wire gauze or cloth 
to exclude the gnats and insects which swarm 
around such attractions. The liquid should 
be agitated by a dasher, or by shaking the 
barrel frequently. The philosophy of vinegar- 
making is simply the exposure of a liquid that 
is predisposed to sour to the influence of light 
and atmospheric air. 



Cider Vinegar. — We give several different 
recipes : 1. Fill a barrel three-fourths full of 
cider; set it in the sun; leave the bung out 
and shake daily, and you will in time have 
vinegar of such strength as will need weaken- 
ing for use. A bucketful of strong vinegar, or 
a couple of gallons of molasses, will h.i.sten the 
process. When strong enough, rack off — stop 
closely, and set in a cellar that will not freeze. 

2. Have a vessel large enough to hold the 
pomace when you have been cider-making, and 
as much water as you have pressed cider from 
it. It is best to use warm water. Stir up the 
mass at least every day, the oftener the better. 
When it is soured, but not rotted, press it out 
and treat as directed in making cider vinegar. 
This vinegar will make sooner than the pure 
cider, and it is called, for distinction, apple 
vinegar; of course it is inferior in strength, 
but it is the article nearly always sold as cider 
vinegar. Tlie pomace of grapes will make 
vinegar by the same process. 

3. "Common dried apples, with a little mo- 
lasses and brown paper, are all you need to 
make the best kind of cider vinegar. And, 
what is still better, the cider which you extract 
from the apple does not detract from the value 
of the apples for any other purpose. Soak 
your apples a few hours — washing and rubbing 
them occasionally, then take them out of the 
water and thoroughly strain them through a 
tight-woven cloth; put the liquor into a jug, 
and add a pint of molasses to a gallon of 
liquor, and a piece of common brown paper, 
and set in the sun, or by the fire, and in a few 
days your vinegar will be fit for use. Have 
two jugs and use out of one while the other 
is working." 

Molasses Vinegar. — In a common barrel, 
three-fourths full of rain water, mix four gallons 
of molasses and a bucket of strong vinegar or a 
gallon of whisky. Expose to the sun, or keep 
in a warm cellar, and shake frequently. This 
is a pure and good preparation, and the most 
common in market, except chemical prepara- 
tions, which exercise as deleterious influence 
over health as drugged whisky. 

The Vinegar Plant. — The vinegar plant be- 
longs to the genus of fungals {Penicilium glau- 
cum), and is easily propagated by following the 
annexed recipe : Take a half pound of brown 
sugar and a half pint ot^ molasses; simmer 
them in three quarts of water till well dis- 
solved, then place the mixture in a wooden or 
stone pot, cover it over, and place behind the 
stove in a warm situation. In about six or 



621 



seven weeks you will find floating on the top a 
tough, fleshy substance — this is the vinegar 
plant; the mixture will have turned to vinegar, 
but of a poorer quality than will be manurac- 
tured with its aid. Now prepare a mixture as 
before, and when eoo/isA, lay over it the vinegar 
plant, A bit of lathing or shingle should be 
laid upon the mixture before placing the plant 
over it, as the vinegar is of a purer quality if 
the plant does not lie wholly upon it. Set it 
behind the stove or beside the range, covering 
it closely, and in two weeks or more, taste it; 
if sharp vinegar, bottle it, and continue your 
manufacture. The vinegar is of a dark color, 
but of far better quality than what is bought 
generally for cider vinegar, but has never seen 
apples. It is probable that what is termed the 
"mother" in vinegar is closely allied to this 
plant, and might be employed by those who 
desire to produce a "vinegar plant" without 
delay. The cost of vinegar made in this man- 
ner is extremely small, and as it is a condiment 
so universally employed in culinary matters, 
we recommend it tu our readers. We do not 
think th.at there is anything deleterious in its 
properties!, and it would certainly give many 
families a large supply of vinegar, who would 
be unable to procure it in any other manner. 
A small wooden butter firkin would be an ex.- 
cellent utensil for the preparation, as it could 
be covered tightly. 

Corn Vinegar. — Boil a peck of shelled corn 
in ten gallons of water until reduced half — 
strain off the liquid, mix with it a half gallon 
of molasses and as much good vinegar, and 
expose to the sun and air as you were directed 
for cider. 

Bed Vinegar. — Wash a bushel Of sugar-beets, 
then grate and press out the juice; put this 
into an empty barrel, cover the bung-hole with 
gauze and set in the sun. In a fortnight it 
will be fit for use. 

Tomato Vinegar. — Mash the tomatoes in an 
open tub, and add a quart of molasses to each 
bushel. Let the pomace ferment until it begins 
to have a decided vinegar odor, stirring it fre- 
quently during the several days it stands. Then 
Ftrain the juice from the pomace, and put into 
casks, and let it stand until the process is com- 
pleted, which will be greatly facilitated if you 
can add one gallon of good cider vinegar to 
every ten gallons of tomato juice. 

Strawberry Vinegar. — Pour one quart good 
vinegar on two quarts very ripe strawberries, 
and let them stand three days. Then drain 
the vinegar through a wire strainer, or a jelly 



bag, and pour it on to the same quantity of 
fresh berries. Repeat this the third time, then 
add a pint of sugar to the strained juice — boil 
it a few minutes, and when cool, bottle and 
cork. A table-spoonful in a glass of watcl 
makes a delicious cooling drink. 

Raspberry Vinegar. — Red raspberries, any 
quantity, or suiEcient to fill a stone jar nearly 
full; then pour upon them sufficient vinegar to 
cover them. Cover the jar closely and set it 
aside for eight or ten days, then strain through 
flannel or muslin and add to the clear liquor 
three-quarters of a pound of sugar to each pint; 
place over the fire and boil gently for a few 
minutes, then allow it to cool and bottle for use. 
This makes, when mixed with water, a delight- 
ful Summer drink; also, very beneficial for 
convalescents. 

Currant Vinegar. — About a bushel and a half 
of ripe currants well pressed, and the juice put 
into a molasses or syrup barrel, with six quarts 
of syrup, and filled up with water, will make a 
barrel of excellent vinegar. 

Aromatic Vinegar. — Dissolve two ounces pul- 
verized camphor in one pint strongly concen- 
trated vinegar, and half an ounce each of oils 
garden lavender, cloves, and rosemary. Keep 
it in small phials with glass stopples. 

Hams. — The ham is one of the most val- 
uable parts of the hog, and, if properly cured, 
may be preserved almost any length of time, 
retaining its fine qualities. The hams most 
esteemed are made from hogs which are al- 
lowed considerable exercise, and are fed on 
solid food, corn being the best — animals which 
do not weigh more than two hundred or two 
hundred and fifty pounds, and which have a 
large portion of muscular or lean flesh in their 
structure. When taken from the hog, the edges 
hould be rounded ofl', or trimmed, and the first 
tep in the preparation is the pickling or'salt- 
ng. To do this almost every farmer or butcher 
has his own way, some applying the salt dry to 
the ham, and repeating the operation of rub- 
bing in until the requisite sallness is attained, 
while others prefer making a brine and salting 
the hams in that way. 

Each method has its advocates, and many of 
which do not essentially differ from each other. 
We shall give a few of the processes that have 
become the most noted, that the farmer may 
choose the one he shall deem most proper or 
convenient: 

1. The Westpbalian hams are much esteemed, 
and the pickle in which they are prepared is 



62: 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY 



essentially as follows: "Boil together over a 
gentle fire six jiounds of good common salt, two 
pounds of powdered loaf sugar, three ounces of 
saltpeter, and three gallons of spring water. 
Sliim it while boiling, and when quite cold 
pour it over the hams, every part of which 
must be covered with the brine. Hams in- 
tended for smoking will be sufficiently .salted in 
this brine in two weeks; though if very large, 
more ti/ue may be allowed. This pickle tnay 
be used repeatedly, if boiled, and fresh ingre- 
dients added. Hams, before they are put in 
the pickle, should be soaked in water, all the 
blood pressed out, and wiped dry." 

2. A correspondent gives the following, after 
twenty years practice: " I mea.su re a bushel of 
salt, spread it upon a table, weigh a pound of 
saltpeter, pulverize it carefully, and mix thor- 
oughly witli the salt. This mixture is sufficient 
for one thou.sand pounds of small meat or eight 
hundred of large, to be well rubbed on every 
piece and more especially on the fleshy .surface. 
It' the weather is mild and the meat small, four 
weeks will be long enough for the pieces to 
be packed; but if the weather is cold and the 
meat large, it should be taken up at the end 
of four weeks, well rubbed again with salt in 
case the first has dissolved, and lie two weeks 
longer." 

3. John Cockrill of Woodland, Alabama, 
in the Southern Cultivator, thus describes his 
method of curing hams : " My rule is to makt 
a .strong tea of red peppers, then to mix salt and 
hickory ashes, say one-fiith ashes; then moisten 
the mass with the pepper tea, and rub the hams 
and shoulders on the skin side with about a tea- 
spoonful of saltpeter to each joint; I then rub 
in the salt well, then rub the flesh side and 
pack it with salt, and place the pieces in a 
trough or tub. I let it remain tuidisturbed for 
six weeks; when \ knock off the loose salt, 
take tine pea meal, and rub it completely over 
the flesh side and hang it in the smoke-house. 
The meal will form a close crust and keep off 
the skipper fly" 

4. The following is one of the easiest and 
most expeditious methods of curing and smok- 
ing hams, and We know makes a very resjiect- 
able article. Take a good tight barrel, white 
oak is the best, take out one head, and invert 
it over a pan or kettle in which a smoke of 
hard wood chip.s, or cobs, is to be kept up for 
eight or ten days. Water must be kept on the 
head of the- barrel to prevent it from drying. 
A pickle is made of six gallons of water, twelve 
pounds of salt, twelve ounces of .saltpeter and 



two quarts of molasses, dissolved together in a 
kettle, boiled, and the scum taken ofl'. The 
hams are packed in the barrel, the brine, cold, 
is turned on to them, and in one weel*lhe hams 
are fit for use. 

5. What is termed the Virginia mode, or in 
some places, the dry method of curing, as the 
hams do not lie in pickle at all, is as follov;s: 

For each ham take a spoonful of saltpeter (a 
large tea-spoon will do), pulverize it finely and 
apply it; rub each piece with salt well on both 
sides, an<l pack them in hogsheads with holes 
bored in the bottom to let off the brine. Let 
them remain five or six weeks; then take them 
out, brush off the salt, rub each well with hick- 
ory ashes, and hang each piece in the smoke- 
house. 

6. The celebrated pickle called the "Empress 
of Russia's Brine, and much used in Europe 
for curing hams : Six pounds of common salt, 
two pounds of powdered loaf sugar, three ounces 
of saltpeter, and three gallons of spring water, 
are boiled together, skimmed, and when quite 
cold, poured over the meat, every part of which 
must be kept contantly covered. In this pickle 
hams of medium size are cured for smoking in 
two weeks. 

7. " As soon as the hog is cold enough to 
be cut up, take the two hams and cut out the 
round bone, so as to have the ham not too 
thick; rub them well with common salt, and 
leave them in a large pan for three days. When 
the salt has drawn out all the blood, throw the 
brine away, and proceed as follows : Have two 
hams of about eighteen pounds each, take one 
pound of moist sugar, one pound of common 
salt, two ounces of saltpeter; then put them 
into a vessel large enough to contain them in 
the liquor, remembering always to keep the 
salt over them; after they have been in this 
state three days, throw over them a bottle of 
the best vinegar. One month is requisite for 
the cure of them ; during that period they must 
be turned often in the brine; when you take 
them out, drain them well; powder them witli 
some coarse flour, and hang them in a dry place. 
The .same brine can serve again, observing 
that you must not put so much salt on the next 
hams that you pickle. This method has been 
tried, and pronounced far better than the West- 
phalia." 

8. A French chemist strongly deprecates the 
use of saltpeter in curing meat, and recommenda 
sugar as more wholesome and equally effica- 
cious. He attributes scurvy, ulcers, and other 
diseases to which mariners, and otlicr persons 



623 



living on cured provisions are subject, entirely 
to the chemical changes produced by saltpeter. 

He calls attention to the fact that meat may 
be preserved in the most perfect manner by 
molasses alone. It has an agreeable flavor ; it 
produces no scurvy, or other disorders which 
result from the use of salt food, and it may be 
prepared at a moderate price. The process 
consists simply in cutting the meat into pieces 
of moderate size, and dropping them into mo- 
lasses, or rubbing them frequently and thor- 
oughly with molasses, until some of the lighter 
juices of the' meat pass out and the molasses is 
absorbed in their place. The ham, or meat, is 
then thoroughly washed and hung in a current 
of air to dry. 

9. .'V farmer contributes his method of curing 
hams with dry sugar, as follows: "To cure a 
ham of fifteen pounds weight requires one 
pound of good brown sugar, two ounces refined 
and ground saltpeter, and a half pound ground 
sea salt. First application — saltpeter and cover 
the face of the hara with sugar a quarter of an 
inch thick; on the fifth day, rub the skin side 
with sugar. Second application — saltpeter and 
mixture of three parts sugar and one part salt ; 
on the seventh day, rub as before. Third ap- 
piicntion — half sugar and half salt; in seven 
days, rub as before. Fourth application — same 
as last; in seven days, rub with sugar and salt. 
Fifth application — good molasses as long as the 
meat will absorb it." Weak stomachs, that 
reject salted hams, often find them palatable 
and delicious when cured with sugar. 

Smvkiiig Ilavis. — JIuch of the goodness of a 
ham depends on the manner in which it is 
smoked or dried. If the process is carried for- 
ward too rapidly ; if the meat is not a sufficient 
distance from the fire; if, from any cause, such 
as want of ventilation, dampness of smoke- 
house, etc., the meat is kept moist on the sur- 
face, and in a wet or dripping state, it is idle to 
expect good or fine-flavored haras. In Vir- 
ginia the best hams are not considered thor- 
oughly smoked in less time than two months, 
not keeping a smoke under them day and night 
for this time, but making a good Jmoke under 
them every morning, or daily. In this way 
they are cured by the smoke gradually and 
thoroughly. Indeed, the great art in smoking 
seems to consist in drying the meat by the smoke 
and not by heat. Hams may be smoked in a 
much less time than this, but they will not be 
of as fine a quality, nor will they keep as well. 
Nothing but materials that will produce smoke 
free from all unpleasant odors should be used 



for smoking haras. Hickory or maple are first- 
rate; oak or ash will do very well; and the 
cobs of sound, well-cured Indian corn make a 
good penetrating smuke. Hams are frequently 
injured by being too much exposed to too much 
heat in the process of smoking. To avoid this, 
at Hamburg, the smoking establishments, for 
both hams and beef, are in the upper stories of 
three or four-story buildings, and the fire for 
producing the smoke is in the basement part 
of the building. The smoke is conducted in 
tubes, and every precaution is used that the 
smoke shall be thoroughly cooled in its passage. 
In hanging up hams for smoking, care must be 
taken that they do not touch each other, and 
lliey should invariably be suspended so that 
the small part of the ham shall be down, as 
this will prevent the escape of the juice by 
dripping. 

Smoke-houses should be so constructed that 
the smoke is admitted at the top of the build- 
ing; the haras being near a dry floor, the smoke 
settles on the meat after being cooled. Hot 
sraoke should never touch meat. Smoke very 
slowly, using green hickory, or seasoned corn- 
cobs, smothered with sawdust. Hickory, white 
oak, or maple sawdust is preferred. ■ Sassafras 
fuel is said to render hams very savory. Peii- 
per vines or red peppers thrown on the fire will 
warn off the bug and fly. 

Keeping Hams. — Various methods have been 
recommended for the preservation of hams, 
such as packing them in cut straw, the tow of 
flax, ashes, fine charcoal, and many other ways. 
The great object is to keep theui cool and dry, 
and away from flics. Tow will efi'ectually ex- 
clude flies; charcoal assists greatly in preserv- 
ing them sweet ; and ashes secure their dryness ; 
but all these plans are open to the objection of 
making the ham dirty, or leaving it liable to 
mold. A good method is to place each ham in 
a bag of cotton cloth, closely tied up and white- 
washed, and hung up in a close and dark smoke- 
house. Flies will not infest any place from 
which light is wholly excluded, an<l if a smoke 
is made under them once a week, it will greatly 
aid their preservation. Another mode is to 
bury them in oats or some other grain, but 
they are more apt to become injured from want 
of ventilation. Whatever mode i.s adopted, it 
is of vital importance that the work is done 
early in tlje Spring, before the fiies are stirring. 

The following is an excellent method : Make 
bags of unbleached cotton cloth, put the hams 
in, and then put in a layer of fine soft hay all 
around them, so as to nuike a stratum of hav 



624 



DOMESTIC ECONOMY : 



between the cloth and the hams. If merely 
Ijagged the flies will thrust their ovipositors 
through the cloth and sting the meat; but the 
interposed hay keeps tliera off, and if hung in 
a dry and cool place, the preventive will never 
fail. There is no method of keeping that is 
superior to this. 

A Kentucky lady gives this as her way : 
" After hams have been smoked, take them 
down, thoroughly rub the flesh part with mo- 
lasses, then immediately apply ground or pow- 
dered red or black pepper, by sprinkling on as 
much as will stick to the mohisses, and rub 
Bome red pepper on the hock, when they must 
be hung uj) again to dry. Hams treated in this 
manner will keep perfectly sweet for two or 
tliree years." 

To Keep Hams for Frying.— Some housewives, 
instead of preserving the ham whole, by any 
of the above methods, slice it up as if for cook- 
ing, remove the rind and the bones, and fry 
partially; tlien pack closely in a stone jar, 
from time to time pouring in the hot grease, to 
fill all the spaces and exclude the air. When 
the jar is full, cover with hot lard or the grease 
from the bam, and set away for u.se. When 
opened, the space made by taking out the meat 
should be tilled with melted grease. Avoid the 
danger of molding by using no grease from 
which the water has not been thoroughly boiled. 
Some people pack the raw meat in the same 
manner — but experience indicate.s cooking to 
be the better way. Of course this only applies 
to hams intended for frying. Any housewife 
will appreciate llie convenience of having the 
meat ready to put in tlie pan, when breakfast or 
dinner must come in a hurry. 

Perhaps all of our readers are not aware that 
steak (pork and beef), sausages, puddings, etc., 
can be kept fresh the "year round" by frying 
and seasoning when fresh, the same as for tlie 
table, packing down in crocks or lard cans, and 
pouring hot lard over them, covering about one 
inch. When needed, scrape off the lard and 
heat through. 

Packing Beef and Pork. — The usual method 
is to set a strong, clean, and well-hooped barrel 
under a beam in the cellar ; then cut the meat 
into convenient pieces and pack it closely in 
layers on the edges, with salt and sugar or mo- 
lasses in the bottom and between the layers. 
Tlie meat should be pounded down so as to ex- 
clude the air. Many formers use from half a 
bushel to a bushel of salt to a barrel — but this 
is quite too much ; it tends to toughen the meat. 
One more reasonable firmer says : " For one 



hundred pounds of beef, mix four quarts fine 
.salt, four ounces saltpeter pulverized, and four 
pounds brown sugar." Another recommends: 
" Six quarts of good coarse suit is full enough 
for a barrel of family beef put down in the 
Fall, together with three-quarters of a pound I 
of saltpeter, and three pints or two quarts of 
molasses. Repacking in the Spring used to 
be the old style, but it is unnecessary. It is 
surprising that one-half the people will throw 
on a bushel of salt for the purpose of making 
their beef as hard as a lapstone, when with no 
more expense it may be kept as tender as a 
fresh steak." 

The Country Gentleman says : " By most of 
the modes now in use, the beef becomes too 
much impregnated with salt, and is not, as a 
consequence, so fine for eating. liy the follow- 
ing process this difficulty is prevented, and the 
beef will keep till the following Summer: To 
eight gallons of water add two pounds of brown 
sugar, one quart of molasses, four ounces of 
niter, and fine salt till it will float an egg. This 
is enough for two common quarters of beef." 

Cleansing or Renovating Brine.- — To five gal- 
lons of brine, add one egg, broken and stirred 
in, and then bring to a gentle boiling and skim 
and cool for use. Saltpeter added tj brine, at 
the rate of two to four ounces to the one hun- 
dred pounds of meat, gives it a fine reddish 
color. A little brown sugar adds to the flavor 
of beef and pork, particularly for smoking, be- 
sides pos.sessing an antiseptic quality. 

Bacon. — Geo. Geddes recommends: "Next 
pig-killing season let any one try curing bacon, 
and I am sure they will never be without it in 
future. The trouble is not half so great. I 
will tell you just how mine was managed. I 
cut ofl' the head and feet, then cut down the 
back and took out all the bones with as little 
meat to them as possible ; shook pepper and 
sugar on these flitches, and then a good coating 
of salt (not rock). Put them on the floor of 
an unoccupied airy out-room, cm a bench, or 
aught else would do, and looked them over 
once a week, shaking a little more salt where it 
.seemed necessary, and at the end of six weeks 
smoked it, and now every part is delicious." 

To Keep Meat Fresh. — Mrs. L. A. Muller 
says: "Take enough water to cover the meat, 
make it moderately salt, and to each bucketful 
of water — the common wooden bucket — takp 
one large table-spoonful of sulphite of lime, 
and one tea-spoonful of saltpeter. It is all-im- 
portant to keep every particle of meat under 
water by a press. Soak the meat in fresh water 



TO KEEP FRESH MEAT, ETC. 



625 



over night, before using it, and it will be almost 
as good as fresh. I found veal kept in this 
way, at the end of six weeks, a.s good as when 
first butchered, and beef, at the end of ten 
weeks, fresh enough to make excellent soup and 
roasts. As the season advances, and the heat 
increases, use more of the sulphite." 

Many a housewife may be glad to know 
when she has a piece of fresh meat she wishes 
to keep a few day.s, that it can be successfully 
done by placing it in a dish and covering it 
with buttermilk. 

According t<f a recipe recently patented in 
England, meat of any kind may be preserved 
in any temperature afler it has been soaked for 
ton minutes in a solution made of the following 
ingredients, well mixed: One pint of common 
s:ilt dissoh'ed in four gallons of clear cold 
water, and half a gallon of the bisulphite of 
calcium solution. It is said that experiments 
show that meats so prepared will keep ibr 
twelve days in a temperature of from eighty to 
one hundred and ten degrees, and preserve their 
odor and flavor unimpaired. By repeating the 
process, meats may be indefinitely preserved, 
and if it be desired to keep them an unusually 
long time, a little solution of gelatin^ or white 
of egg may be added to tlie wash. 

To Keep Minced-Meat. — Mince-meat may be 
kept entirely sweet for months, at any time of 
year, by packing it in stone jar.s, and covering 
tlie surface with, say lialf an inch of molasses, 
to exclude the air. 

Tn Restore Tainted Meut.—U salted, wash it 
and throw away tlie brine, then replace it with 
tlie following composition, and allow it to re- 
main in it for a few days: Fresh burnt char- 
coal, powdered, twelve parts ; common salt, 
eleven pai-ts; saltpeter, four parts. Mix. This 
is to be used the same as common .salt. When 
the meat is to be cooked, the black color may 
be removed with cle.iu water. 

Pickled beef and pork in the South and 
West is apt to sour. Take it out and smoke it 
dry; throw away the old pickle or cleanse it 
by boiling; smoke the barrel thoroughly and 
repack the meat. 

Souse. — Clean pig's feet and ears tlioroughly, 
and soak them a number of days in salt and 
water; boil them tender and split them. They 
are good fried. To souse them cidd. pour boil- 
ing vinegar over them, spiced with mace and 
pepper-corns. Cloves give them a dark color, 
but improve their taste. If a little salt be 
added, they will keep good, pickled, for a' 
month or two. 
40 



Head-Cheese. — Boil the several parts of the 
entire head and the feet in the same way as for 
souse. AH must be boiled .so perfectly tender 
as to have the meat easily separate from the 
bones. After neatly separated, chop the meat 
fine while warm, seasoning with salt, pepper, 
and other spices to taste. Put it in a strong bag, 
and, placing a weight on it, let it remain till 
cold. Or put it in any convenient dish, placing 
a plate with a weight on it to press the meat. 
Cut it in slices, roll in flour, and fry in lard. 

To Try Out. Lard.— To have sweet lard at all 
times, let the pork be cut up just as soon after 
killing as po.ssible; render it without water, 
and be sure you cook it till well done; pack it 
in stone jars, or sweet oak tubs. Adding to 
every ten pounds of rough lard a table-spoonful, 
of saleratus during the process of trying out. 

Lard, in trying, is very frequently injured by 
being scorched. This difficulty is easily re- 
moved by paring and slicing a few raw potatoes, 
and throwing them in immediately. The orig- 
inal whiteness will be restored. Lard will not 
be likely to spoil in warm weather, if it be 
cooked enough in trying out. 

To Hestore Raneid Lard. — Pot skimmings, 
rancid lard, or bacon fat, may be made sweet 
by being put into a kettle, adding two or three 
potatoes, pared and sliced, and letting them 
fry in the grease until they are browned. 
Your grease or lard will then be free from all 
unpleasant taste, and suitable for shortening, or 
to fry doughnuts in. 

Tripe. — Marketable tripe is the paunch, or 
large stomach of beef, taken fresh, cleansed 
thoroughly and boiled until it is tender. The 
contents should be carefully emptied through 
a hole in the side, and turned wrongside sut. 
The orifice should afterward be sewed up, and 
the whole sack thorouglily washed in cold 
water. If should then be soaked in milk of 
lime, made by slaking quicklime to a creamy 
consistence ; or else placed in a tub of strong 
alkali, made of lime, or wood ashes, or potash, 
and kept there until all the dark-colored coat- 
ing is so loosened tliat it may easily be scraped 
off with a knife. Give the sack another thor- 
ough washing; then cut into long. strips, lay 
them on a board and scrape with a dull luiife 
until quite free of the adhering coat. Wash 
again; put the tripe asoak in weak brine for a 
day or two; boil until quite tender, pickle in 
salt and spices, and put away to be eaten fresh 
after recookiug by stewing, frying or broiling. 
Tripe is a rare dainty for all those who know 
how to save it and how to cook it. 



626 



DOMESTIC economy: 



Presci-ve Udders. — Don't throw away the udder 
of your beef cow; salted, smoked, and dried, it 
is rich, delicious eating. Boil and eat it cold, 
like tongue. 

To Pickle Tongues. — Cut off the root leaving 
a little of the kernel and fat. Sprinkle some 
salt over it, and let it drain twenty-four hours; 
then for each tongue mix a table-spoonful of 
common salt, the same quantity of coarse .«ugar, 
11 small quantity of saltpeter reduced to a pow- 
der, and rub it well into each tongue every day. 
In a week add another heaped spoonful of 
salt. If rubbed every day, a tongue will be 
suHiciently pickled for drying in a fortnight; 
but if only turned daily in the pickle, it will 
require four or five weeks. Tongues may be 
smoked or dried plain, as may best suit the 
taste. The longer kept after drying, the higher 
will be their flavor. If hard, they should be 
soaked three or four hours before boiling. 
When dressed, allow five hours for boiling, as 
their excellence consists in being made exceed- 
ingly tender. 

Sausages. — The following is a general 
receipt for the proper seasoning of sausages — 
much better than the old clumsy method of 
" testing and trying." To thirty pounds of 
meat add ten ounces of fine salt, three ounces 
of sage, two ounces good black pepper, a little 
cinnamon, and mix them well together. The 
sage .should be well rubbed between the hands, 
or through a sieve, before using. After the 
ingredients are thoroughly incorpurated, apply 
them to all parts of the meat, before chopping. 
Some add a little more salt, but this propor- 
tion is enough for most people 

That etEcient little machine, a sausage cut- 
ter is almost as necessary to the housewife who 
would have good sausages, as a coffee-mill is if 
she would have good coffee. Select the tender- 
loins and tender pieces from hogs, at the time 
of cutting up for salting; take one-fourth (or 
a third if the hogs are not very fat) of the 
backbone fat, and cut it with the lean, and 
incorporate the fiit and lean thoroughly. The 
proportion of fat meat to lean will depend 
somewhat on the taste of different people, but 
there should in all cases be a sufficient amount 
of fat in them to supply what is needed in 
cooking. If the pork you design for sausage 
contains too little lean, you can supply the 
deficiency by adding beef, which is less expen- 
sive, and which forms with the pork a mixture 
which is preferred by many to pork alone. 

Pass the meat twice through a sausage-mill ; 



chop the fat very fine with a cleaver, for grind- 
ing reduces it to a paste, and it is lost in frying. 

Sausage to suit a dyspeptic can not be pre- 
pared without stufling. The small entrails of 
hogs must be well cleaned and scraped until all 
the fat is removed, turned and soaked in brine 
twenty-four hours ; pour over the meat hot red- 
pepper tea with a little saltpeter di.ssolved in it, 
sufficient to moisten the mass ; then stuff and 
hang in a smoke-house, and smoke two days 
with cobs or hickory wood ; be careful not to 
smoke for more than two days. 

If you do not like it smoked, it need not be 
stufl'ed, but can be satisfactorily prepared by 
molding into balls the size of an egg, and 
then laying in jar.s, covering with melted lard, 
and tying closely down with strong paper, till 
used. 

Another way to preserve .sausage meat is in 
new cotton bags a foot long and two or three 
inches in diameter, which after filling are dip- 
ped in and coated with jnelted lard. When 
used, the bag is sliced oil with the meat, as it 
is much easier to make new ones than to pre- 
serve the old. 

Now for cooking. Flour the outside of the 
cakes and. fry without anything; perhaps after 
they get a little dry, a jjiece of fot pork may be 
needed. The main art and secret of sausage 
making is to proportion the seasoning so that 
no one article will predominate. Some pre- 
fer other herbs besides sage, such as Summer 
savory and thyme, and there are a few who 
relish spices of various kinds; but where sau- 
sages are to be made to suit the tastes of several 
persons, we must be careful not to add any sub- 
stance that will offend the taste of any one. 

Veal Sausages. — Take two pounds of lean 
veal and one pound of salt fat pork ; chop oi 
grind as you would sausage meat; add salt, 
pepper, sage, etc , and you will have delicious 
sausages, far preferable to pork or veal cooked 
separately. 

MMon Sausages. — Take a pound of the raw- 
est part of a leg of mutton that has been either 
roasted or boiled; chop it small, and season it 
with pepper, salt, mace, and nutmeg; add six 
ounces of beef-suet, some sweet herbs, and a 
pint of oysters (all chopped very small), a 
quarter of a pound of grated bread, and the 
yolks and whites of two eggs well beaten. Put 
it all, when well mixed, into a little pot; and 
use it by rolling it into balls or sausage-shape, 
and frying. 

Peef Sausages. — Very good sausages can be 
made by cutting together beef and suet, in the 



MII.K — BUTTER. 



G27 



proportion of two of beef to one of suet, sea- 
soning as aljove. 

Bologna Sausages. — Tal<e equal quantities of 
bacon, fat and lean, beef, veal, pork, and beef- 
suet; chop them small, season with pepper, 
salt, etc., sweet Iierbs and sage rubbed fine. 
Have a well-washed intestine, fill and prick it; 
boil gently for an hour, and lay on straw to dry. 
They may be smoked the same as hams. 

To Preserve Suet. — As soon as it 

comes in, choose the firmest part of it; care- 
fully separating all the skin and veins, and 
putting it in a sauce-pan at such a distance from 
the fire as to melt it slowly witliout frying. 
AVhen in a hard cake, wipe it quite dry, fold it 
in fine paper, put it in a bag, and keep it in a 
cool place, and it may be preserved iu a sound 
state for a year. 

Milk. — To Keep Sweet. — A tea-spoonful of 
fine salt or of horse-radish, in^a pan of milk, 
will keep it sweet for several days. 

Milk can be kept a year or more as sweet as 
when taken from the cow, by the following 
method : Procure bottles, which must be per- 
fectly clean, sweet and dry; draw the milk 
from the cow into the bottles, and, as the}' are 
filled, immediately cork them well, and fasten 
the corks with pack-thread or wire- Then 
spread a little straw in the bottom of a boiler, 
on which place bottles, with straw between 
them, until the boiler contains a sufficient 
quantity. Fill it up with cold water, heat the 
water, and, as soon as it begins to boil, draw 
the fire, and let the whole gradually cool. 
When quite cold, take out the bottles, and pack 
them in sawdust, in hampers, and stow them 
in the coolest part of the house. 

Butter. — Under the head of The Dairy, 

we have treated milk, butter, and chee.'se in de- 
tail ; we only return to them in order to state 
more explicitly some methods of preserving. 
" Make clean butter;" this is the first condition 
of keeping butter sweet. 

To Harden Butler in Suinmer. — A simple 
mode of making butter hard in warm weather, 
where ice is not handy, is to invert a common 
flower-pot over the butter, with some water in 
the dish in which the butter is laid. The ori- 
fice at the bottom may be corked or not. It 
will be still cooler if the crock be wrapped 
with a wet cloth. The rapid abstraction of 
heat by external evaporation causes the butter 
to become hard. 



To Pot Butter/or winter.— TUc nsu;.l me!lH..l 
is to pack it in stone jars, with alternate layers 
of salt and butter, having .salt at the bottom of 
the jar and a layer of salt at the top ; rock salt 
is the best. The following is said to be a supe- 
rior mode of keeping butter sweet: Mix a 
large spoonful of powdered white sugar, one of 
saltpeter, and one of salt; work this quantity 
into every six pounds of fresh-made butter; 
put it in a stone pot that is thoroughly cleansed, 
having a thick layer of salt on top. 

To Keep Butler Freah for Years. — "Most 
kinds of wood contain considerable quantities 
of pyroligenous acid, which decomposes salt in 
butter kept in such tubs. The lindep, or bass- 
wood is the only one, which, it appears by 
careful experiment, is free from it ; others, it is 
stated, may be freed from it, and thus rendered 
suitable, by boiling three or four hours, well 
pressed under water. Good butter is to be well 
churned, and worked, and packed hard and 
tight in kegs of seasoned white oak ; the head 
is then put in, leaving a small hole into which 
brine is poured to fill the vacant space; and of 
so much importance is it deemed, to prevent 
any bad taste, that the plugs for the hole must 
not be made of cedar or pine, but of cypress or 
basswood, as otherwise it would be injured, 
.\fter which these kegs are placed in a hogs- 
head, well filled with brine of solution, that 
will bear an egg, which is then headed up tight 
and close. This is the mode pursued iu Orange 
county. New York, and the butler will keep at 
sea, and. in warm climates, and commands a 
very high price." 

The farmers of Aberdeen, Scotland, are said 
to practice the following method of curing 
their butter, which gives it a great superiority 
over that of their neighbors : " Take two quarts 
of the best common salt, three ounces of sugar, 
and one ounce of common saltpeter ; take one 
ounce of this composition for one pound of 
butter, work it well into the mass, and close it 
up for use. The butter cured with this mix- 
ture appears of a rich marrowy consistency and 
fine color, and never acquires a brittle liard- 
ness nor tastes salty. Dr. Anderson says : ' I 
have eaten butter cured with the above compo- 
sition that has been kept for three years, and it 
was as sweet as at first.' It must be noted, 
however, that butter thus cured requires to 
stand three weeks or a month before it is used " 

This mode of saving butter with saltpeter 
and sugar is much in vogue iu this country ; 
and is especially valuable for making a brine, 
in the proportions of two parts salt to one of 



628 



DOMKSTIC ecoxomt: 



sallpeler and one of sugar, for laving down 
for Winter nse bnller tiiat lias been worked 
over. 

To Sweeten Huncid Butter. — There are two 
methods of successfully purifying rancid but- 
ter so as to make it nice for the table. 

1. Cut or break the butter into very small 
pieces ; or, what is better, force it through a 
coarse-wire sieve, so as to make it small as pos- 
sible. Then put it into a churn with a suffi- 
cient quantity of new milk to swim it, and 
churn it well; then take it out and work it 
thoroughly to free it from the milk, adding a 
little salt if nece.ssary, and it will hardly be 
distinguished from entirely new butter. 

2. To a pint of water add thirty drops (about 
half a tea-spoonful) of liquor of chloride of 
lime. Wash in this two and.a half pounds of 
rancid butter. When every particle of butter 
has come in contact with the water, let it stand 
an hour or two, then wash the butter well again 
in pure water. The butter is then left without 
any odor, and has thesweetness'of fresh butler. 
Tbese preparations of lime have nothing inju- 
rious in them. 

Cheese. — To Keep Sound. — ^Wash it in warm 
whey once a month, wipe it, and keep it on a 
rack ; if you wish it to ripe keep it in a damp 
cellar, which will bring it forward. When a 
whole cheese is cut the largest piece should be 
spread on the inside with butter, and the out- 
side wiped dry to preserve it ; and to keep that 
which is in daily use moi.st,iet a clean_ cloth be 
wet and wrapped around it wlien taken from 
the table. 

Cottage Cheese, or Smear Case. — Pour over a 
crock or pan of thick milk sufficient boiling 
water to cover the surface; let it stand half an 
hour in a warm place or until the whey begins 
to separate, then pour it into a thin muslin bag 
and hang it up in as cgld a place as possible 
without freezing, until the water and whey are 
strained ofl". In Winter this cheese can be kept 
from one day to the ne.Kt ; but in Summer it 
spoils before the ne.\t meal. The milk must be 
thick, but not old. If left standing until the 
whey separates from the curd before scalding, 
the cheese will be stale. The milk should not 
be stirred before scalding. 

Potato Cheese. — Boil good white potatoes, peel 
them, and wlien cold, mash tliem until not the 
least lump remains. To five pounds of this 
add one pint of sour milk, and as much salt as 
you thiidc suitable. Work it well, and cover it 
well, letting it remain three or four days, ac- 



cording to the .season ; then knead it again — 
nnike tlie cheese the size yon like, and dry 
them in the shade. Put them in layers in 
large pots or kegs, and let them remain for a 
fortnight. They will be good for years, if kept 
in close vessels in a dry place. 

Cream Cheese. — Put about a tea-cupful of 
thick cream on a folded napkin, place on a tea- 
saucer. As soon as it is firm enough turn it 
over upon another napkin. Repeat three times, 
at intervals of about six hours. Serve with 
parsley and rub salt outside. 

Eg'g'S. — The changes which eggs undergo, 
arising chiefly,, if not wholly, from aKsorption 
of air through the shell, the means of preser- 
vation must be similar to thase we have seen 
necessary in so many other instances. To ac- 
complish exclusion of air, some pack the eggs 
standing on the small end, in corn meal, others 
in lime water, others in brine. These last two 
methods are efiectual for a considerable time, 
but the most successful means is to cover the 
egg with fat or oil or butter. Thus prepared, 
a newly-laid egg will remain six months with- 
out perceptible change. Salt and lime are apt 
to cook the eggs somewhat, but they emerge 
from their greasy coat as fresh as when tliey 
received it. 

A great point made by many is to have the 
egg stand on end— some housekeepers are very 
sure that it is quite indispensable that the small 
end should be down ; others are equally sure 
that they should rest on the large end. Both 
are very successful. They may be packed in 
oats, dry sawdust, or any other material that 
will hold them in this position. They should 
be kept in a cool, dry room. The philosoiihy 
of standing them on end is that it keeps the 
yolk from .settling against the shell. 

The Northwestern Farmer gives the following 
process : " Take a sieve, and cover the bottom 
with eggs; then pour boiling water upon them, 
sufficient to give them a thorough wetting, per- 
mitting the water to pass off through the sieve. 
Take them out and dry them ; then pack them 
in bran, the small ends down; and your eggs 
will keep forever." This method coagulates a 
thin film of the while next the shell, and ren- 
ders it impervious to the air, which is the 
cause of the putrefactive stage — the shell being 
porous, and by laying a short time in one posi- 
tion, the yolk displaces the white and comes in 
contact with it and spoils. 

Dipping eggs in a solution of gum-arabic will 
preserve them efleclually ; pack in pulverized 



629 



cliarcoal or grain. Eggs can be kept two or 
lliree years by being rubbed witli a wiinu poiii- 
ade — one part beeswax and two parts sweet oil. 

Eggs can be canned like fruit ; pnt llie empty 
jar in licit water to rarify the air; pack the eggs 
in paper sl\avings within, and clo.se air tight 
before removing from the water. 

Testing the Quality. — Put your tongue to the 
larger end; if it feel warm the egg is fresh; 
or put tlie egg into a pan of cold water ; if per- 
fectly fresh it will sink immediately, and so in 
proportion to its freshness; a rotten egg will 
float on the top of the water. Or, look through 
at a light — if good, it will be translucent. 

Pickled Eg!}s. — -Boil the eggs until very hard ; 
when cold, shell them and cut them in halves 
lengthways. Place them carefully in large- 
mouthed jars, and pour over them scalding 
vinegar, well seasoned with whole pepper, all- 
spice, a few pieces of ginger, and a few cloves 
or garlic. When cold, tie up closely, and let 
them stand a month. They are then fit for 
use. With cold meat, they are a most delicious 
and delicate pickle. 

Packing Eggs. — An Eastern poultry-breeder 
packs egg.s by wrapping each egg in paper, put- 
ting them in a box with sawdust, and putting 
this box inside of a larger one, with hay packed 
around it to keep it from jarring. Good for 
long carriage 

Honey. — To Keep. — Heat strained honey 
to the boiling point and store it in covered jars, 
where it will keep without candying. To pre- 
vent danger of burning, set the vessel in which 
It is to be heated into another containing water. 

To Separate from llie Comb. — Put the honey, 
comb and all, in a tin pan, on or in a mod- 
eialely warm stove, adding to each pound of 
honey a table-spoonful of water. Stir it occa- 
sionally with a piece of wire; if anything large 
is used there will be an accumulation of dirty 
cold wax continually added to the hot mass. 
When the contents of the pan are perfectly 
liquid — it must not boil — set it where it can 
cool undisturbed. Then take a knil'e and pass 
it carefully around the pan to detach the cake 
of wax, etc., on the top, and rapidly, with great 
care, lift off the cake. Don't let it drain into 
the pan an instant, but place in another utensil. 
Any one thus clarifying honey will tind, on 
putting aside the cake of wax, that every par- 
ticle of impurity that would have to be strained 
from the honey, will have adhered to the cake 
of wax, and nothing remains beneath but the 
golden-colored honey, clear as water. If the 



honey should, in time, candy, heat it again 
with a very little water and white sugar. Keep 
in jars, tied up, in a cool place. Break up the 
wax cake and wash in cold water till cleansed 
from the honey. Then melt and strain it. To 
bleach the wax, boil it, after straining, for an 
hour, in plenty of water, in which use a few 
drops of chloride of soda. When quite cold, 
lift off the wax and leave it to dry and whiten 
in the open air. 

Some prefer to strain the honey as folhiws: 
Make a strainer of cloth, then pick out every 
dead bee, break up the comb, put into the 
strainer, tie a loop at the top, and hang it near 
by the stove, with a small-topped vessel under 
it to catch the honey in. In this way the honey 
will be nice. To restore candied honey, let it 
be boiled and the scum removed. 

To Purify Honey. — Expose the honey in a 
wooden or other vessel that is not a good con- 
ductor of heat, in a place where neither sun or 
rain can touch it, for three weeks. The honey 
is not coagulated, but becomes clear. 

Artificial Honey. — Put two pounds of the 
purest white sugar in as much hot water as will 
dissolve it; take one pound of strained white- 
clover honey — any honey of good flavor will 
answer — and add it warm to syrup, thoroughly 
stirring them together. As refined loaf sugar 
is a pure and inodorous sweet, one pound of 
honey will give its flavor to two pounds of 
sugar, and the compound will be free from the 
smarting taste that pure honey often has, and 
will usually agree with those who can not eat 
the latter -with impunity. 

How to Clarify Fat. — In every household 
more or less fat of various kinds will accumu- 
late, which can not be used in cookery from its 
being mixed with foreign substances, as for in- 
stance the fat after frying sausages, or the fat 
from mutton. To every quart of such fat, peel 
and slice one good-sized raw potato; place the 
fat over the fire and pnt in the potato, and cook 
until the potato is cooked all up to a scrimp; 
then remove from the fire, skim out the potato 
and throw it away; let it settle and pour off 
the clear fat, which will be quite as sweet ami 
inodorous as fresh lard, and can be used for any 
purpose that lard may be used. 

To Keep FUh Fresh. — To keep fi.sh fresh, 
clean them and remove the gills ; in.sert pieces 
of charcoal in their mouths and bellies; if they 
are to be conve\'ed any distance, wrap each fish 
up separately in linen cloth; and place them in 
a box with cabbage leaves above and below. 

To Purify Molasses. — Boil and skim j'our 



630 



DOMESTIC ECOXOJIY : 



molasse'! beCore using it. Wlien applied for 
culinary purposes, this is a prortigioiis improve- 
ment. Boiling tends to divest it of its unpleas- 
ant, strong flavor, and renders it almost equal 
to honey. When large quantities are made use 
of, it is convenient to prepare several gallons at 
a time. 

Table Turnips for Winter. — .Vny one wishing 
to keep a few turnips for table use, fresh and 
plump as when taken from the ground, .'^hould 
throw a little not overmoist dirt over th^m, in 
some convenient place in the cellar. Try it, 
ye who love a tender, rather than a pithy, sticky 
dish of turnips for your dinner. 

To Keep Maple Syrup. — The Ohio Farmer 
says the best way to keep the syrup from losing 
flavor is to seal it up hot in cans, the same as 
fruit is sealed in the Fall. In the Spring of 
the year many of the fruit cans are empty, and 
can be used for this purpose. Put up in this 
way, maple syrup will keep perfectly and re- 
tain that nice flavor it has when first made, but 
which is lost in a few months, if kept in ordi- 
nary jugs or casks. 

To Purify a Sink. — In hot weather it is al- 
most impossible to prevent sinks becoming 
foul, unless some chemical preparation is used. 
One pound of copperas dissolved in four gallons 
of water, poured over a sink three or four 
times, will completely destroy the offensive 
odor. As a disinfectant agent to scatter around 
premises afl'ectcd with any unpleasant odor, 
nothing is better than a mixture of four parts 
dry ground plaster of Paris to one part of fine 
charcoal, by weight. .411 sorts of glass vessels 
and other utensils m.iy be eftectu.ally purified 
from ofiiensive smells by rinsing them with 
charcoal powder, after the grosser impurities 
have been scoured off with sand and soap. 

To Cleanse Water. — If a lump of alum as 
large as the thumb-joint is thrown into fourior 
five gallons of boiling soap-suds, the scum runs 
over and leaves the water clean and soft and 
useful for washing. We have often, in ancient 
times, "settled " a glass of Mississippi water, 
and made it look as " clear as a bell " in a few 
seconds, by lying a bit of alum to a string and 
twirling it around under the surface of the 
water in the glass. A little pulverized alum 
thrown into a pail of water and allowed to 
stand for fifteen or twenty minutes will precip- 
itate all the impurities, and leave it perfectly 
clear. 

To Extin(ju,i!ih Chimneys on Fire. — First shut 
the doors and windows of the room containing 
the fire, stop up the flue of the chimney with a 



piece of wet carpet or blanket, and then throw 
a little w.ater or common salt on the fire. By 
this means the draught of the chimney will be 
checked, and the burning soot will soon be ex- 
tinguished for want of air. 

To Remore the Taste of Neiv Wood. — A new 
keg, churn, bucket, or other wooden vessel, will 
generally comnmnicate a disagreeable taste to 
any thing that is put itito it. To prevent this 
inconvenience, first scald the ves.sel with boil-, 
ing water, letting the water remain in it until 
cold ; then dissolve .some pearlush or .soda in 
lukewarm water, adding lime to it, and wash 
the inside of the vessel well with this solution. 
.\fterward scald it well with plain hot water, 
and rinse it with cold waler before you use it. 

The " Poor Man's Filter."— In the food de- 
partment of the South Kensington Mu.seuni 
stands the "poor man's filter." It is an ordi- 
nary flower-pot, plugged (not tightly) at the 
bottom with sponge. A layer of coarsely-pow- 
dered charcoal, about one inch thick, is placed 
in the bottom of the pot, then another layer of 
sand of the same thickness, then pebbles, coarso 
gravel, and stones are placed on the whole. 
This forms an admirable filter, and one within 
the reach of the poorest. 

2'o Make lee. — " A mixture of four oimces of 
subcarbonate of soda, ibur ounces of nitrate of 
ammonia, and four ounces of water, in a tin 
pail, will produce eight or ten ounces of ice 
in three hours," in Summer time. Indeed, 
there is a little machine exhibited at Slate 
fairs that manufactures ice ad libitum with the 
thermometer at 85°. It is more expensive 
than an ice-house, though. 

J/oir to Open Soda Water, Champagne, etc. — 
" In opening a bottle of soda water there is 
generally a waste of liquid at the moment the 
cork flics out, in consequence of the retroactive 
motion of the bottle. This may be prevented 
(unless the liquid be very highly charged with 
gas) by resting the bottle firmly and uprightly 
on a solid support while removing the cork." 

To Make Water Cold in Summer. — The follow- 
ing is a simple mode of rendering water almost 
as cold as ice : Let the jar, pitcher, or vessel 
used for water be surrounded with one or more 
folds of coarse cotton, to be constantly kept 
wet. The evaporation of the water will carry 
off the beat from the inside, and reduce it to a 
freezing ])oint. In India and other tropical 
climes, where ice can not be procured, this 
mode of cooling water is common. Let every 
one have at his place of employment two 
pitchers thus provided, and with lids or covers, 



MANAGEMENT OF GOLD FISH, ETC. 



631 



one to contain water for drinking, tlie other for 
evaporation, and he Ciin always have a supply 
of cold water in warm weather. Any person 
can te.st this by dipping a finger in water, and 
holding it in the air on a warm day; after 
doing this three or four times he will find liis 
finger uncomfortably cold. 

Management of Gold Fish.— Go\d fish may be 
kept ten or twelve years in vessels (their aver- 
age period of e.xistence) by the following pre- 
cautious : 1. Allow not more than one fish to a 
quart of water, whether spring or river water, 
and change it every other day in Summer, 
every third day in Winter. 2. Use deep rather 
than shallow vessels, with small pebbles at the 
bolloui (to be kept clean), and keep them al- 
ways in the shade and in a cool part of the 
ronm. 3. Use a small net rather than the 
hand while ch.anging the water. 4. Feed with 
cracker, yolk of egg, rice paper, lettuce, flies, 
etc., rather than with bread, and then only 
every third or fourth day, and but little at a 
time. 5. Do not feed tliem much from No- 
vember to the end of February, and but little 
more during the three following months. 6. In 
frosty weather the water should be drawn and 
allowed to stand a while in a room where there 
is a fire, before phicing the fish in it; this 
takes the chill off the water, whicli might kill 
the fish. 

T'ermin in Bird-Cages. — Many a person has 
watched with care and anxiety a pet canary, 
goldfinch, or other tiny favorite, evidently in a 
state of perturbation, plucking at himself con- 
tinually, his feathers standing all wrong, always 
fidgeting about, and in every way looking very 
seedy. In vain is his food changed, and in vain 
is another saucer of clean water always kept in 
his cage, and all that kindness can suggest for 
the little prisoner done; but still all is of no 
use, he is no better — and why? Because the 
cause of his wretchedness has not been found 
out, and until it is, other attempts are but vain. 

If the owner of a pet in such difficulties will 
take down the cage and cast his or her eyes up 
to the roof thereof, there will most likely be 
seen a mass of stuff, looking as much like red 
rust .as anything; and from thence comes the 
cause of the poor bird's uneasiness. The red 
rust is nothing more nor le.ss than myriads of 
parasites infesting the bird, and for which 
water is no remedy. There is, however, a 
remedy, and one easily procurable in a mo- 
ment — fire. By procuring a lighted candle 
and holding it under every particle of the top 



of the cage till all chance of anything being 
left alive is gone, tiie remedy is complete. 

An equally effectual remedy will generally 
be found in placing a clean white cloth over 
the cage at night; in the morning it will be 
covered with the vermin. 

Seeds fur Canaries. — Persons having pet cana- 
ries, will find that they are extravagantly fond 
of the .seed produced from the plantain, which 
may be found in almost every yard, the leaf 
of which is known to every school-boy, as an 
excellent remedy for the effects of a bee sting. 
The birds will eat these seeds voraciously, when 
they appear to have a decided distaste to every 
other kind of food offered them. 

Domestic Hints.— Rich cheese feels soft under 
the pressure of the finger. That which is very 
strong is neither good nor healthy. To keep 
one that is cut, tie it up in a bag that will not 
admit flies, and hang it in a cool, dry place. 
If mold appear on it, wipe it off with a dry 
cloth. 

Flour and meal of all kinds should be kept 
in a cool, dry place, and in cloth bags rather 
than in wood. 

To select nutmegs, prick them with a pin. 
If they are good, the oil will instantly spread 
around the puncture. 

Keep coffee by itself, as its odor affects other 
articles. Keep tea in a close chest or canister. 

Oranges and lemons keep best wrapped close 
in soft paper, and laid in a drawer of linen. 

Bread and cake should be kept in a tin box 
or stone jar. 

Soft soap should be kept in a dry place in 
the cellar, and should not be used till three 
months old. 

Bar soap should be cut into pieces of a con- 
venient size, and laid where it will become dry. 
It is well to keep it several weeks before using, 
as it spends fast when it is new. 

It is a good plan to keep your different kinds 
of pieces, tape, thread, etc., in separate bags, 
and there is no time lost then in looking for 
them. 

The water in flower pots should be changed 
every day in Summer, or it will become offen- 
sive and unhealthy, even if there is salt in 
them. 

Do not wrap knives and forks in woolens; 
wrap them in good strong paper. Steel is in- 
jured by laying in woolens. 

Two gallons of fine charcoal will purify a 
dozen hogsheads of water, when the smell is 
[ so unpleasant it can not be used. 



632 



DOMESTIC economt: 



It is a good plan to put new earthenware into 
cold water, and let it heat gradually until it 
boils, then cool it again. Brown earthenware, 
particularly, may be toughened in this way. 
A handful of rye or wheat bran thrown in 
while it is boiling, will preserve the glazing so 
that it will not be destroyed by acid or salt. 

Wash your tea-tray with cold suds, polish 
with a little flour, and rub with a dry cloth. 

When walnuts have been kept until the meat 



is too much dried to be good, let them stand in 
milk and water eight hours, and dry them, and 
they will be fresh as when new. 

A hot shovel held over varnished furniture 
will take out white spots. 

Frozen potatoes make more starch than fresh 
ones; they also make nice cake. 

Odors from boiling ham, cabbage, etc., are 
prevented by throwing red pepper-pods, or a 
few pieces of charcoal into the pot. 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM. 



What to Eat and How to Cook it; and the Sanitary Conditions of Diet. 



Eating is an essential of luiman life. We can 
not live long without it, nor can we enjoy good 
liealth without proper food. "The stomach," 
B.iys Dr. KiTCHiNER, "is the main-spring of 
our sy.steni ; if it be not sufficiently wound up 
to warm and support the circulation, the whole 
business of life will, in proportion, be ineffect- 
ually performed. We can neither think with 
precision, walk with vigor, sit down with com- 
fort, nor sleep with tranquility. It influences 
all our actions." 

In the earlier ages of the world, the com- 
mon people at least lived in the simplest man- 
ner. At the commencement of the Christian 
era, a few fruits and vegetables, oils and wine.'i, 
meats and wild honey, constituted the limited 
supply of food to meet the wants of man. In 
the fourteenth century, the British Parliament 
fixed the price of eggs at half a penny a dozen, 
a pair of chickens at a penny, a sheep at one 
shilling and sixpence, a fat hog at three shil- 
lings and fourpence, and a fat ox at. sixteen 
shillings, yet one half the common people, 
three centuries later, ate animal food only twice 
a week, while the other half ate none at all, or 
at most not oftener than once a week. In the 
reign of Charles I, we are told that soup, 
made of .snails, would grace the table, together 
with a powdered goose, a hedgehog pudding, a 
cow's udder roasted, a rabbit stuffed with oys- 
ters, a mallard with cabbage, a spinach tai-t, a 
pie of alves' eggs in moonshine — whether boiled 
or fried in that substance, the ancient chroni- 
cles saitli not. 

But coming down to our own time, two cen- 
turies later, we find a wonderful change has 
been effected. Snail soup and hedgehog pud- 
ding no longer suffices for even the humblest 
of the people. Human food and comforts have 
multiplied a thousand-fold. How to prepare 
this food so .IS to best administer to the nourish- 
ment and comfort of the human system, if taken 



in a reasonable and proper manner ; or how, on 
the other hand, to preijare it so as to lessen the 
pleasure of eating it, and the benefits which we 
should otherwise derive from its use, are ques- 
tions of no small moment to all classes of society. 

"Among all the arts known to man," says 
LlEBiG, " there is none which enjoys a jusler 
appreciation, and (he products of which arc 
more universally admired, than that which is 
concerned in the preparation of our food." To 
say nothing of the deleterious effects of illy- 
prepared food, millions annually are wasted in 
our land, for want of a proper knowledge of 
domestic cookery. 

The proper supply of food and its quality, is 
one of the most important subjects that come 
under consideration. If it contain too much 
nutriment it clogs and overloads the digestive 
organs, and is productive of a formidable class 
of diseases; if deficient in nutriment, the mus- 
cles become soft and iiabby, the strength fails, 
and if longer continued emaciation and death 
ensues. The food, then, to produce its proper 
effect must possess two conditions ; one is, that 
of sufficieut bulk to keep the stomach properly 
distended, without which its functions are im- 
peded ; and the other, that of sufficient nutri- 
ment or substance that can be converted into 
chyle and appropriated to the re[iair of wear 
and tear of the system.- The best food for 
man is that in which these conditions are best 
united. Pure wheat flour has too much nutri- 
ment for the health of man. 

Bran is a very nutritive substance. Though 
it doubtless contains from five to six per cent, 
more ligneous substances than flour, it presents 
more nitrogenous matter, twice as much fatty 
matter, and moreover two distinct aromatic 
principles, one of which possesses the fra- 
grance of honey, and which are both wanting 
in flour. Therefore bran and meal ought to be 
ground over again and mixed with the pure 
(633) 



G34 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



flour, for this mixture yields a superior kind 
of bread. Plain, common food, in which the 
extremes of bulk and nutrition are avoided, is 
doubtless the most conducive to liealth, and 
those that subsist upon such, are the best able 
to labor, or endure severe exercise. 

In the torrid regions, the people subsist on 
fruits and vegetables-:-in the frigid regions, 
mostly on meats and oils; but in our temperate 
latitudes a judicious use of both vegetable and 
animal food seems necessary to the comfort and 
health of man. When the system has long 
been exclusively habituated to either a vegeta- 
ble or animal diet, scurvy intervenes if that 
hiibit be suddenly changed from one to the 
other — no matter which. As the human body 
is composed of many parts or principles, each 
differing from the other in composition and 
chemical properties, it is quite obvious that the 
Bystem should be supplied with food containing 
all the elements which enter into its composi- 
tion. A considerable variety of food becomes 
necessary to meet all these demands. 

A.S vegetables alone can not jjroduce in suffi- 
cient quantity the cellular tissue and mem- 
branes, of tiie brain and nerves, other kinds of 
food are necessarily required. Maoendie has 
clearly shown, by ample experiments, that man 
requires a variety of articles of diet, and the 
appetite in its cravings and necessities confirms 
this conclusion. 

Much of the value of food depends on the 
ease with which it can be digested and applied 
to the purposes of nutrition. Dr. William 
Beaumont wrote a work on the Gastric Juice 
and the Physiology of Digestion, founded on 
experiments and observations on the living 
stomach of Alexis St. Martin, a young Ca- 
nadian of eighteen, who by a gun-shot, in 1822, 
at Mackinaw, had an opening made in his 
stomach, which never fully healed, leaving an 
orifice so large that all the processes of diges- 
tion could be examined after he was restored to 
perfect health. Those experiments continued 
several years, furnish our best guide concerning 
the digestion of the principal articles of human 
food; yet, it should be added, these are but 
approximations, for the rapidity of digestion 
varies greatly according to the quantity and 
qnalitv eaten, the amount and nature of the 
previous exercise, the interval since the pre- 
ceding meal, the state of health and of the 
weather, and also the state of the mind. If 
the food is made fine, or cooked, when taken 
into the stomach, the nutritive power is much 
increased. 



We give Dr. Beaumont's table, showing the 
time requisite for digestion, with the addition, 
in some cases, of the relative amount of nutri- 
ment in the several articles: 



Articles of Di 



Kki:^. wliipp.-.l 

Tr..ut. s;.li fi.-sh. 

■i-',pi'..c.v'.i;zi:.v.'...'.'.;;;;". 
Uol.y 

Milk 

I,lVr-r I C. iMSl,.... 

A,.p'|. .,'..."1 i.i.lU.n-. 
m'iII,' ^ ' .... !..."'.. 

Tiuii-y, ,UHn.stu-'.'.Z^. 

li.luSC, «il,| 

Pia, Milking 

Lamb, flrsl, 

llHsh.mPaf.lllpl vesr-l 
U-<n~. i».'L^ , 

Foliil.j,-s, Irish 

Cnhliiiaf, head ..... 

(■Iiirli.'ii.'fiill Brown... 

|.:'_ - ;n ''i, , ''.'.'..'.'. 

Ita^., ■!>. i, U -li,.,. 

It.-, I, h. -I,, I .Ul, 1,11. 

I'..,.,;-|,, .1, 

rr.ri!! r !li> -,',lt,,l' 

Mutt IV.-li 

Mm , li. .~li 

Chi. k.'ii r 

IhlliipliliK. appk- 

U..k.., i-.Mii 

OvKtels. n-esh 

I'.irk, ii-ci-iitly baltuil 

Poik B(i-ak 

M niton, fresll 

Bread, corn 

t'anot, uiauge 

SiinsiiL'.., fi-p>h 

KI..Mf,.|..i-, fr..«li 

I.'all'i^li, l|.,>li 

n;,. I, ii, '.'',, 1, ',,',,', 'ii'.'v 

I!.,. I. « nil liiil-l.M.I. . 

l!iltti-l- 

Clii-L-SL-. old, strons!.... 

•Soap, nintton 

Sniiai'iinil syi'iips 

Hn-a'.l, wh.atViiVsii'!. 

Tiniiii.-, II, It 

l'..|at...,s, Iri-li 

Ki;us. Ii.sli 

EH'^s. tri>h 

.Sure. tush 

B.,i-t» 

Siilniou, .alti-d 

B.-ff. 

Vi-iil, fii>h 

Fouls, di.iii.stic 

Fo«lB, lUiin.sti, 

iinckB. di.iu.slii- 

Soup, heel, vit'etalih- 



Tioili-ii 

lii.iled 

Boiled 

Kavv 

ll,.iled 

Fii.d 

l'...ili.d 



lliiihil 
liiiilid 

lloill'd 

Itiiiled 

linih'll 

lin.llei 

Haw 

lioiled 

Haw 

liaw 

liaw 

Hiiastv 



led 



1! 


ied 


li 




III 


led 


hi 


CiiBsecd 


II 


ked 


Ki 


ilcd 


111 




1< 


w 




t hoiled 


Hi 


oiled 


III 


asti'd 


ill 


oiled 



III 


asted 


111 


died 


Hi 


isted 


H 


iod 


Ho 


led 


llr 


died 


t\ 


ed 


il' 


« ed 


h. 


i,«ted 


Ill 


led 


M 


lied 


n. 


iled 


Ki 




Bo 


iled 


II 


ked 


III 


iled 


Bo 


iled 


11. 


id boiled 


H'r 


led 


Hi 


iled 


III 


iled 


Bi 


iled 



■WASTE IN COOKING. 



635 



Dr. Beaumont's Table Continued. 



Articies ,f Diet. 


•6 
a. 

Fried 

Boiled 

Kried 

B..iled 

Boil.'.i 

Boiled 

iMied 

Boasted 

Boiled 

Boiled 

Koi.steJ 

UniLil 

Boiled 


E» 

4.00 
4. IS 

4.1.1 
4.. 10 

4.ra) 

4.30 
4.. 10 
4 ..'.O 


u 


Heart, animal 

Btef. old, hard, salted 

Pork, recently salted 








T'crk, rr.,-,.,itlv »;ilte,l 

V.mI. flvslK... 

Hiick.. ,, ill 




T-.i. 

!m1'1, I- 1, In ,h 

AriMU- I t 

Bnleli.Ts' Ml. at 

Biv;..l, st.ile 

r.-;)6 


7 
24 

si 






Cj 


Wh.at nie;,l, niiish 





■ 1 


Corn ni.-al, mush 




tn 












89 



Siicli a table may be studied with interest 
and pi-Dfit. It will be se%n that a dollar'.s worth 
of meat, at twelve and a half cents per pound, 
goes as far as fifty cents worth of butter at twen- 
ty-five cents per pound; and that three pounds 
of flour, at four cents per pound, furnish about 
the same amount of nutriment as nine pounds of 
beefsteak, costing twelve and a half cents per 
pound ; and a loaf of good home-made bread, of 
the same size, contains as much nutriment as a 
leg of mutton. A pint of beans, weighing one 
pound, and costing four or five cents, contains 
as ranch nutriment as three pounds and a half 
roast beef, costing at least from forty to fifty 
cents; and an Irish potato is better than a 
pound of pork. Of all the articles that can be 
eaten, the cheapest are bread, butter, molasses, 
beans, and rice. A pound of corn meal goes 
as far as a pound of wheat flour, and ordinarily 
costs not more than half as much. If corn and 
wheat were ground, and the whole product, bran 
and all, were made into bread, fifteen per cent, 
would be saved pecuniarily, with a ranch greater 
per eentage in healthfnlness. 



Human milk 




Veal 


Ilaie 

Beef 




Ci.w » inilii 




Oat meal 

Rve ll.iur 


Barlev 






Biee...:. 


Buckwheat 



Flesli-pro- Warmth 



From LiEBiG we give the above table, based 



on the human milk imparting ten parts of t 
flesh-producing, and forty of the warmth-givi 
principle. 

The following table shows the relative val 
of the several kinds of food in flesh-produci 
and oxygen-feeding, or warnitli-giving ing: 
dients: 



tjago.. 
Maize 
Oat Di 



10. n 

Ii4!.'! 
51. i 
48.0 
IW.5 
B2.0 



Waste in Cooking. — Having sufficiently indi- 
cated the relative digestive properties of food, 
their flesh-producing and warmth-giving con- 
stituents, a few hints on the thoughtless waste 
and reckless extravagance practised in the 
kitchen, may not prove altogether unprofitable. 
In one sense, nothing is wasted ; as all matter 
is returned to the inorganic world when it is 
unfit for longer use in organized forms ; and all 
the materials of all structures are indestructi- 
ble. But, in many families, there is a pecuniary 
waste, an unnecessary using up of fruits, vege- 
tables, and manufactured articles, which would 
render comfortable many homes now sufl'ering 
for just such things as are misused. 

We know a family of two persons, in which 
is daily cooked food enough for twice tliat 
number. The surplus stands about the pantry, 
exposed to flies, dust, heat, frost — any casual- 
ties — or it is recooked, at twice the original 
cost; half of it to be eaten, and the remainder, 
with vegetables, moldy bread, and fruit, etc., 
to be consigned to the pigs. Here is ;i waste 
of food which requites a pretty long pur.-^e to 
maintain. Yet bulh husband and wile are 
constantly complaining of hard times; lIu'V 
hick money, and fear positive want. Well 
they may; for if anything is sure to bring 
want, it is waste. When the flour btirivl is 
empty, the mohisees keg drained, the .-ttgar 
spent, and other things gone, neither husband 
nor wife seems to think that an unnecessary 
part of the whole has been devoured by pigs, 
nor that, if Mrs. Eve would have but one kind 
of food for each raeal,and put on the tttble only 
half the usual quautily at once, they both 



U36 



THE KITCnEN AND DINING-ROOJI : 



uimld enjoy their meals fai' better, and liave 
the surphis in good condition, to be relislied at 
future meals. Xobodv relishes bread tliat has 
been handled, broken, or rejected. But, newlv- 
cut and wholesome looking, it is always en- 
joyed by the hungry. A meal consisting of but 
few kinds, is moie enjoyed, as well as more 
healthful, than if composed of more kinds. 
Profusion is as unfavorable to enjoyment as it 
is to the health and the purse. Simplicity and 
economy insure domestic comfort and prosper- 
ity; hut a thriftless wife brings sure ruin. 
Don't laugh, Mrs. Eve, saying, "I wonder how 
neighbor Showoff would like that !" — it means 
you, you. 

We need in our country something like the 
Norwegian felted boxes, which are beginning 
to be used in England. When a leg of mutton 
is to be boiled, instead of its being kept on the 
fire for three or four hours (on the good old 
English method, which wastes fuel and hardens 
the meat), it is sufBcient to keep it boiling for 
only ten minutes; and when it has been bcjiled 
for that time the fire is no longer needed, but 
the sauce- pan containing the meat is to be in- 
closed in the felted box till three or four hours 
later, when dinner-time arrives. The heat in 
the sauce-pan is prevented from escaping, as it 
can not pass through the non-conducting felt, 
and the process of cooking, therefore, goes on 
gently for hours, with no new application of 
heat. A leg of mutton has been kept quite 
hot three Iiours and a half after it was taken 
from the fire and inclosed in the bo.x ; and it is 
said that a leg of mutton was carried from 
Paris to London, in a Norwegian box, witliout 
getting cold on the journey. 

Such boxes are coming into use fur the 
luncheons of shooting parties and picnics, and 
of persons engaged in business. A genlleman 
takes with him to his office a small box, which 
looks like an ordinary dispatch-box; but it is a 
Norwegian felted box, which he opens at the 
time of his meal, and finds to contain hot food. 
This ingenious contrivance is admirably suited 
to the wants of the poor. Every poor woman 
makes a fire in the morning to boil the water 
for breakfast. That same fire may suffice to 
begin the cooking of the good man's dinner, 
and it may be kept hot lor him, in one of these 
cheap boxes, 'under the hedges, while he at- 
tends to his work, till the hour for his meal 
arrives. Hot food is not only more palatable, 
but far more digestible and strengthening than 
cold food. 
Captain Warren's "Cooker," an English 



patent, is an admirable contrivance. The food 
in the patent sauce-pan, or " cooker," is cooked 
by the heat of steam, but without any contact 
with it. There is, therefore, no dilution wliat- 
ever, nor any 'waste. When the meat is done, 
the meat and the gravy together are the exact 
weight of the raw joint. It is cooked in its 
own juices, so that its full flavor is retained, 
and as the temperature does not rise quite to 
the boiling point, the fiber is not rendered hard 
and indigestible by excessive heat. 

"In our food," says Mrs. Saraii J. Hale, 
" the proportions of human milk are the best 
we can aim at; it has enough of flesh-prodiie- 
ing ingredients to restore our daily waste, and 
enough of warmth-giving to feed -the oxygen 
we breathe. To begin with the earliest making 
of dishes, we find that cows' milk has less of 
oxygen-feeding ingredients, in a given measure, 
than human milk; a child would, therefore, 
grow thin upon it, u»less a little sugar were 
added ; wheat flour has, on the other hand, so 
much an excess of oxygen-feeding power as 
would fatten a child unhealthily, and it should, 
therefore, have cows' milk added, to reduce the 
fattening power. 

"The same .sort of procedure applies in 
greater or less degree to all dishes. Veal and 
hare stand lowest in the list for their oxygen- 
feeding qualities, and on this account should he 
eaten with potatoes or rice, which stand high- 
est, and with bacon and jelly, which furnish in 
their fat and sugar the carbon wanting in the 
flesh. With the above table before us, and 
keeping in mind the facts already detailed, it 
is clear that cookery should supply us with a 
mixed diet of animal and vegetable ibod, ai:d 
should aim so to mix as to give us for every 
ounce of the flesh-making ingredients in our 
food, four ounces of oxygen-feeding ingredi- 
ents. It is clear, also, that the most nourishing 
or strength-giving of all foods are fresh red 
meats; they are flesh ready-made, and contain, 
besides, the iron which gives its red color to 
the blood, being short of which the blood lacks 
vitality, and wanting which it dies. 

"To preserve in dressing the full nourigh- 
ment of meats, and their properties of digest- 
Iveness, forms a most important part of the art 
of cooking; for these ends the object to be kept 
in mind Is, to retain as much as possible the 
juices of the meat, whether roast or boiled. 
This, In the case of boiling meat, is best done 
by plaeiHg it at once in briskly boiling water; 
the albumen on the surface, and to .some depth, 
is immediately coagulated, and thus forms a 



J 



WASTE IN COOKING. 



G37 



l;incl of covering Mliich neither allows the water 
to get into the meat, nor the meat jnice into the 
w;iter. Tlie water sliould tlion be kept just 
under boiling until the meat be thoroughly 
done, which it will be wlieu every part has 
been heated to about 165°, the temperature at 
which the coloring matter of the blood coagu- 
lates or fixes; at 133° the albumen setsj but the 
blnod does not, and therefore the meat is red 
and raw. 

"The same rules apply to roasting; the meats 
should first be»brought near enough a bright 
fire to brown the outside, and tlien should be 
allowed to roast slowly. 

"Belonging to this question of waste and 
nourishment, it is to be noted that the almost 
every where-ngreed-upon notion that soup* which 
sets strong jelly, must be the most nutritiou.s, 
is altogether a mislake. The soup acts because 
it contains the gelatine of glue of the sinews, 
flesh, and bones; but on this imagined richness 
alone it lias, by recent experiments, been proved 
tliat no animal can live. The jelly of bones 
boiled into soup, can furnish only jelly for our 
bones; the jelly of sinew, or calf's feet, can form 
only sinew; neither flesh nor its juices set into 
a jelly. It is only by long boiling we obtain a 
soup that sets; but in much le.ss time we get all 
the nourishing properties that meat yields in 
soups, which are no doubt useful in cases of 
recovery from illness ; but jelly is oftentimes 
unwholesome, for it loads the blood with not 
only useless, but disturbing products. Nor 
does jelly stand alone. Neither can we live 
on nie:it which has been cleared of fat, long 
boiled, and has had all the juice pressed out 
of it ; a dog so fed, lost in forty-three days a 
fourth of liis weight; in fifty days he bore all 
the appearance of starvation, and yet such 
meat has all the muscular fiber in it. In the 
same way, animals fed on pure casein, albumen, 
fibrin of vegetables, starch, sugar, or fat, died, 
with every appearance of death by hunger. 

"Further experiments showed, that the.se 
worse than useless foods were without certain 
mailers which are always to be I'ound in the 
blood ; namely, phosphoric acid, potash, soda, 
lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, and common 
salt (in certain of these, we may mention, by 
difficulty of digestion and poor nutriment qual- 
ities.) These .salts of the blood, as they are 
termed in chemistry, are to be found in the 
.several wheys and juices of meat, milk, pulse, 
and grain. Here, then, was the proof com- 
plete, that such food to support life must con- 
lain the several ingredients of the blood, and 



that the stomach can no! make, nor the body 
do without the least of them. 

"It is an established truth in physiology, 
that man is ominiverous — that is, constituted 
to eat almost every kind of food, which sepa- 
rately nourishes other animals. His teeth are 
formed to masticate, and his stomach to digest 
flesh,-- fish, and all farinaceous and vegetable 
substances — he can eat and digest these even in 
a raw state ; but it is necessary to perfect them 
for his nourishment in the most healthy man- 
ner, that they be prepared by cooking— that is, 
softened by the action of fire and water. 

"In strict accord.ince with this philosophy, 
which makes a portion of animal food neces- 
sary to develop and su.stain the Imman consti- 
tution, in its most |.erfict .state of physical, 
intellectual and moral strength and beauty, 
we know that now in every country, where a 
mixed diet is habitually used, as in the tem- 
perate climates, there the greate.st improvement 
of the race is to be found, and the greatest en- 
ergy of character. It is that portion of the 
human family who have the means of obtain- 
ing this food at least once a day, who now hold 
dominion over the earth. Forty thousand of 
the beef-fed British govern and control ninety 
millions of the rice-eating natives of India. 

"In every nation on earth the rulers, the 
men of power, whether princes or priests, al- 
most invariably use a portion of the animal 
food. The people are often compelled, either 
from poverty or policy, to abstain. Whenever 
the time shall arrive that every peasant in 
Europe is able to 'put his pullet in the pot 
of a Sunday,' a great improvement will have 
taken place in his character and condition; 
when he can have a portion of animal food, 
properly cooked, once each day, he will soon 
become a pitt/i.t 

"In our own country, the beneficial effects of 
a generous diet in developing and sustaining 



♦Some determine'I adv 



>rntp.s of the vefretalile 
iii.lst.miarliof tliouioi 
> cl..s.-lv witlitbuseof 
• !■■. if ninn followMl n 



k-i . 



tTh. 
lays Miss Cathkri 
!* too large a porli 



clanger in extremes. "AUmeilicalr 



E. Be 

of the dii-t c 
on, the Americans : 



liid luxurious diet with whiih they lua 
there can be no doubt that the sem 
nation would l.e ilaiease,! l.v n cl.anL 



0.08 



THE KITCHEN AXD DINING-ROOM: 



tlie energies of a wliole nalion, are clearly evi- 
dent. The severe and unremitting labors of 
every kind 'vliich were requisite to subdue and 
obtain dominion of a .wilderness world, could 
not have been done by a hall'-slarved suffering 
people. A larger quantity and better quality 
of food are necessary here than would have 
supplied men in the old countries, where less 
action of body and mind were permitted. 

"Still, there is great danger of excess in 
all indulgences of the appetite; even when a 
present benefit may be obtained, this danger 
should never be forgotten. The tendency in 
our country has been to excess in animal food. 
The advocates of the vegetable-diet system had 
good cause for denouncing this excess, and the 
indiscriminate u.se of flesh. It was, and now 
is, frequently given to young children — infants 
before tliey have teeth — a sin against nature, 
which often costs the life of the poor little suf- 
ferer; it is eaten too freely by the sedentary 
and delicate; and to make it worse still, it is 
eaten, often in a half-cooked state, and swal- 
lowed without sufEcient chewing. All these 
things are wrong, and ought to be reformed. 

" It is generally admitted that the French 
excel in the economy of their cooking. By 
studying the appropriate flavors for every dish, 
they contrive to dress all the broken pieces of 
meats, and make a variety of dishe-s from veg- 
etables at a small expense." 

In the preparation of food, it should be the 
constant aim of the good housekeeper to unite 
the promotion of health, the study of economy, 
and the gratification of taste. 

Hard and Soft Water in Cuoking. — The effects 
of hard and soft water on vegetables vary ma- 
terially. Peas and beans cooked in hard water 
containing lime or gypsum, will not boil tender, 
' because these substances harden vegetable case- 
in. In soft water they boil tender and lose a 
certain rank raw taste which they retain iu 
hard water. Many vegetables (as onions) boil 
nearly tasteless in soft water because all the 
flavor is dissolved out. The addition of salt 
often checks this (as in the case of onions), 
causing the vegetables to retain the peculiar 
flavoring principles, besides much nutritious 
matter which might be lost in soft water. Thus 
it appears that salt hardens the water to a de- 
giee. For extracting the juices of meat to 
make broth or soup, soft water, unsalted or 
cold at first, is best, for it rfnuch more rapidly 
penetrates the tissues ; but for boiling meat 
where the juices should be retained, hard water 
or soft water salted is preferable, and the meat 



should be put in while it is boiling, so as to 
seal up the pores at once. 

Hoio to Seat Whites of Eggs. — On breaking 
eggs, take care that none of the yolk beconiea 
mixed with the whites. A single particle will 
sometimes prevent their foaming well. Put 
the whites into a large flat'dish and beat them 
with an 'egg-beater made of double wire, with 
a tin handle, or with a cork stuck crosswise 
upon the prongs of a fork. Strike a sharp, 
qnick stroke through the whole length of the 
dish. Beat them in the cellar or in some other 
cool place, till they look like snow, and you can 
turn the dish over without their slipping off. 
Never suspend the process, nor let them stand 
even for one minute, as they will begin to turn 
to a liquid state, and can not be restored, and 
thus will make heavy cakes. 

Substitute for Eggs. — The volatile element in 
fresh snow renders two table-spoonaful of i: 
equal to one egg iu any compound that requires 
lightness rather than richness — thus, to a small 
loaf-cake, ten table-spoonsful of snow. 

For cooking purposes, one table-spoonful of 
corn starch is said to be equal to one egg. 

How to Save Shortening. — Mix one-fourth 
corn meal with wheat flour, and your pastry 
will be lighter and more wholesome, besides 
considerably less shortening is i-equired. 

Sakratus. — As an article of cookery, it is un- 
questionably bad, very bad. Canker in the 
mouth, ulcerated bowels, weak stomachs, and 
bad blood are its ordinary effects. The best 
raising materials for those who will use acids 
and alkalies of any kind are supercarbonate 
of soda and sour milk. 

Good fresh snow, in its season, is probably 
the most natural yeast ever used, supplying 
atmosphere wherewith to puff' up the dough, 
whereas other methods only supply carbonic 
gas. Bread thus made is delicious and whole- 
some. 

Hasty Cream. — Take a gallon of milk warm 
from the cow, strain and set it over the fire ; 
when it begins to rise, take it off and set it by; 
skim off all the cream and put it on a plate, 
then set the stew-pan over the fire again; as 
soon as it is ready to boil, take it off and 
skim again, repeating the skimming until no 
more cream rises. The milk must not boil. 
Thus cream may be provided when needed for 
prompt use. 

To Keep Cream Sweet. — Cream may be kept 
sweet twenty-four hoars, by simply scalding 
it, without sugar; and by adding as much 
powdered lump sugar as will make it quite 



ERRORS IN COOKING — CULINARY COITLETS. 



C30 



Bweet, it may be kept for two ilays in a cool 
place. 

Househmd MeaJiures.—Xs all families are not 
provided with scales and weights referring to 
ingredients in general use by every housewife, 
the following may be useful: 

Wheat flour, one pound is one quart. 

Indian meal, one pound two ounces is one 
quart. 

Butter, when soft, one pound one ounce is 
one quart. 

Loaf sugar, broken, one pound is one quart. 

White sugar, powdered, one pound one ounce 
is one quart. 

Best brown sugar, one pound two ounces is 
one quart. 

Eggs, average size, ten eggs are one pound. 

Sixteen large table-spoonsful are half a pint, 
eight are one gill, four half a gill, etc. 

Twenty-five drops are equal to a tea-.spoonful. 
A common-sired tumbler, half a pint; a com- 
mon-sized wine-glass, half a gill. 

Errors in Cooking. — The late Dr. Daniel 
Drake, of Cincinnati, in his Treatise on the 
Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of 
North America, gave the following enumera- 
tion of the vicious modes of cooking which pre- 
vail in the valley : 

1. With the mass of our population, bread 
of every kind is apt to be baked too soon after 
the flour or meal has been wetted — that is, be- 
fore there has been sufiicient maceration. But 
what is still worse, it is scarcely ever baked 
enough. 

2. Biscuits, as they are called, are baked in 
close ovens, by which process the fat tliey con- 
tain is rendered empyreumatic and indigestible. 

3. When the dough for leavened bread, by 
e.Tcess of panary fermentation, has been charged 
with acetic acid, that product is not in general 
neutralized by the carbonate of potash or soda, 
but the bread is eaten sour. 

4. Pastry, instead of being flaky and tender, 
is often tougli and hard, sometimes almost horny. 

5. Meats are often baked and fried, instead 
of being roasted or broiled, whereby they be- 
come impregnated with empyreumatic oil, and 
not unfrequently charred on the outside. In 
general, they are overcooked. 

6. Fresh meats, and especially poultry, are 
commonly cooked too soon after death. 

7. Soup is often prepared from parts defi- 
cient in gelatine, and abounding in fat, which 
swims upon the surface, and is much more 
indigestible than the meat would have been, if 
eaten in the solid form. 



8. Eggs are generally boiled so hard as to 
render them tough, and many are often fried 
in fat, to a still greater degree of induration. 
Fried bacon and eggs, eaten with hot un- 
leavened biscuit, containing lard, and then 
buttered, is a favorite breakfast in many parts 
of the valley. 

9. Vegetables, abounding in fecula, such as 
potatoes, rice, and pulse, are often boiled so 
little, that all the starch grains are not burst 
open; while those containg albumen, as cab- 
bage, are boiled until that element is firmly 
coagulated and deposited in the structure of 
the leaf. 

Culinary Coupkls. — We close our general 
remarks on cookery by the following apt and 
suggestive culinary couplets by an anonymous 
writer: 

Always have lobstpr-saure with salmon. 

And put miut-sauce your roasted lamb on. 

Veal cutlets dip in egg and bread-crumb — 

Try till you see a brownish red come. 

Grate Gruyere cheese on maccaroni ; 

Make the top crisp, but not too bony. 

In venison gravy, currant-jelly 

Mix with old Port— See Francatelli. 

In dresssins salad, mind this law— 

With too hard yolks use one that's raw. 

Roast veal with rich stock gravy serve ; 

And pickled-mushrooms, too, observe. 

Roast pork sans applo-sauce, past doubt. 

Is " Hamlet " with the Prince left out. 

Your mutton-chops witli paper cover. 

And make tliem amber brown all over. 

Broil lightly your beefsteak— to fry it 

Argues contempt of Christian diet. 

Kidneys a liner flavor gain 

By stewing them in good champagne. 

Buy stall-fed pigeons. When you've got them, 

The way to cook them is to pot them. 

Wood-grouse are dry when gumps have marred 'em— 

Before you roast 'em always lard em. 

To roast Spring chickens is to spoil 'em — 

Just split 'em down the back and broil 'em. 

It gives true epicures the vapors 

Tu see boiled mutton, minus capers. 

Boiled turkey, gourmands know, of course, 

Is exiiuisite, with celery-sauce. 

Tile cook deserves a hearty cuffing, 

Who serves roast fowls with tasteless stuffing. 

Smelts require egg and biscuit powder. 

Don't put fat pork in your clam chowder. 

Egg-sauce-few make it right, alas I 

Is good with blue-fish or with bass. 

Nice oyster-sauce gives zest to cod— 

A fish, when fifsh, to feast a god. 

Shad, stuffed and baked, is most delicious — 

'Twould have electrihed Apicius, 

Itoasted in paste, a haunch of mutton. 

Might make ascetics play the glutton. 

But one might rhyme for weeks this way. 

And still have lots of things to say. 



C40 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM : 



Mew F'rocess of Meat-Pi-eserv- 
in^. — For scores of years Iiave ini;enioiis men 
souglit for some metlioil of preserving meat, 
which should supersede salting, jerking, freez- 
ing, canning, cooking, and other processes, 
all of which tend to deprive the flesh of 
its natural flavor. The research of Pasteur, 

LlEBIG, POUCIIER, SlEBOLD, MOHOAN, and 

others seems likelj' to be amply rewarded. K 
process has at last been discovered and put in 
practical operation by Professor John Gam- 
gee, which promises to confer the greatest 
benefit upon mankind. It is as simple as it is 
effective, and will be likely to come into gen- 
eral use in every country of the temperate zone. 

Gajigee's process is now owned by the 
Gamgee Meat-Preserving Company, of Mid- 
dlefield, Connecticut, and it consists in prevent- 
ing putrefaction by the use of carbonic oxide 
and sulphurous acid gas. Agents arc using the 
process in Ohio, and negotiations are pending 
for the oilier Western States. 

After treatment by tins method the meat of 
any animal may be kept for months, and, when 
eaten, it proves as juicy, sweet, and succulent, 
as when entirely fresh. In fact, the process 
instantly suspends the work of decomposition, 
and preserves the flesh with all its original 
flavor and of a deep rich color. 

" In .January, 1866," says Professor Gamgee, 
" I made the first considerable series of experi- 
ments on the feeding of animals with peculiar 
products, so as to render the flesh much less 
jierisbable, and some remarkable results were 
obtained with oak bark. We learned in the 
Summer of 1867," he continues, referring to his 
brother and himself, "that meats preserved in 
cans, by the combined action of carbonic oxide 
and sulphurous acid, would cross the Atlantic 
ir packed in simple brown paper, and from that 
day to this, my operations have been dlrecleil to 
tlie preservation of the entire carcasses of ani- 
mals, which require, according to their size and 
thickness, from five to twenty days for their 
complete preservation. Such meat keeps many 
months, and may be preserved anywhere, at 
any season of the year, and when other modes 
of preservation, such as salting, are impractica- 
ble. There are conditions to be observed, ac- 
cording to the surrounding circumstances; but 
anywhere and everywhere animals can be cured, 
by the dozen, fifties or hundreds; and the cost, 
in any part of the American continent, can not 
exceed, including all possible expenses, a dol- 
lar for a bullock, and ten or twenty cents for a 
elieep. 



"We have packed meats in Chicago and 
New York which have been eaten in the hottest 
parts of this continent; and we are resolved on 
following up a success which is quite unprece- 
dented in the art of fresh-meat preservation, 
and demonstrates that the problem which the i 
Old World has studied for years, and which ' 
the New has so much interest in unraveling, is 
finally, definitely, and irrevocably solved." 

Colonel Marshall P. Wilder thus testifies 
in the Massachusetts Agricultural Report, for 
1869: "The Massachusetts Agricultural Club 
was honored, in the early part of last April, 
with the presence of Professor Gamgee as a 
guest, when he presented us with a fine leg of 
nuitton, cooked at the Parker House, which he 
informed us had been preserved in London in 
October, and came out in a dry box, without 
any other prep.aration or care, to New York. 
We had on the table, the same day, a very fine 
leg of mutton of our own growth; and, to our 
astonishment, that of Professor Gamgee's was 
more juicy, was riper than the other, and was, 
in fact, a first-rate leg of mutton, in perfect 
preservation. It had a deep, florid, beautiful 
color, surpassing that of the fresh leg. It was 
more juicy than ours; and, in a word, we 
should have taken it to be a ripe, mature leg 
of mutton, just fit to cat." 

Prof. Agassiz said at a subsequent meeting: 
"May I add another testimony? I was not 
present at that meeting, but a friend of mine, 
the French Consul in Bostcm, who was there, 
told me of that mutton He luvs been used to 
dining at the best restaurants of the Palais 
Koyal for years; and he told me that he never 
ate better mutton than he ate that day, from 
that leg, prepared in London in October, and 
eatefi in Boston in .\piil. There is nothing 
more practical than the most advanced science." 

It seems likely that this method will achieve 
the great success that is predicated for it ; if so, 
it will revolutionize the provision and market 
system of the world. Salt-junk, that arch- 
enemy of human life, will be banished from 
barracks and shipboard. The store-room of 
the whaler and merchantman will be fragrant 
with savory broadsides of beef. The traveler, 
the emigrant, the private soldier on an inacces- 
sible post, will taste delicious chops and steaks, 
fresh and dripjjing, brought a year before from 
the hill-sides of home. .\nd, better yet, 
through the long Winters, the farmers of every 
land, instead of feeding on abominable salt 
pork, and thus providing for unborn genera- 
tions a heritage of cancers and scrofula, will 



641 



find upon their dinner-tables the fresh roiists 
iind rounds of tlie beeves they killed in the 
Fall — no tenderness lost in the meantime, and 
no extraneous flavors or odors acquired. 

To the I'armers of the West, generally dis- 
tant from tbe butcher's stall, are the advances 
in tlie art of fresh-meat preservation of the 
highest moment. If they reap the advantages 
foreshadowed in the discovery, not only will 
their own tables have an unfailing supply, but 
their prairie farms will more economically and 
more iiumanely Supply tlie tables of the East. 
No more living flocks and herds on a thou.sand 
miles of railroad, reeling with agony, feverish 
and fainting, starving and stifling in over- 
crowded cars ! 

It is probable that instructions may be made 
so clear and minute that they can cure their 
own meat, for the process appears as simple as 
it is inexpensive; but, if this shall not at once 
seem practicable, it is not too much to hope 
that Meat-Preserving Factories may be estab- 
lished through our States that will do the work 
for a slight commission, on the principle of the 
cheese-factory system. That day will be the 
beginning of meat-luxuries for the tables of 
the poor, and the end of the cruel, savage sys- 
tem of live-stock tiansportation. 

Bread. — Tlie Bible tells us that "bread 
stren^theneth man's heart," and that "bread is 
the stafi' of life." From the third chapter of 
Genesis, where the word first occurs, it is used 
in the Scriptures more than a hundred times, 
mostly as a common terra signifying food in 
general. It is not known when raised bread 
first came into use; but the fact that MosKS, at 
the institution of the Passover supper, com- 
manded the Jews to abstain from leavened 
bread, and eat only unleavened, proves that 
tlicy were accustomed to fermented or i-ai.sed 
bread. History informs us tliat the Greeks 
were tauglit the art of bread-making long be- 
fore the Romans, who took from Macedonia 
Grecian bakers into Italy; and from Rome the 
art gradually found its way over considerable 
jiortions of Europe. 

JIoiv to Select Flour. — First, look at the color; 
if it is white, with a slight yellowish or straw- 
coloroil tint, bny it. If it is very white, with a 
bluish cast, or witli white specks in it, refuse it. 
Second, examine its adhesiveness; wet and 
knead a little of it between your fingers; if it 
works soft and sticky, it is poor Third, throw 
a little lump of dry flour against a dry, smooth, 
perpendicular surface; if it falls like powder it 
■41 



is bad. Fourth, squeeze some of the flour be- 
tween your hands; if it retains the shape given 
by llie pressure, that, too, is a good sign. Not 
so with that which has been adulterated ; its ad- 
hesive property is weak, and it falls to pieces 
immediately; nor is its whiteness any evidence 
of its goodness, for the different materials used 
in its adulteration have a tendency to whiten it. 
Fifth, place a thimbleful of it in tlie palm of 
the hand, and rub it gently with the finger of 
the other hand ; if it smoothes down under the 
finger, feeling silky and slippery, it is of infe- 
rior quality, though it may be .of fancy brand, 
high-priced, and white as the virgin snow- 
drift. It has been either too low ground, or 
made from damaged wheat, or, perhaps, hav- 
ing an unusual percentage of gluten, murdered- 
with dull burrs, and will never make good, 
light, wholesome bread ; but if the flour rnbs 
rough in the palm, feeling like fine sand, and 
has an orange tint, purchase confidentially. 
Flour that will stand all these tests, it is .safe to 
bny. These modes are given by old flour deal- 
ers, and they pertain to a matter that concerns 
everybody — the staff of life. 

To Imprme Poor Flour. — Wlien families have 
the misfortune to get poor flour, which, when 
used f<jr bread-making with yeast, will sour 
before it is ready for baking, the difficulty may 
sometimes be remedied by mixing a little finely- 
pnlverized saleratus with the dry flour, and 
then add the yea.st, and it will make sweet 
bread. Saleratus, however, is unwholesome — 
the less used the better. 

Oraham Flour and Bran Bread. — If the whole 
product of wheat and corn, bran and all, were 
made into bread, fifteen per cent, more of nutri- 
ment would be added. Unfortunately the bran, 
the coarsest part, is generally thrown away; the 
very part which gives sounilness to the teeth, 
and strength to the bones, ani^ vigor to the 
brain. Five hundred pounds of fine flour give 
to the body thirty pounds of bony element; 
while the same quantity of bran gives one hun- 
dred and twenty-five pounds. Tliis bone is 
lime — the phospliate of lime; the indispensa- 
ble element of health to the whole human 
body; from the want of the natural supply of 
which multitudes of persons go into a general 
decline. 

The reason why brown bread is considered 
more healthful and more nutritious than when 
made of superfine flour, is because the outer 
portion of the kernel of wheat contains the 
greatest proportion of oil and gluten ; and this 
is the reason why bran possesses such fattening 



642 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



qualities. The best fine flour contains about 
seventy pounds of starch to each hundred. 
The residue of one hundred pounds consists of 
ten or twelve pounds of gluten, six to eight 
pounds of sugar and gum, and ten to fourteen 
pounds of water, and a little oil. 

LlEBiG says: "The separation of the bran 
from the flour by bolting, is a matter of luxury, 
and injurious rather than beneficial as regards 
the nutritive power of the bread." 

It is only in more modern times that sifted 
flour has been known and used, ajul the cus- 
tom has been followed by the poor, to imitate 
the luxury of tlie wealthy, at the expense of 
their own health. Certain it is, that where 
whole meal is used as bread, the population 
liave better digestive organs than where it 
is not. 

It is gratifying to observe that all over our 
country, at the hotels, boarding-houses, res- 
taurants, on steamboats, and at the tables of 
the ricli and poor, Graham, or brown bread is 
found, and is constanly growing in demand 
and esteem. 

Wlien Graham flour c»n not be had conven- 
iently, an excellent substitute may be produced 
by mixing two-thirds common flour and one- 
third bran, unsifted. 

Cor7i Meal, — Indian meal may be much im- 
proved for cooking by being kiln-dried. This 
is easily done — spread it on a dripping-pan, 
and heat it in the oven. The peculiar proper- 
ties of Indian corn render it desirable for fi-e- 
quent use. Corn meal is conceded by all to be 
better for digestion and general health than fine 
flour, except for some invalids. Being capable 
of various forms of preparation, it has become 
a favorite with many good housewives, and 
should always be found in the store-room. 

Indian corn is indigenous to this continent. 
Old-counlry p*ple do not have it, and on first 
being made acquainted with it at our tables, 
stare in astonishment at the rapid disappear- 
ance of delicious steaming ears of sweet-corn, 
huge slices of hot johnny-cake, and the tender 
delicate brown mnflins of the tea-table. But 
they soon learn to like what is good, as well as 
ourselves. 

In the Southern dwelling of aristocracy, as 
iti llie humble negro hut, corn meal has always 
taken a conspicuous place at the family meal, 
and there it is, one will find it prepared in the 
greatest variety and perfection. A lady who 
was for three years a resident in a wealthy and 
genteel family in the far South, says she never 



sat down at table without finding some dainty 
form of corn bread. Wheat bread also graced 
the board, but was not as much desired. 

Methods of Making. — Good bread is indeed 
the staff of life; it contains one-third more 
nourishment than butcher's meat, though it is 
less stimulating, and less easily digested. The 
amount of injury done to the tender stomachs 
of young children, invalids and sedentary per- 
sons by eating bad bread day after day, from 
one year's end to another, must be enormous. 
A cook who can not make good bread of every 
description, ought not to be allowed house- 
room for an hour; and that mother is crimi- 
nally negligent, whatever may be her position, 
who does not teach her daughter to know what 
good bread is, and how to make it. Alum is 
used to give whiteness, softness, and capacity 
for retaining moisture. Lime could be em- 
ployed with equal effect, having the advantage 
of correcting any sourness in the bread or 
stomach; besides affording an important ingre- 
dient for making the bones strong. Every 
housekeeper ought to know how to make at 
least two or three kinds of good bread. 

Bad cooking produces the most nnhcalthful 
kinds of food, such especially as sour and heavy 
bread, cakes, pie-crnst, and other dishes com- 
pounded of flour, fat, rancid butter, and high- 
se.asnning generally. 

The starch, gluten, and saccharine matter, 
all properties of flour, act upon each other, in 
raising the dough. Carbonic acid gas, formed 
by the action of the yeast on these properties 
of the flour, is the air which puffs up or swells 
out the dough, and forms what is called raised 
bread. When the dough stands too long, the 
fermentation destroys the sugar, acts on the 
starch, and produces acid. As long as the fer- 
mentation is confined to acting upon the sac- 
charine matter, the other properties of the flour 
are uninjured; further fermentation must be 
arrested by the heat that bakes it into bread. 
If the fermentation acts upon the mucilage and 
starch, the acid must be neutralized by saleratiis 
or soda. By this process we may have bread 
free from acidity, but in a short time the bread 
is apt to become dry and tasteless. If the 
dough becomes acid, the best and most success- 
ful way of adding the alkali is at the time of 
molding the dough into loaves, just sufficient to 
correct the acidity. Much care and judgment 
are required in applying this, or the bread will 
be clouded with yellowish spots, or assume a 
sickly appearance all over. Tlie surest way 



643 



is to dip the fingers into the sohilion ami llii-ust 
theiu in every i)artof tiie dongli as it is worlced 
over. 

To mal<e good bread, a great deal of pains 
should be tal<en, after selecting good flour and 
sweet yeast, in working up and Icneading the 
dough. It is not enough to stir the ingredients 
together, so as to get through tiie business as 
soon as possible; but it must be thoroughly 
worked together with the hands, that the yeast 
may penetrate^very particle of flour. The 
second working, previous to'putting into pans, 
should be attended with still greater care; it 
should be kneaded until perfectly smooth and 
of a flaky appearance. No more flour than is 
necessary to keep it from adiieiing to the board 
and liands should be used, else the bread will 
be too hard and dry. Soft water is preferable 
to make dough. Some persons prefer milk, or 
milk and water, though, with some, the animal 
taste produced by milk is objectionable. Poor 
bread often comes of poor yeast, which, by long 
keeping, dampness, and other causes, lose some 
of its properties, and fails to make a light, 
white, and sweet baking. 

Good Yeast- — 1. Take a large handful of 
hops, tied up in a bag made of musketo net- 
ting, and boil them in two quarts of water till 
tlie strength is fully extracted. Grate into a 
tin pan about eight common-sized potatoes, and 
add a tea-cup of sugar, a spoonful each of table- 
salt and ginger; and then pour the hop water 
on the whole, and place the pan on the sto* to 
boil about ten minutes; then add a pint of good 
liop yeast; set it away till worked or nearly so, 
then put"it into a jug, and leave the cork out, 
the jug to be set in a pan to catch what may 
work over; and, when done working, cork it up 
and keep it in a cool place. A tea-cupful is 
sufficient for tliree good-sized loaves of bread. 
Yeast made in this way will keep from four to 
six weeks. 

2. Yeast for hot seasons, or warm climates, 
may be made by boiling two ounces of best 
hops in four quarts of water for half an hour; 
strain it, and let the liquor cool down to a new- 
milk warmth. Then put in a small handful of 
salt and half a pound of brown sugar; beat up 
one pound of the best flour with some of the 
liquor, and mix all well together. The third 
day add three pounds of potatoes, pared, boiled, 
and finely mashed, and let it stand until the 
next day; then strain, when it is ready for use. 
Stir frequently, and keep it near the fire while 
making, and then put it in a cool place, when it 



will keep in good condition two or three mouths. 
Stir well before using. 

3. Peach leaves, from their earliest appear- 
ance in the Spring till spoiled by the Autumn 
frosts, boiled up, make an excellent yeast decoc- 
tion, to be used each time as wanted; or the 
decoction may he thickened with Indian meal 
and dried for Winter use. Peach yeast pro- 
duces quick and beautiful rising, and those who 
once use it prefer it to hops. 

Yeast or Emptying Cakea. — 1. Take half pound 
of bops, twelve peeled potatoes, boiled in two 
quarts of water with the hops; strain the water 
upon one quart of flour, mash the potatoes and 
add to the flour, and, when cold, add one tea 
spoonful of molasses, two table-spoonsful of 
salt, one of ginger, and one tea-cup of yeast 
(or five yeast cakes, dissolved in water); when 
it rises, stir in corn meal to make it stiff enough 
to roll out. Cut into cakes half an inch thick. 

2. The Hungarians thus prepare yeast that 
keeps a whole year : Boil a quantity of wheaten 
bran and hops in water; the decoction is not 
long in fermenting, and, when this has taken 
place, throw in a sufficient portion of bran to 
form the whole into a thick paste, wliich work 
into balls and dry by a slow heat. VVIien wanted 
for use they are broke'n and boiling water is 
poured upon them. Having stood a proper time, 
the fluid is decanted and is in a fit state for 
leavening bread. 

Yeast Poiuders. — Take two pounds of pulver- 
ized cream of tartar, sift it through Swiss mus- 
lin; one pound of carbonate of soda, pulverized 
and sifted in- the same manner, to be well mixed 
with a pojnid of twice-sifted buckwheat ilour. 
Use two heaping tea-spoonsful to a quart of 
flour. 

Directions for Baking. — The housewife who 
would bake her bread or biscuit without a dry, 
hard crust, can do so very readily. Just before 
placing her bread in the oven, she has only to 
rub its surface with butter or lard. This will 
close the pores, preventing the escape of the 
gas which is produced by the yeast, and the 
escape of the steam which is produced by the 
moisture of the heated loaf. Bread thus baked, 
will be almost crustless. Indeed, so long as the 
moisture is confined, it will be difiicult to burn 
the loaf to any great depth. The large vacui- 
ties in the bread will be less numerou.s, though, 
as a whole, it will be more porous, and there- 
fore lighter. Yeast bread, wben two or three 
days old, becomes crumbly, and in appearance, 
though not necessarily in fact, dryer than when 



G44 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM. 



it was at first baked. This apparent dryness 
arises, not from a loss of moisture, but from a 
chemical change in the arrangement of the 
bread molecules. Put the bread into an oven, 
heated to a point slightly below boiling water, 
so that the moisture of the bread may not be 
turned into steam and escape, and its original 
softness will at once be restored. 

Wheat Bread. — 1. For four large or five good 
sized loaves, proceed in tliis way: Scald one 
tea-cup of Indian meal, by pouring over it boil- 
ing water, and stirring it to keep it from being 
lumpy; when it is cool, grate in' four boiled 
potatoes, add three pints of tepid water, and 
stir in sufficient flour to make a soft batter, add 
a tea-cupful of home-made yea.st, and set it to 
rise. This is the sponge. When it is light, 
which will be in about six hours, or over night, 
put seven pounds of flour in a bread bowl 
(sifting it first), make a hole in the center, put 
in a table-spoonful of salt, pour in the sponge, 
add one quart of tepid water, and work it with 
the hands into the rest of the flour till you have 
a soft dough, then knead it thoroughly, till in 
turning it over it does not adhere to the bread 
bowl. Let it rise again, and when light, it will 
have increased nearly three times the size when 
it was made. Now mold it lightly into loaves, 
put them in buttered pans, and set the pans in 
a warm place. As soon as the loaves rise a 
little, so as to begin to crack, put them in the 
oven. If they rise too much, the bread will be 
tasteless; if not enough it will not be sufficiently 
light. Try whether bread is done by inserting 
a broom splint or wooden skewer ; if withdrawn 
without any dough adhering, the bread is done. 
The heat of the oven can be judged by practice. 

2. A writer in Hearth and Home says, bread 
should never be put to rising over night, as 
changes of atmosphere affect it, and must be 
carefully noted. Early in the morning, make 
up your bread with lukewarm water or milk, 
and good liome-made or baker's yeast — never 
brewer's. Knead it well, and set it in rather 
a warm place to rise. No sponging before- 
hand — it i.s wholly unnecessary, and only an- 
other opportunity given to become sour. In 
four hours, if kept sufiiciently warm, it will be 
light enough to put in pans; let it rise in them 
twenty minutes — no longer, for here the trouble 
generally lies — for it is allowed to rise, and rise, 
till it cracks and ruus over. Put it into the 
oven as soon as it begins to rise in the pans. 
If the oven is so hot that the loaves become 
browned or crusted over the first half lio\ir, 
they can not rise as they should. After the 



first half hour, increase the heat enough to 
give them a beautiful light brown. Good-sized 
loaves should be an hour in baking. 

3. James Koche, long a celebrated bread- 
maker, of Baltimore, says : Take an earthen 
vessel larger at the top than the bottom, and in 
it put one pint of milk-warm water, one and a 
half pounds of flour, and half a pint of malt 
yeast ; mix them well together, and set it away 
(in Winter it should be in a warm place), until 
it rises and falls again, which will be in from 
three to five hours (it may be set at night if 
wanted in the morning) ; then put two large 
spoonsful of salt into two quarts of water, and 
mix it well with the above rising; then put in 
about nine pounds of flour, and work yout 
dough well, and set it by until it becomes light. 
Then make it out in loaves. The above will 
make four loaves. 

As some flour is dry and other runny, the 
above quantity, however, will be a guide. The 
person making bread will observe that runny 
and new flour will require one-fourth more 
salt than old and dry flour. The water, also, 
should he tempered according to the weather, 
in Spring and Fall it should only be milk-warm ; 
in hot weather cold, and in Winter warm. 

4. Prof. E. N. HoSFORD, in a recent lecture 
before the American Institute's Farmers' Club, 
on the '"Philosophy of the Oven," gave the lol- 
lowing recipe for making good bread : Take 
fresh ground wheat flour; boil thoroughly, with 
theif skins on, in a quart of water, potatoes 
enough to make a quart of mashed potatoes ; 
peel the potatoes and mash and add a quart of 
flour, then let cool to eighty degrees. Add 
then one pint of brewer's yeast and set aside to 
raise. Then add half a pint of water or milk 
to seven pounds, salt and knead thorotighly. 
This will make four small loaves ; put them in 
tin pans larger than the loaves, cover them 
with tin or stiff paper, in an oven healed to 
212°. When nearly dcme, remove the cover to 
allow the crust to brown. 

Sweel-Potato Bread. — Boil jiotatoes thoroughly 
done, peel them, and mash them up fine; add 
a sufficient quantity to your yeast and flour, 
make into dough and bake. This makes a 
most delicious bread, much superior to that 
made of the common potato. The toast made 
from this bread is much softer, sweeter, and 
superior to that from bread made in the ordi- 
nary manner. Sweet-potato biscuit are excel- 
lent, but not so healthy .as bread. 

Battermilk Bread. — The sponge — Take three 
pints of buttermilk (it does not matter how sour 



645 



it is), and put it in a sauce-pan to boil ; take 
one pint of flour and put it into a bowl or jar, 
wilh liuir a toa-spoonlul of salt. When the 
buiterniilk is boiling, pour it over tlie flour, 
stirring quickly that the whole may be scalded. 
Let it stand until it is but milk-warm, and add 
a half pint of yeast. Tliis .sliould be done over 
niglit. In the morning take flour sufficient for 
three large loaves, and upon this pour a pint 
of water nearly boiling hot, mix well; then 
add the sponge; knead thoroughly and mold 
into loaves, putting them into buttered pans to 
rise. In two hours they will be ready to bake. 
Milk-Uiiiing Bread. — Take two cups of boil- 
ing water, two cups of new milk, and one tea- 
spoonful of saleratus — make a batter of it, and 
put it in a tin pail to rise. Keep the water a 
little more than lukewarm. The cause of its 
turning acid is not being kept warm enough, 
and letting it stand too long. This will be 
found upiin trial to be a capital article. 

Dr. Hall's Bread. — Dr. Hall, of the Journal 
of Health, recommends the following as the very 
best mode of making good, cbe;ip, and health- 
ful bread : To two quarts of Indian-corn meal, 
add one pint of bread sponge, water sufficient 
to wet the whole; add one half pint of flour, 
and a ten-spoonful of .salt. Let it rise, then 
kne;id well — unsparingly — and for the second 
time. Place the dougli in the oven, and let it 
bake an hour and a half. 

Pumpkin Loaf. — Take a good flavored pump- 
kin, or Hubbard squash, cut it up fine, and 
etew it down with a little water until it becomes 
very rich and consistent ; mix rather less white 
corn meal, with sufiicient sweet milk to make a 
consistent dough; make it up in dodgers three 
fourths inch thick, and bake in a hot ovfin. 
Eaten wilh good butter and milk, nothing is 
more palatable. 

To Make Old Bread New. — If the loave.s are a 
week old, steep for half a minute in cold water. 
Then put the loaf in the tin it was fir-st baked 
in, taking care to take it out of the oven when 
nicely heated through. 

Or, if dry or sour bread is cut into small 
pitces, and put in a pan and set in a very mod- 
erately warm oven until of a light brown, and 
hard and dry in the center, it can be kept for 
weeks. Whenever you wish to use a portion of 
them for puddings or griddle-cakes, soak them 
sott in rold water or milk. If the bread is .sour, 
use sufficient saleratus or soda to destroy the 
acidity of it in making the pudding or cakes. 
Wilh proper care, there need be no waste of 
even poor bread. 



Unfermented Bread. — 1. No kneading is neces- 
sary nor time required for the dough to rise; 
and it has, moi-eover, the merit of keeping 
much longer than raised bread without becom- 
ing sour or moldy. Common bread, in weak 
stomachs, is very liable to turn sour, producing 
heartburn and flatulency, and to aggravate 
cases of dyspepsia; but, when niannfiictured 
by this improved process, it is altogether liee 
from these baneful effects. Its daily use in 
health prevents these .symptoms, and in many 
ca.ses it corrects that morbid condition of the 
stomach and intestines on which these symp- 
toms depend. It is useful in assisting to restore 
the biliary, and especially the renal secretions 
to a healthy condition, as well as in the treat- 
ment of various cutaneous eruptions originating 
in disorder of the digestive functions. 

In the Pharmaceutical Journal, several excel- 
lent recipes are given for the manufacture of 
unfermented bvead, from which we select the 
two following, which we deem the most simple 
and best. The first is by Dr. Smith, of Leeds : 
Five pounds of flour, one-half ounce (apothe- 
cary's weight) of sesquicarbonate of soda, one- 
half dram sesquicarbonate of ammonia, four 
drams or tea-spoonsful of common salt. Mi.x 
these intimately together, and then add the fol- 
lowing solution: Fifty ounces or two and a half 
pints of clean cold water, five drams of hydro- 
chloric acid. 

Then follows the recipe of Mr. H. Deane: 
Take four pounds of flour, one-half ounce (av- 
oirdupoise weight) of bicarbonate of soda, four 
and a half fluid drams of hydrochloric acid, 
one-quarter ounce of common salt, forty fluid 
ounces or two pints of pure cold water. Mix 
the soda perfectly wilh the flour, and the acid 
with the water, then the whole intimately and 
speedily together, using a flat piece of wood for 
the purpose. It may then be made into two 
loaves, and put into a quick oven immediately. 
It will only require about one and a half hours 
to bake. 

In this kind of bread kneading will prove 
injurious, by making the mass too heavy, as the 
dongh must not be too stiff. 

2. Dr.K. T. Trall, in his " Gospel of Health," 
gives the following still more simple mode of 
making unfermented bread, without the soda, 
ammonia, and acid, which are objectionable lo 
dyspeptic stomachs: "Mix unbolted meal of 
any grain preferred, or a mixture of two or 
more kinds, in any proportions which may be 
preferred, with pure water, either cold or hot. 
I If cold water is used, the meal and water should 



6-16 



tut; kitchen and dininc-room : 



l>e mixed to the consistency of tliick batier; 
llien beaten or stirred a little with a spoon or 
bidle to incorporate more atmospheric air, 
after which more meal is to be added, until the 
mass becomes as stiffadongh as can well be 
l;neaded. Knead the dough for a few minutes, 
(and the more the dough is kneaded, the more 
brittle and tender the bread will be), cut into 
pieces or cakes half an inch or more in thick- 
ness, and about two inches in diameter, and 
bake in a quick oven as hot as possible, without 
burning the crust, which must be carefully 
guarded against. It is better to moderate the 
heat of the oven a little after three or live min- 
utes. If hot water is used, it should be bu'diny 
liot, and the meal and water .stirred together 
very quickly with a strong spoon — the dough 
not quite as stiff as for ordinary loaf bread 
made of fine flour. It is then to be cut into 
l)ieces or cakes, and baked as above. Either 
form of biead may be made into larger or 
smaller cakes, or into loaves of any convenient 
size to bake, and baked in a gas, wood, coal, or 
kerosene stove, or in an oven ; and the eriist 
must be rendered as soft and teniler as may be 
desired, by enveloping the cakes or loaves a 
short time in wet cloths, immediately on being 
taken from the oven. The small cake.s, when 
made with hot water, will soon become tender, 
by being kept in a covered earthen crock, as 
even the toothless may desire; or they may be 
lendered as hard and solid as the soundest 
teeth can require, by leaving them inicovered 
in a dry place." 

Meal of corn or wheat stirred up according 
to the foregoing directions, with the addition of 
three or four eggs, and then cooked with steam, 
instead of baking, and eaten with some kind of 
.sauce, is simple, wholesome, and very pleasing 
to the palate, and good for a change." 

3. Gems. — Stir together Graham flour and 
cold water to about the consistency of ordinary 
cup-cake baiter. Bake in a hot oven in snuill 
tin patty-pans, two inches square and three- 
fourths of an inch deep. 

This nuikes delicious bread. It may be im- 
proved by beating the batter in the same man- 
ner as eggs are beaten, for five, ten, or fifteen 
minutes; the longer the better. No definite 
rule as to the proportions of flour and water 
ran be given, owing to the difference in the ab- 
sorbing power of various brands of flour. 

JIany persons have failed of success in mak- 
ing this bread from neglecting one very essen- 
tial requisite — the size of the pans in which it 
is baked. If they are larger than the dimen- 



sions given, the bread will be heavy. If Bmall- 
er, it will be dry and hard. But made this size, 
and filled evenly full, if the batter is of the 
right consistency, and the oven very hot, they 
will rise one-half, and be almost as light and 
porous as sponge-cake. 

4. Diamonds. — Ponv boilimj water on Graham 
flour — stirring rapidly till all the flour is wet. 
Too much stirring makes it tough. It should 
be about as thick as can be stirred easily with 
a strong iron spoon. Place the dough with 
plenty of flour upon the molding board, and 
knead it for two or three minutes. Roll out 
one-half an inch thick, and cut in small cakes 
or rolls. If a large quantity is required, roll 
about three-fourths of an inch thick, and cut 
with a knife in diamond .shape. Bake in a 
very hot oven forty-flve minutes. 

Graham or Coarse Wheal Bread. — Two-thirds 
unbolted wheat flour, one-third corn meal, a 
little molasses; mi-t with warm water. One 
large cup of potato yeast will make two good- 
sized loaves. Mix and let it ri.se over niglit, 
and your bread will be ready to mold and put 
in your pans before breakfast. Do not let it 
rise too long the second time — much bread is 
thus spoiled. 

Brown Bread. — Two cups of Indian meal, 
one of Graham flour, two cups of sour milk, 
one of sweet, one small tea-spoonful of soda, 
one of salt, and two table-spoonsful of molasses 
or sugar. Place it in a tin pail or steamer well 
closed, which set in a kettle of boiling water. 
Steam three hours; some steam five hours. 
This may be varied ; some prefer it made of 
Indian meal, without flour. Where milk is 
not at hand, sour batter will answer the purpose. 
Boston Brown Bread. — One heaping quart of 
rye flour, one quart of Indian meal, one quart 
of Graham flour, scanty quart of milk, same 
quantity of warm water, cofl'ee-cup of molasses, 
one penny's worth of baker's yeast, or one cof- 
fee-cup home-made yeast, tea-spoon of salera- 
tu.s, des.sert-spoon of salt. Grease an iron kettle, 
put in the mixture, and place immediately in a 
slow oven. Bake six or seven hours. 

Buckeye Brown Bread. — Take a pint of new 
milk, warm from the cow, add a tea-spoonful 
of .salt, and stir in fine Indian meal until it be- 
comes a thick batter; add a gill of fresh yeast, 
and put in a warm place to rise; when it is 
very light, stir into the batter three i}eaten 
eggs, adding wheat flour until it has become 
of the consistency of dough ; knead it thor- 
oughly, and set it by the fire until it begins to 
rise; then make it up into small loaves or 



647 



cakes, cover tliera with a thick napkin, and let 
tliem stand nniil they rise again; then bake in 
a quick oven. 

BiiUermHk Broion Bread. — Buttermilk, the 
day it is churned, four tea-cups; soda, one tea- 
spiHiul'ul; stir together, and pour in sufficient 
brown Hour to make a (lough as stiff as can be 
stirred and laid flat in a pan with a spoon 
one large table-spoon I ill of sugar in flour before 
the milk. Bake in deep pan, well buttered, in 
cool oven, two liours; best when cold. Corn 
bread made inTliis way is very nice. 

Corn and Bran Bread. — Two quarts of corn 
meal, two quarts shorts or bran, one tea-cup 
molas.ses, one tea-spoon of salt. Stew a squash 
or pumpkin in water enough to wet this mass; 
aiasli tine and pour it boiling hot over the 
meal. Stir it well, and when cool enough add 
a pint of yeast, and two quarts wheat flour. 
This will make four loaves; when light, bake 
three hours. 

Wheaten Grits Bkcuit or Thin Bread. — Mix 
with yeast and water into a thin dough; let it 
stand a few hours till light ; spread about an 
inch thick or less into pans, and bake well ; to 
be eaten while fresh. 

Ri/e and Oat-Meal Bread.—'Rye is seldom 
made into bread e.tcept as mixed with wheat 
flour or corn meal. Unbolted rye or oat meal, 
or both together, stirred into cold water, and 
made into rather soft dough, kneaded for five 
or ten minutes, and baked in a liot oven from 
thirty to forty-five minutes, makes excellent 
and wholesome bread for those who like the 
peculiar flavor of those grains. 

Bi/e and Indian Bread. — For a good, thick 
loaf, take one pint rye flour to three pints of 
corn meal, one-half lea-cup molasses, or brown 
sugar, scald with boiling water — be sure to stir 
in water enough to thoroughly scald it — cover 
it up and let it stand till cool, then reduce with 
cold, sweet milk until thin enough to pour into 
your pan ; bake all day, let it stand in tlie oven 
all night, and in the morning you will have 
the best loaf of bread you ever tasted. If your 
crust is too hard to eat, remove it, soak in 
water, and add to your next loaf. It will be 
richer than the first. 

Corn Bread. — 1. For plain corn bread, six 
pints of meal, one table-spoonful of salt, four 
pints water; thoroughly mixed with the hand, 
and baked in oblong rolls about two inches 
thick. Use as much dough for each roll as can 
be conveniently shaped in the hand. Many 
persons use hot water; in Winter it is certainly 
best. The bread is better to be made half an i 



liour or more before it is baked. The oven 
must be tolerably hot when the dough is put in. 
All kimls of corn bread require a hotter oven, 
and to be baked quicker, than flour. 

2. Take half a pint, good measure, of white 
Indian meal, which should be rather coarsely 
ground. Mix it thoroughly in a large bowl with 
one pint of fresh milk, and don't imagine, be- 
cause it seems so thin, that a mistake has been 
made in the directions, but do as you are hid. 
Put in what salt is necessary, and into the batter 
break one fresh egg, and with a kitchen fork 
beat the whole together quickly and tlior- 
oughly. Have your oven pretty hot, but not 
scorching. Into a splaycd-sided round tin pan, 
of say four inches in diameter at the bottom, 
and two and a half to three inches deep, pour 
your batter (which will about half fill the pan), 
and put it into the oven instantly. It ought to 
bake, if the heat is properly regulated, iit 
about half an hour. It must be perfectly done 
to be good. Don't be discouraged with the 
first attetupt ; it requires some practice to hit it 
precisely, bnt when this is done, it is "good 
enough to make a man liit his father." It is 
to be eaten hot, before (he ujiper crust falls. 
In making this bread, remember that no sal- 
eratiis, soda, or yeast, of any kind, is to be 
used. 

Aslor-House Corn Bread. — One quart of but- 
termilk, two eggs, two ounces butter, one-fourtli 
ounce saleratus, and stir in meal till the mix- 
ture is about as thick as buckwheat batter. 
Bake in square tin pans an inch thick, half an 
hour, in a hot oven. 

Steamed Corn Bread. — Pour boiling water 
over two quarts of Indian meal, enough to just 
wet it; when cooled a little, add one pint of 
sour milk, half a cup of mola.sses, one tea- 
spoonful of soda, one pint of Graham flour, 
and salt to suit the t.aste. Mix well; put the 
mixture into a two quart basin, after it has 
been covered, steam it three or four hours. 
This bread can be warmed very soon by replac- 
ing it in the steamer for ten or fifteen- minutes. 
If preferred, a half pint of sweet milk and a 
half pint of yeast can be used instead of the 
sour milk and soda. 

Water-Cure Corn Bread. — For making Indian 
cake, bread, mush, or pudding, the fine meal 
should nevei' be used. It will not cook as 
lightly, nor be as sweet or palatable. What is 
called coarse meal should always be selected; 
and it should always, if possible, be fresh 
ground. -This may be wet up with warm water, 
sweetened moderately or not, according to taste, 



648 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING ROOM: 



and raised with sour milk and snpercarbonate 
of soda. It must be well baked. 

Unleavened Corn Biead. — Slir tlioroughly to- 
gether one quart sweet milk and one quart corn 
meal — -wliicli is much improved by faithful 
beating — and a little salt. These proportions, 
owing to the difi'erence in corn meal, will not 
liold good in all cases; a little practice and 
observation will set tlie matter right. Tliis 
unleavened corn bread, upon fair trial, will be 
found to be more palatable, nutritious, whole- 
.S(jme, and economical than raised bread, and 
can be made much more expeditiously. 

Hoe-CaJ:e aud Corn-Dodr/er. — The hoe-cake is 
nicest baked before the coals — that is, alamode. 
It is simply a mixture of salt, meal, and water, 
made thick, and can be baked in a frying pan. 
The dodger is the same, only thinner, and fried 
brown in a skillet or spider. The knack is to 
turn smoothly. If the meal is good, one gets in 
these mixtures a jieculiar flavor and sweetness 
not discernible with the addition of other com- 
pounds. 

Johnny-Cake. — 1. Scald coarsely-ground yel- 
low corn meal, stir in an even table-spoonful of 
salt, and two spoonsful of any cooking fat to 
each pound of meal. Make the batter so stiff" 
that it will lift heaping on a spoon. Have a 
dripping pun as hot as it can be bundled, and 
well greased. Lay in tlie batter an inch thick, 
aud bake in a quick oven till the crust is a 
rather dark, rich brown. 

2. One cup sweet milk, one cup buttermilk 
or sour milk, half cup molasses, one cup flour, 
two cups meal, one tea-spoonful of salt, one 
tea-spoonful of saleratus, one tea-spoonful of 
caraway-seed, mix tbeni all together, and bake 
quick in a hot oven, twenty minutes, or longer 
if necessary. 

Wedding Johnny-Cuke. — One pint sour cream, 
the same of sweet milk, half a cup butter, 
three eggs, table-spoonful of salt, same of soda, 
one quart of meal, one pint of flonr, one pint of 
raisins, half pint of citron. This makes a very 
large cake, and is delicious; and if one does 
not marry more than once in a life-time he can 
well afford to make it. 

liye and Indian Johnny-Cake. — Two cups each 
of rye flour and Indian meal, a small tea-spoon- 
ful of saleratus, a little salt, with suflScient sour 
milk to make a stiff batter. Bake in cakes on 
a griddle ; split open and butter them, and send 
to the table hot. 

Biscuits, etc.— Under this general head 
we shall give directions for making the various 



kinds of warm table bread, known as biscuit, 
rolls, bnns, rusks, muffins, short-rakes, crullers, 
crumpets, lunn.s, puflfs and pop-overs. 

Oood Biscuit. — ^Two tea-spoonsful cream of tar- 
tar, one table-spoonful soda, half table-spoonful 
of salt, rubbed fine, and well mixed with one 
quart of flour. Rub iii a piece of butter the 
size of an egg, nii.x up soft with thick sour milk 
or buttermilk, and bake quickly. 

Soda Bincuit. — One quart of sifted flour, a lit- 
tle salt, a table-spoonful of butter, well rubbed 
tbrough the flour, two small tea-spoonsful of 
cream of tartar, sprinkled through the flour 
dry, one tea-spoonful of soda, dissolved in hot 
milk or water, and as much milk as will make 
it a soft dougb. Knead it upon the pasteboard 
for five minutes, cut them out, aud bake in a 
quick oven. 

Fancy Biscuit. — Reduce one pound of blani'bed 
almonds to powder, and moisten with orange- 
flower water until you have a smooth paste; 
add a little fine flour and mix well, and then 
place in a pan over a slow fire; stir the mass 
constantly to prevent burning, until it becomes 
hard enough not to stick to the fingers; then 
mold it into various sorts of fancy shapes. 
Now make an icing of various colors and dip 
your forms to suit color and taste, and set them 
upon a clean sieve to dry. You may make 
them still more fanciful, by strewing over them 
different colored pistacliio nuts. To be served 
with nuts and cakes, at evening parties, or any 
other extraordinary occasion. 

Cream, Biscuit. — Break six eggs, separate tlie 
yolks and whites, beat tlie former witli six 
ounces of powdered sugar, and thesame of flour; 
whisk the whites, and then mix them together; 
add to it whipped cream in proportion to the 
sugar and flour, stir it carefully; pour this into 
molds or paper cases, and bake. 

Sugar Biscuit. — Three pounds of flour, three 
quarters of a pound of butter, one pound of 
sugar, one quart of sponge. Rub the flour, 
butter, and sugar together, then add the sponge 
with as much milk as will soften tlie dough. 
Knead well and replace it in the pan to rise. 
This must be done in the afternoon ; next morn- 
ing knead lightly, make it into small cakes, 
about the size of a silver dollar, and half an 
inch in thickness; place them on sliglitly but- 
tered pans one inch apart each way, set them in 
a warm elevated place to rise; when done 
wash them over with a little water, not having 
the brush too wet, and let them remain in the 
tins until cool. 

Egg Biscuit. — Beat separately the whites and 



BISCUITS — ROLLS. 



649 



yolks of twelve eggs; mix, and add one and a 
liair pounds of powdered wliile sugar; vvliisU 
all into bubbles; add one pound of flour and 
tbe grated rinds of two lemons. Fill buttered 
tin molds; grate sugar on top; bake one hour 
iu a quick oven. 

Squash Biscuit. — One tea-cupful of strained 
squash, two table-.spoonsful of sugar, one table- 
spoonful of melted butter, a little salt, one tea- 
spoonful of soda, one cup of sour milk; flour 
to roll out. Sei've hot for tea. 

French Tm Biscuit. — Two pounds of flour, two 
ounces butter, half a pint of milk, one egg, half 
a cup of sugar, and one cup of yeast. 

Grahdm Biscuit. — 1. Take a quart of Graharii 
or unbolted flour, and mix it to the consistency 
of drop-cake with buttermilk or sour milk,, an 
even tea-spoonful of butter, a tea-spoonful of 
soda, and drop the mixture on a shallow pah ; 
bake in a quick oven fifteen or twenty minutes. 

2. Make Graham nnish as for the table. 
When cool, mix with it Graham flour sufficient 
to roll well. Knead for a few minutes, roll 
three-fourths of an inc"" thick, cut with a com- 
mon biscuit cutter, and bake in a hofoven from 
thirty to forty-five minutes. 

3. Stir into cold water, Graham flour enough 
for a rather soft dough ; knead it for five or ten 
miiuiles, and bake. 

When these have become a little dry or hard, 
cut in small pieces, cover with cold water, soak 
till thoroughly soft, when the water should be 
all absorbed. Strain through a colander, mix 
Graham flour sufficient to roll and bake in the 
same form as at first. This is even superior to 
the original bread. 

Ri/e Biscuit. — One cup of wheat flo&r, two 
cups of rye flour, four table-spoonsful of mo- 
lasses, half a tea-spoonful of saleratus dissolved 
in the molasses, two te.a-spoonsfnl of yeast- 
powder, put into the rye and wheat flour a 
little salt; mix with milk; set through the 
night, and it is ready to bake in the morning. 

Elerjant Breakfast Bolls. — Take one pint sweet 
milk; two pints of flour; two table-spoonsful 
of butter; four tahle-spoonsl'ul of yeast, and 
half a tea-spoonful of saleratus. Beat thor- 
oughly, and let it rise all night. Pour into 
shallow pans, and bake about half an hour. 

French Bolts. — Add two ounces of butter and 
a little salt to a pint of milk; while tepid, sift 
in one pound of flour, one beaten egg, one 
table spoonful of yeast — beat these well to- 
gether; when risen, form the rolls with as little 
handling as possible, and bake on tins. 

Flannel Bulls. — One cup sweet milk ; whites 



of two eggs, two-thirds cup butter, flour to 
make a thick batter, half cup yeast, and two 
table-spoonsful sugar. Kaise over night, add- 
ing the eggs and butter in the morning. 

Potato Bolls. — Boil two pounds potatoes, pass 
through a colander, or mash them well ; add 
two ounces butter and a pint of milk, a little 
salt, one gill yeast, and as much flour as will 
make a soft dough; set them to rise. When 
light, cut them in cakes; let them rise one 
hour, and bake. Sweet potatoes make buauti- 
ful biscuits mixed as above. 

Corn Bolls. — Take a quart of meal, a spoon- 
ful of lard, and two spoonsful of yeiist ; mix 
with warm water until the dough is quite soft. 
Sefil in a warm place at night to rise, and bake 
it in a pan or in cakes iu an oven for breakfast. 

Banbury Buns — Prepare some dough with 
two table-spoonsful of thick yeast, a gill of 
warm milk, and one pound of flour. Let it 
work a little, and mix with it one-half pound 
of currants washed an<l picked, the same weight 
of candied' orange and lemon-])eel, cut small; 
one-quarter ounce of allspice, and the same of 
ginger and nutmeg; mix all logcllier with 
one-half pound of honey. Put it into jiuff 
paste cut in an oval form ; cover it with the 
.same, and sift sugar over the top. pake these 
cakes for a quarter of an hour in a moderate 
oven. 

Philadelphia Buns. — One pint of milk, one 
cup of butter, one pint of yeast, three cups of 
sugar, one egg, make a soft dough at night. 
Early in the morning add not quite a tea- 
spoonful of soda and two te.a-spoonsfnl of am- 
monia. Now put in a little more of flour, mold 
it well, and return it .to rise. When liijht, 
make into cakes, and let them .stand half an 
hour, or till light enough, then bake them. 

2'ea Table Buns. — "Binisthat are buns" may 
be made as follows: One pound of flour, three 
lemon rinds grated fine, half a pound of butter, 
melted in a cofl'ee-cup, a tea-spoonful of yea.st, 
three eggs well beaten, half a pound of finely- 
powdered white sugar. Mix and work it well; 
let it stand until raised, and then make out 
three dozen buns ; bake and eat, wlien you will 
say they are good. 

Riisl:. — 1. Beat together two cups sugar and 
two eggs; heat a pint of new milk with a sjuall 
piece each of butter and lard; pour it boiling 
hot over the eggs and sugar; half a nutmeg; 
add flour enough to stifien it; raise with yeast 
or bread sponge ; bake as other rusk. 

2. One pint of milk, one tea-cupful of but- 
ter, one cup of sugar, one cup of yeast; mi.x 



650 



THE KITCHLN AND DIMNG-ROOM : 



BtifT, and set in a warm place to rise for three 
hours. 

3. One quart of sweet milk, lukewarm ; one 
cup of nielteiJ butter, one cup of sugar, one cup 
of yeast, nine eggs ; set to rise until quite liglit, 
then knead them down with sufBcient flour to 
make a lojf; then set to rise again ; when raised 
until quite light, make out in small rolls; let 
them stand until again light, then bake fifteen 
minutes in a quick oven. 

Dried Rusk.— Take sugar biscuits which have 
been baked the day previous, cut them in half 
between the upper and under crusts, with a 
sharp knife. Place Iheni on tins, and soon 
after the tire has igniled, put them in the oven, 
and as the heat increases, they become gr;ftlu- 
ally dried through. When liglit brown, they are 
done. These are universally liked by the sick. 

Muffins. — 1. To two and a half cups of flour, 
one pint of milk, two table-spoonfuls of melted 
butter, and a little salt, and two eggs, beating 
the yolks and whites separately, and putting in 
the white portion just before placing the muf- 
fins in the oven. 

2. Take one egg well beaten, a piece of butter 
an inch square, one cup of milk, one table- 
spoon In 1 of soda, and two of cream of tartar; 
stir in flour till it is a stiff' butter; pour it into 
rings, or into a flat pan cut into squares. 

3. One quart of milk made a little warm, 
four or five eggs, a piece of butter the size of 
an egg, yeast and flour; to be set at night for 
the next afternoon, if your yeast will not rise 
quick; il your yeast rises soon, set in the morn- 
ing — bake in rings on the griddle. 

Water- Cure Muffins for Tea. — Take one pint of 
morning's milk and cj"eain from a two-quart 
basin, two eggs; thickening with superfine flour, 
Graham, or corn meal, to the consistency of 
griddle cakes; give the whole a good beating, 
and bake in iron muflin pans, placed upon the 
stove and heated quite hot, previously to put- 
ting in the batter; then bake in a brisk oven 
fifteen minutes. Not good in tin. 

For Plainer Ones. — One pint of water, one 
egg, unbolted flour; same consistency; give 
them a good beating to introduce the air, which 
insures lightness. 

Corn Muffins. — One quart of Indian meal, 
one quart of sweet milk, one table-spoonful of 
butler, one of molasses, and a little salt; a 
tea-cup of home-brewed yeaat, though more 
will not hurt it. Let it rise not,less than four 
or five hours, if for tea ; but set at bedtime, if 
for breakfast. Bake in greased rings in the 
oven instead of on a gridle, as iiuiny do. 



Or, one pint of fine Indian meal, one of 
wheat flour, four eggs, one gill of yeast, a little 
salt, as much warm milk as will make the 
whole into a thick batter. Mix the Indian 
and wheat flour together, stir in the milk, then 
the yeast, and lastly the eggs, after they have 
been well beaten. When the batter is light, 
grease the griddle and muffin rinj^s; place the 
rings on the griddle; pour in the batter, but do 
not fill them; bake them brown on both sides, 
and serve them hot. If for breakfast, set to rise 
the night previous; if for tea, about two o'clock. 

Mush 3Iuffins. — Make mush as you ordinarily 
do, and when cold, thin it with one quart of 
milk, and stir in a few handl'uls of wheat flour, 
seven eggs, and butter the size of an egg, also 
some salt. Bake in rings. 

Sye Drop-Calces. — Kye drop-cakes are an ex- 
cellent and healthy bread for breakfast. Here 
is a simple rule: Beat three eggs very light, 
add one quart of milk, a large pinch of salt, 
stir in a handful of flour ; then rye till the mix- 
lure is stiff enough to hold up the spoon; pour 
it into a French roll pan, or into muflin rings, 
and bake fifteen minutes. 

Little Short-Calces. — Kub into a pound of dried 
flour four oinices of butter, four ounces of white 
powdered sugar, one egg, and a spoonful or two 
of thin cream to make into a paste. When 
mixed, put currants into one-half, and caraways 
into the rest. Cut them as before, and bake 
on tins. 

Delicious Brealcfast-Calce. — One quart of sweet 
milk, two eggs, a small tea-spoonful of salt, and 
one pint of silted corn meal. No more nor 
less. Bake forty minutes in a quick oven. It 
will take an hour if baked in a slow oven. 

Strawberry Short-Culce. — Into three pints of 
flour, rub dry two tea-spoons heaping full of 
cream of tartar; add half a cup of butter, a little 
salt, one lea-spoon of soda dissolved in a pint 
of milk ami water. Mix quickly and thor- 
oughly, roll to an inch in thickness, and bake 
twenty minutes in a quick oven. Take a quart 
of strawberries, and add cream and sugar to 
make a sauce. For this purpose, small sized, 
rather acid berries, with sprightly flavor are 
preferable. When the .short-cake is done, di- 
vide it in three layers, butter them, and spread 
the strawberries lietween. Eat while warm. 

Or, make nice biscuit dough, roll it out large 
or small, to suit the size of your family. Bake 
in a quick oven, then split it open, butter, and 
spread thick with strawberries and sugar, and 
put on the upper crust. Have sweet cream in 
a pitcher for those who like it. 



BISCUITS — CRACKERS. 



G51 



Easpbetry Short-Cahe. — Make in the same 
way as for a slrawbeiTj'-cake, only cooking the 
berries a little while with sugar, before spread- 
ing them on the cake. This is delicious,' and 
more healthful tlian pie. 

Potato-Cakes. — Take two pounds of very 
mealy boiled potatoes, mash thera very fine 
with a little salt, mix them with two pounds of 
lliiur, and milk enougli to make this into dongh, 
beating it up with a spoon and put in a little 
yeast. Set it before the tire to rise, and when 
it has risen divide it into cakes the size of a 
nuittin, and bake them. These cakes may be 
cut open and buttered hot. 

Oaten Bunnocks. — Oaten bunnocks are' made 
by mi.xing the meal with water and a little salt, 
and baking in little patty-pans about twenty 
minutes, or they may be baked on a griddle. 

Oat Meal-Cake. — Wet meal with water. Cut 
in small .shapes, with a cooked raisin in the 
middle. Bake in the oven. 

Crullers. — Four heaping, large spoonsful of 
sugar, four of melted butter, two or three eggs, 
one cup of sour milk, one even tea-spoonful 
of soda, with a little .salt and spice to your 
taste, and as mnch flour as needed to mix up 
soft, and bake. 

Crumpets. — Make two pounds of flour into a 
dough with some warm milk and water, adding 
a little salt, three eggs well beaten, and three 
talile-spoonsful of yea.st; mix well and add 
BuiBcient warm milk to reduce to the consist- 
ency of thick batter. Place it before the fire to 
rise, and bake in rings on the top of the stove. 

Sally Lunn Tea-Bread. — Take a stone pot, 
pour in one pint bowl of sweet milk, half a 
tea-cup of baker's or other yeast, one quarter 
of a pound of melted butter, a little salt, and 
three beaten eggs. Mix in about three pint 
bowls of flour. Let it stand several hours, or 
until quite light ; then put it into Turk heads 
or other tin pans, in which it should again rise 
up before being shoved into the oven, to be 
"brought out" and presented to your friends 
as the beauty and belle of the evening. 

Or, two eggs, one cup of milk, one cup of 
sugar, three of flour, butter the size of an egg, 
three tea-spoonsful cream of tartar, and one 
and a half tea-spoonsful of soda. Bake in little 
round tins, and eat hot for tea. 

German Puffs. — One pint of milk, three eggs, 
one pound of flour, one dessert-spoonful of dis- 
so'red saleratus, a tea-spoonful of butter, a salt- 
spoon of salt. Beat the yolks and the whites 
of the eggs separately. The yolks must be as 
thick as batter, and the whites perfectly dry. 



Add to the yolks half the milk and half the 
flour, stir it well until tlie batter is smooth, 
then add the remainder of the flour and milk. 
Warm the butter and stir in, and beat tlie bat- 
ter thus made till it is light and full of bubbles. 
Stir in the saleratus, and lastly the wliites — but 
do not beat it after the whites have been added, 
as that will make it tough. Butter tea-cups or 
an earthen mold, pour in the batter, and bake 
it in a moderate oven. Serve with butter and 
sugar, or any kind of sauce which may be pre- 
ferred. They require from half an hour to 
three-quarters to bake. 

Indian Puffs. — Into one quart boiling milk 
stir eight^spoonsful of Indian meal, and lour 
spoonsful of sugar. Boil five minutes, stirring 
constantly ; when cool add six well-beaten eggs. 
Bake in buttered cups half an hour. 

Pop-Overs. — Four eggs, four cups each of 
milk and flour, melted butter the size of two 
nutmegs, and a little salt. Bake in small tins, 
and eat with sauce. 

Water Cure Wheat-Meal Crisps. — Make a very 
stiS" dough of Graham flour and cold water; 
knead thoroughly, roll as thin as possible and 
bake for twenty minutes in a hot oven. 

Crackers. — 1. One quart of flour, with two 
ounces of butter rubbed in; one tea-spoonful 
of saleratus in a wine-glass of warm water; half 
a tea-spoonful of salt, and milk enough to rub 
it out. Beat half an hour with a pestle, cut it 
into thin round cakes, prick them, and set them 
in the oven when other things are taken out. 
Let them bake till crisp. 

2. One pint of water, one tea-cup of butter," 
one tea-spoonful of soda, two of cream of tartar, 
flour enough to make as slifl' as biscuit. Let 
them stand in the oven until dried through. 
They do not need pounding. 

Plain Crispy Crackers. — Make a ]ionn(! of 
flour, the yolk of an egg, and .some milk, into 
a very stiff' paste ; be'it it well and kn^ad till 
quite smooth; roll very thin, and cut into bis- 
cuits. Bake thera in a slow oven till quite dry 
and crisp. 

Hard Crackers. — Warm two ounces of butter 
in as much skimmed milk as will make a 
pound of flour into a very stifl' paste; beat it 
with a rolling-pin, and work it very smooth. 
Roll it thin, and cut it into round biscuits; 
prick them full of holes with a fork. About 
six minutes will bake thera. 

Tea Crackers. — Three tea-cupsful of flour, one 
of lard, one of water, a large tea-spoonful of 
salt; mix all- together, put it on the pie-board 
and work it well, adding flour until stiff, short, 



G52 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



and perfectly smooth. Eoll out as thin as a 
knil'e-blade, prick it with a fork, and bake well 
but not brown. 

Soda Crackers. — Take flour, two quarts; but- 
ter, one cup; water, one pint; cream of tartar, 
three te.i-spoonsful; soda, one and a lialf tea- 
spoonsful. Mix the cream of tartar thoroughly 
with the flour, then rub in the butter, and add 
the water and soda together. Knead about 
the same as pastry for pies. Roll out a little 
more tlian the eif,'hth of an inch thick, cut in 
squares, and prick them all over. Bake in a 
hot oven about twenty minutes, or until dry. 
Wash the oven bottom clean, and put the crack- 
ers on it, for tjiey will not bake well on tins. 

Sweet Crackers. — One tea-cupful of coarse 
wheat meal, one of sour milk or buttermilk, 
three-fourth.s of a tea-cup of sugar, half a tea- 
spoonful of pearlash; made hard, rolled thin, 
and well baked. 

Graham Crackers. — Mix cold water and Gra- 
ham flour together, a liltlesalt, and knead very 
thoroughly — their good "quality depending al- 
most entirely upon the thoroughness of knead- 
ing or pounding. 

Batter CaKes — The griddle may be pre- 
pared for baking cakes without the use of grease. 
Cut a turnip in two parts and pass one over 
the warm griddle. It answers the purpo.se of 
grease, without its disagreeable smell. A soap- 
stone griddle may be rubbed before every batter 
of cakes with a sailed ras. 

Pan-Cakes. — Put in a basin, one-fonrth pound 
of sifted flour, one egg, one-fourth gill of milk ; 
stir to a smooth paste; then add one gill and 
three-fourths of milk, two ounces of fresh but- 
ter melted, and a small pinch of salt; mix well, 
and if lumpy, strain this batter. Put a small 
piece of butter in a pan-cake pan ; when melted, 
pour in two table-spoonsful of the batter, spread 
it so as to cover the pan entirely; fry till col- 
ored on one side, then to.ss it over and cook the 
other side, and turn the pan-cake out on a dish. 
"When all the batter is cooked in this way, 
sprinkle the pan-cakes with sugar, and serve 
on a very hot dish, with a cut lemon. Pan- 
cakes should be eaten as soon as fried. 

Netc England Pan-Cakes. — Mix a pint of milk, 
five spoonsful of fine flour, .seven yolks and four 
whites of eggs, and a very little salt ; fry them 
very thin in fresh butter, and between each 
strew sugar and cinnamon. 

Pullermilk-Cakes.— Two cnpK of buttermilk or 
sour milk, one cup of sugar, one piece of butter 
the size of a walnut, a tea-spoonful of suleratus, 



with as much flour as will make a thin batter. 
Spice to your taste, and bake. 

Bread Oriddlc-Cakes. — Place dry bits of bread 
in a tin pan with sweet milk; place it on the 
stove and let it soak until very soil; .strain 
through a colander, add three or four beaten 
eggs to each quart of the soaked bread, and a 
little sour milk, salt, and soda; thicken with 
flour sufficient to bake on a griddle. Bring 
them to the table while hot, and .serve with 
butter and sugar or molasses. It is a very eco- 
nomical way of saving the dry pieces of bread. 

Soda Griddle-Cakes. — One pint of milk, two 
tea-spoonsful of cream of uirt:ir, one lea-spnon- 
ful of soda ; flour to make a thin batter. Fry 
on a griddle. 

Strawberry or Huckleberry Griddle-Cakes. — Stir 
an even tea-spoonful of soda into two quarts of 
sweet milk, one tea-spoonful of salt, one pint of 
ripe berries, with flour to make a thick batter; 
bake on a griddle as other cakes. 

Potato Gridille-Cake.'i. — One quart of milk, six 
cold boiled Irish or sweet potatoes grated, two 
eggs, and flour sufiicient to make a batter. 

liice Griddle-Cakes. — Stir a pint of soft-boiled 
rice into a pint of milk, with two well-beaten 
eggs; mix with corn meal or wheat flour till 
stifl" enough to fry. By adding another egg, 
and sufficient flour, the mixuire can be rolled 
out, cut into cakes, and baked. 

Rice Patties. — Mix the rice which may be left 
from dinner with a little egg and flour, make 
into patties with the hand, dip them into a 
beaten egg, and roll them till thoroughly coated 
in Indian meal, and fry in the skillet. They 
make an excellent change for the breakfast 
table; or a nice dessert, served with sauce, or 
cream and sugar. 

Mye Batter-Cukes. — Six heaping table-spoons- 
ful of rye and six of Indian meal, three of flour, 
with two tea-spoonsful of cream of tartar, mix 
well, then add two table-spoonsful of molasses, 
a tea-spoonful of salt, and a tea-spoonful of 
soda in a scant pint of water; stir well, and if 
this quantity of water does not thin the batter 
sufficiently, add a little more. They are very 
nice made of souror buttermilk instead of cream 
of tartar and water. They should be about as 
thick as the batter for pan-cakes. Grease the 
griddle well to prevent them from adhering, 
and fry to a nice brown. Very nice for break- 
fast or supper, and may be eaten with butter or 
syrup. 

Corn Meed Griddle-Cakes. — Take, at night, one 
quart of Indian meal, about half scald it with 
boiling water, then cool it with cold water .so 



BATTER CAKES. 



653 



as not to kill the brewer's yeast, one tea-spoon- 
ful of which ia stirred in, with a teaspoonfnl of 
wheat flour, and a tea-spoonful of salt. Suffi- 
cient water must be put in to mal<e a thick bat- 
ter, and left to rise till morning; then add 
saleratus enough to sweeten the mass. Two or 
three eggs beaten and stirred in is an improve- 
ment. Then bake on a hot griddle, and you 
have breakfast cakes fit for a queen. 

3fusli-Cuke«. — Beat the yolks of six eggs very 
light, add on%j)int of milk, two pints of mush 
almost cold, one and a half pints of flour, one 
tea-spoonful of salt, three table-spoonfuls of 
luelted butter. To be well beaten together. 
Just before frying them, whip the whites to a 
strong froth, and stir it lightly into the batter. 
One spoonful in each cake. Do not let them 
touch in baking. 

Hominy-Cake. — ^li.K with hominy an equal 
amount of whe.at flour until perfectly smooth ; 
add a tea-spoonful of salt, and thin ofi" with 
buttermilk into a pan in which a tea-spoonful 
of soda has been dissolved ; when of the con- 
sistency of griddle-cakes, add a dessert-spoon- 
ful oi melted butter, and bake brown on the 
griddle. With maple syrup, or sugar and 
cream, they are delicious; and the ab.sence of 
eggs will not be missed. 

Suckivheat-Cakes. — A lady of culture, refine- 
ment, and unusual powers of observation and 
comparison, became a widow. Keduced from 
affluence to poverty, with a large family of 
small children dependent on her manual labor 
for daily food, she made a variety of experi- 
ments to a.scertain what articles could be pur- 
chased for the least money, and would at tlie 
sauje time go the farthest, by keeping her chil- 
dren longest from crying for something to eat. 
She .soon discovered that when they ate buck- 
wheat-cakes and molasses they were quiet for 
a longer time than after eating any other kind 
of food. A distinguished judge of the United 
States Court ob.served, th.at when he look buck- 
wheat-cakes for breakfast, he could sit on the 
bench the whole day without being uncomfort- 
ably hungry ; if the cakes were omitted, he felt 
obliged to take a lunch about noon. Buck- 
wheat-cakes are a universal favorite at the Win- 
ter breakfast-table, and scientific investigation 
and analysis have shown that they abound in 
the heat-forming principles; hence nature takes 
away our appetite for them in Summer. 

1. The finest, tenderest cakes, can be made 
by adding a little unbolted wheat or Graham 
flour, or coarse Indian meal, in the buckwheat. 
Less than a quarter will do. Mi.f with cohl 



sour milk, or fresh (not sweet) buttermilk is 
the best. The soda (yeast is dispensed with) 
when put in cold batter will not act satisfac- 
torily. Bake at once. The heat will start the 
effervescence, and as the paste rises it will bake, 
thus preventing it from falling. Hence the 
culminating point of lightne-ss is attained. The 
batter rises snowy and beautiful, and the pan- 
cake will swell to almost undue dimensions, 
absolutely the lightest and tenderest that can be 
baked, with not a touch of acid. More salt, 
however, must be admitted than usual to coun- 
teract the too fresh taste, when soda alone is 
used. Thus the bother of the yeast is all dis- 
pensed with. Pan-cakes in this way can be 
baked at any time, and on the shortest notice. 
Keep the Graham and buckwheat flour nnxed 
ready for use. Some add one or two table- 
spoonsful of molasses, to give the cakes a brown 
color; but it detracts somewhat from the pecu- 
liar buckwheat relish. 

2. To one quart of buckwheat flour add half 
a cup of yeast, a cup of cream, a table-spoonful 
of salt, and make a thin batter with warm 
water. After beating these well together, set 
the mixture to rise for about eight hours. 

3. One quart of buttermilk, a tea-spoonful of 
soda, a table-spoonful of salt; if wanted daily 
for breakfast, make a batter and put in half a 
cup of yeast ; then add the flour and water' to 
them each evening, and they can be ready all 
Winter. 

Extemjinre Buckwheat-Cakes. — A quart of buck- 
wheat, one pint of Graham flour or Indian 
meal, one table-spoonful of carbonate of soda ; 
dissolve in water enough to make a batter, and 
when mixed, add a table-spoonful of tartaric 
acid dissolved in a few spoonsful of hot water. 
Mix it and hake immediately. 

Eecookinr/ Buckwheat- Cakes. — Cold cakes may 
be rendered excellent by taking a suitable quan- 
tity of milk, and adding to it say one-twentieth 
part of its bulk in butter, and heating the two 
together over the fire till hot, but not scalding, 
and then laying in the cakes and turning them 
over. 

Green Corn Bailcr-Gakes, or Imitation Oysters. 
Take three dozen ears young Indian corn, six 
eggs, lard and butter in equal proportions for 
frying. Gr.ate the corn down fine as possible 
and dredge it with flour. Beat the eggs light 
and mix them gradually with the corn, add a 
salt-spoon of .salt, and beat the whole very light. 
Put into a frying pan ; the lard and butter 
mi.^ed ; when boiling hot, put in the corn- 
cakes, made oval-shape, three inches long and 



65t 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM : 



nearly nn Incli thick. Fry tliem brown, and 
send to table hot. In ta.ste, they have a .sini;n- 
lar resemblance to oysters; they make nice 
side-dishes at dinner, and are good at breakfast. 

Or, take young green corn and grate it in a 
dish ; to one pint of this add two ejjgs well 
beaten, a small tea-cupl'ul of flour, half a ciip 
of cream, and a spoonful of butter, and some 
salt and pepper; mix tlieui well together. A 
table-spoonful of this will make the size of an 
oyster. Fry them a little brown, and when 
done butter them, but when frkd in butler it is 
snflicient. Sweet corn is prelerable. 

Fritters. — To three tea-cupsful of buttermilk, 
adil three table-spoonsful of rich cream and a 
small quantity of sugar. Stir in flour until it is 
of the consistency of paste for doughnuts. Koll 
out the size of a large breakfast plate, and fry 
in lard to a rich brown color. As each cake 
comes from the fire cover with apple sauce, 
nuide from tart apples sweetened to taste, and 
spiced with nutmeg or cinnamon, and continue 
the process until the plate is well heaped. 

Apple Fritters. — Peel and slice crossways, a 
quarter of an inch thick, some apples, remove 
the core, and dip them one after the other in the 
following hatter: Put in a basin about two 
ounces of flour, a little salt, two tea-spoonsful 
of melted butter, and the yolk of an egg, 
moistened by degrees with water, stirring all 
the while with a spoon, till forming a smooth 
consistency to the thickness of cream, then 
beat the white of the egg till firm, mixing it 
■with the batter; it is then ready to fry. Use 
any fruit as fritters. 

Cre<im Fritters. — Mix a pint and a half of 
flour with a pint of milk; stir in si.x well- 
bealen eggs; add half a nutmeg, then two tea- 
spoonsful of salt, and a pint of cream; stir the 
whole just enough to intermix the cream, then 
fry in small cakes. Tlie addition of a few ap- 
ples chopped fine improves the fritters. 

Clam or Oyster Fritters. — Strain them from 
the juice, chop the clams or oysters, put pepper 
and salt, add an egg or two, a little cream or 
milk, sift in flour enough to make them stick 
together. This is the most delightful way of 
cooking clams especially. 

Frull Fritters. — Make any plain batter for 
pan-cakes, by dropping a small quantity into 
the pan ; put pared apples, sliced and cored, 
into the batter, and fry some of it with each 
slice. Currants, or sliced lemon as thin as 
paper, make an agreeable change. Any sort 
of sweetmeat, or ripe fruits, berries, or currants, 
may be made into fritters. 



Fried Cakes, Cridlers, or Dnughuits.—l. Three 
pounds flour, one pound sugar, tlireeijnarters 
of a pound butter, four eggs, one-half tea-cup 
baker's yeast ; rub the butter well into the flour, 
then add sugar and spice to taste; beat the eggs 
light, and pour into the mixture; add the yeast 
and then put in one and a half pints of milk 
to make a soft dough, cover and set to rise at 
bedtime to cook next day. They should ba 
kneaded twice. Sprinkle with powdered sugar 
when cooked. 

Or, just before immersing them in the hot 
fat, plump them into a well-beaten egg. This 
will give a thin coating of albumen, which will 
keep out the grease effectually. Furthermore, 
this coating will retain the tnoistnre, and make 
them keep in good condition much longer than 
if not thus treated. If not thus coated let the 
fat be very hot, as the hotter it is, the less of it 
the cakes absorb; and the larger the quantity 
of fat in the dish, the less it will cool as the 
cakes are thrown in, and hence the less fat the 
cakes absorb. 

2. One pint-bowl of raised dough wet with 
milk; knead in a tea-ciip of sifted sugar, two 
eggs and a heaping tea-spoonful of butter; let 
it rise again, roll and fry; fresh chojiped orange 
peel is the best seasoning. 

3. Four eggs, three cups of sugar, one cup of 
milk, half cup of butter, one tea-spoonful of 
cream of tartar, half a tea-spoonful of soda, 
with flour enough to make a stiff" dough. 

Poor Man's Jumbles. — Two bowls of flour, one 
of sugar, one-half of sour cream or buttermilk, 
a little soda, and some cinnamon; to be rolled 
thin, and fried in hot fat or butter. 

SiioiL'-Balls.. — Two cuj:is full of sugar, one- 
half cup of butter, one of buttermilk, one of 
sweet milk, and one of thick sour cream, two 
eggs, one tea-spoonful of saleratus. Roll and 
cut out with the top of a tea-caddy. Put ono 
raisin in the center of each, and roll into a ball 
with the hand. Fry in hot lard, and roll in 
pulverized sugar. They will keep in a crock 
for several weeks, and are always pretty and 
good. 

Varieties. — Two eggs beat light, a tea-spoon- 
ful of .salt, the egg thickened with flour to roll 
out thin as a wafer ; cut in strips one inch wide 
and four inches long, wind it round your finger, 
and fry them as yon do doughnuts. 

Pan Doddlings. — Three tea-cupsful of fine rye 
meal, three tea-cupsful of Indian meal, one 
egg, three table-spoonsful of molasses; add a 
little salt and allspice; sufficient sweet milk 
to form a batter still' enough to drop from a 



655 



spoon. Fry them in hot lard until a nice 
brown. 

Corn-Meal Crullers, or Doughnuts. — 1. Beat 
four egff.s light, and ponr on them one quart of 
sour milk (if sweet milk, cream of tartar must 
be used); add lialf a tea-spnonful of salt, and 
a small tea-spoonful of soda; stir them all to- 
gether, and then stir in sifted corn hieal enough 
to make a very stiff batter. Have ready a 
frying-pan half full of hot lard, into -which 
drop the batter from a spoon; when nicely 
browned, turn them over, and when done lay 
them on a culander to drain, and send to the 
table hot. 

2. A tea-cupful and a half of boiling milk, 
poured on two tea-cupsful of sifted Indian 
meal. When it is cool add two tea-cupsful of 
wheat or Graham flour, one tea-cupful of butter, 
one and a half of sugar, one of yeast, and two 
eggs, with a table-spoonlul of cinnamon, or a 
grated nutmeg. If not sufficiently stiff, add 
equal portions of flour and Indian meal. Let 
it rise till very light. KoU it about half an 
incli thick, and out it into small diamond- 
shaped cakes, and cook them in lard. 

llVi^es. — Four eggs, one quart of sweet milk, 
a cup of rich cream, four ounces of butter, one 
pound of flour, two ounces powdered white 
sugar, four table-spoonsful of yeast, and a salt- 
spoonful of salt. Beat the eggs to a froth. 
Put the butter in the milk, and warm it until 
the butter dissolves. When the milk is cooled 
sufliciently, put in the eggs, and stir in the 
flour, after which add the yeast and salt. 
When light, pour the batter in the hot waffle- 
iron, having first greased it well, or rubbed it 
with salt. Bake them on bothsides, by turning 
the iron. To be well buttered, and served hot. 

Or, one quart of milk, five eggs, one and a 
quarter pounds of flour, half a pound of butter; 
bent well together; if you make before time to 
b;ike, (int in one spoonful yeast. If wanted 
immediately, instead of the yeast, use a tea- 
spoonful of cream of tartar, and half a tea- 
spnonful of soda. Wafiles should be wet with 
cream or milk, or sauce, as fast as baked, sift- 
ing on them cinnamon and sugar. 

Ciirn-Meal Woffles. — Boil two cups of hominy 
very soft, add an equal quantity of sifted In- 
dian meal, a table-spofniful of salt, half a tea- 
cup of butler, and three eggs, with milk sufli- 
cicnt to make a thin hatter. Beat all well 
together, and bake in waflie-irons. When eggs 
can not be procured, yeast is a good substitute : 
|iut a spoonful in the batter, and let it stand an 
hour to ri.se. 



Rice Waffles. — A pint bowl of cold, well- 
boiled rice, mashed fine, thinned with cold 
cream or milk, one egg well beaten, a small 
piece of butter, and flour to make a stiff batter 
to bake. 

CsikeS. — So numerous are the cake recipe.'? 
that we can only endeavor to make a judicious 
selection. 

Frosting or Icing for Cakes. — Beat the whites 
of eggs to a full froth, with a little rose or 
orange-flower water; then add gradually as 
nuicli finely-powdered sugar as will make it 
sufficiently thick, beating it all the time. Be- 
fore using, dust the cake with flour, then gently 
rub it off, and lay on the icing with a flat knife 
and place in the oven for a few moments to 
allow it to harden, taking care to remove it 
befon^ it becomes discolored by the heat. 

Or, beat up the whites of five eggs to a froth, 
and put to them a pound of double-refined 
sugar, powdered and sifted, and three spoon.s- 
ful of orange-flower water, or rose water, and 
lemon juice,, and a little gum-arabic. Keep 
boiling it all the time the cake is in the oven, 
and the moment it comes out, ice over the top 
with a spoon. Be careful to keep the sugar 
clean. 

How to Buke Cake. — Have your oven well 
and evenly heated before putting in your cake, 
and do not allow it to cool. Keep up the heat 
at the same temperature, and avoid, if possible, 
removing the cake from the oven until it is 
done. Look not at the oven while the cake is 
baking — be sure you have it right, and let it be 
till ready to take out. To ascertain if the cake 
is done, take a piece of dry wood or skewer, 
pass it into the cake, and if it comes out dry, 
it is done. 

Hoto to Keep Cakes. — They keep best in tin 
canisters; wooden boxes, unless well-seasoned, 
are apt to give them a disagreeable flavor; 
brown paper should be avoided, for the same 
reason. 

Almond-Cake. — Three-quarters cup of butter, 
two cups of sugar, two eggs, one cup of milk, 
one pint of flour, two tea-spoonsful of cream 
of tartar, one of soda, two of yeast powder, 
one of e-xtract of almond. Beat butter, sugar, 
and eggs together, add part of the flour with 
the yeast powder, before adding the milk. 

Almond C/iccsc-Co/lT.— Blanch and pound four 
ounces of almonds, and a few bitter, with a 
spoonful of water; then add four ounces of 
sugar pounded, a spoonful of cream, and the 
whites of two eggs well beaten; mix all as 



C5b- 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



quick as possible; put it into very small patty- 
pans, and bake in a pretty warm oven, under 
tnenly minutes. 

Apple-Cake — If made of dried apples, soak 
over niijlit two cups of apples ; in the morning 
eliop them fine, and boil in two cups of molas- 
ses, anil when cold, add four cups of flour (or 
two encli of flour and corn meal), one cup of 
sugar, one cup of thick cream, half a cup of 
hiuter, two eggs, a tea-spoonful of saleratus 
with allspice, cloves, nutmeg, lemon, and rose 
water. A [ew currants improve it, but are not 
necessary. 

Blueben-y-Cahe. — Four cups of flour, one cup 
of sugar, three eggs, half a cup of melted but- 
ter, one cup of milk, one and a half tea-spoons- 
ful of cream of tartar, and one tea-spoonful of 
soda. Beat the sugar and eggs together, rub 
the berries in additional flour, to prevent 
settling. 

Breail-Ciile. — Three cups of very light bread 
dough, three cups of sugar, one cup of butler, 
three eggs, a grated nutmeg, a cofl'ee-cupful of 
raisins, one tea-spoonlul of saleraius, dissolved 
in a little hot water. Rub the butler and sugar 
together; then add the eggs, nutmeg, raisins, 
and saleratus; mix thoroughly with the dough; 
let it .stand to rise, after which bake in hot 
oven. Three or four table-spoonsful of wine, 
and a cup of cream, much improve it. 

Bread Cheese-Cahe. — Slice up a large French 
roll very thin, pour on it some boiling cream 
or milk; when cold, add six or eight eggs, lialf 
a pound of butter iiielteil, some nutmeg, a 
spoonful of brandy, a little sugar, and half a 
pound of currants; when mixed together, pour 
the mixture into pufl' paste, as other cheese- 
cakes. 

Cahe Without Egys. — One cup of sugar, one 
cup of butter, nutmeg, one cup of cream or 
milk, two ounces of currants, or half a pound 
of raisins, one lea-spoonful of dry cream of 
tartar, one-half ounce of soda dissolved ill 
milk ; flour enough lo make a batter. 

California-Cake. — One tea-cupful of flour, one 
of sugar, three eggs, two tea-spoonsful each 
of cream of tartar and of bidcing-powder, and 
one tea-spoonful of pulverized saleratus — the 
tartar, powder, saleratus, to be put in the mix- 
ture fine and dry; add a little salt, and the 
needful wetting, beat all together thoroughly, 
and bake quick for one hour. 

Chocolate Cakes. — Beat the whites of two eggs 
with a quarter of a pound of pounded sugar, 
into a frothy cream ; add the juice of half a 
lemon, and six ounces of finely-grated choco- 



late. Drop this mixture in spoonfuls on a flat 
tin, and bake them slowly. 

Cider-Cake. — One pound and a half of flour 
half a pound of sugar, a quarter, pound of 
butter, half a pint of cider, one tea-spoonful of 
soda. Spice to your t.aste. Bake till it turna 
easily in the pans, half an hour. 

Cinnamon ' Wafers. — One pound of sugar 
four ounces of butter, three eggs, half a tea- 
spoonful of soda, one table-spoonful of ground 
cinnamon, and flour enough to roll out; to be 
made the same as ginger snaps. 

Cocoamtt-Cake. — Tak.e a cocoa-nut and grate 
it fine; put it in a porcelain dish or kettle 
and place it over the fire, and stir constantly 
until it is nearly dry as flour ; then add a cof- 
fee-cup of powdered sugar, and the white of 
one egg, beaten to a froth. 'Mix well and make 
into small cakes, the size of a silver dollar, and 
place them on a sheet of white pajier, previ- 
ously buttered ; bake them.until slightly brown. 
Cnffee-Cake. — One cup each of coffee, sugar, 
molasses, and butter, one egg, one tea-spoonful 
each of soda and cream of tartar, one tea- 
poonful each kind of spice. Fruit to the 
taste. Mix with flour not as hard as fruit- 
cake. When it rises even in the dish, and 
bakes right, it makes a splendid fruit-cake, 
and better by standing. 

Cookies. — 1. Stir a poinul of .sugar and three- 
quarters of a pound of butter to a cream; then 
add three beaten eggs, a grated nutmeg, two 
table-spoonsful of caraway-seed, and a pint of 
flour. Dissolve a tea-spoont'ul of saleratus in 
a tea-cup of milk, strain, and mix it with half 
a tea-cup of cider, and .stir it into the cookies — 
then add flour to make them sufliciently stiff to 
roll out. Bake them as soon as cut into cakes, 
in a quick oven, till a light brown. 

2. A cup and a half of white sugar, the 
whites of two eggs, one cup of thick, sour 
cream ; one-half tea-spoonful of saleratus, cin- 
namon, caraway, nutmeg, or spice lo your taste. 
Cookies without Egrjs. — Three cups sugar, one 
cup sour cream or milk, one cup butter, a tea- 
poonful of soda, a little caraway-seed, with 
flour enough to roll thin. 

Cream-Cookies. — One pint of cream, two cof- 
fee-cupa of sugar, three egg.s, two tea-spoonsful 
of soda, and four of cream of tartar ; mix aa 
soft as possible to roll it. 

Corn Slarch-Cake. — 1. Whites of twelve eggs, 
three cups each sugar and flour, one cup each 
corn starch, butter, and milk, two tea-spoons- 
ful of cream of tartar, and one of soda; va- 
nilla or lemon flavoring. Frosting improves it. 



G57 



2. One and a half cnps each of flour, sugar, 
and butler, half a eup each of milk and corn 
starch, half a tea-spoon each of soda and cream 
of tartar, the whites of three eggs beaten to a 
froth, and added just before the cake is put into 
the oven. Use lemon or other flavoring, and 
get a delicate bake. 

Cup-Cahe. — Take one cup of butter, two cups 
of powdered sugar, four cups of flour, five eggs, 
one cup of milk or sour cream (sufScient soda 
to sweeten), orffe nutmeg, one tea-spoonful pow- 
dered cinnamon. Beat the eggs, sugar, and 
butter (previously .softened by heat) together, 
then add the other articles. Bake in small 
tins or cups. 

Ginger Cup-Cake. — Three cups of flour, fine 
of sugar, one of molasses, one of butter, a table- 
spoonful of ginger, one tea-spoonful of saleratus, 
and three eggs. Bake in pans. A pound of 
Pfoned or chopped raisins is an improvement. 

Delicate-Cake. — One pound of powdered sugar, 
three-fourths of a pound of flour, six ounces of 
butter, whites of fourteen eggs beaten to a stiff' 
froth, mace or bitter almonds grated. Bake in 
flat tins, from half to three-quarters of an hour. 

Electinn-Cake. — Take a lump of raised dough 
the size of a pint bowl, and work into it one 
cup of white sugar, half a cup of butter, half 
a pound of raisins, stoned and chopped coarse; 
put it in a well buttered dish, and set it down to 
rise in a warm place. When risen bake it in 
a moderate oven. When it is taken from the 
oven wet the top over with molasses. This is 
the most wholesome cake made. 

Egg- Cake. —Heat six eggs well, add a quart 
of sweet milk and a little salt, stir in flour 
until you have a nice batter, then, taking care 
to have your lard hot enough to brown theru 
quickly, drop the batter in with a spoon, and 
serve them hot. Don't make the baiter too 
Uiick. 

Fruit-Cake. — 1. One cup of butter (with salt 
washed out), three and a half cups light brown 
sugar, beat these ingredients to a cream. Put 
the yolks of three eggs into the mixture and 
beat all together. One cup of sweet milk, sift 
four cups of flour, in which mix one tea-spoon- 
ful of cream of tartar, and half a tea-spoon- 
ful of soda. Take some of this flour and rub 
it into one pound of clean, dry currants or 
raisins, and add them to the mixture, then 
gradually stir in the flour one-quarter of a 
nutmeg, and the grated rind of one lemon. 
Then add the beaten whites of the eggs. Pour 
into a pan lined and covered with white paper, 
and'bake in a moderate oven. 
42 



2. Two and a half cups dried apples stewed 
until soft; add one cup of sugar; stew awhile 
longer, and chop the mixture, to which add 
one-half cup of cold coffee, one of sugar or mo- 
lasses, two eggs, a half cup of butter, one cup of 
sweet' milk, one nutmeg, one tea-spoonful t>f 
soda, and cinnamon and spices to taste. 

3. Pour a pint of boiling water on three- 
quarters of a pound of fat salt pork, chopped 
very fine; let it stand till it cools, then add two 
cups of sugar, one of molasses, a pound and a 
half of raisins, five cups of flour, two tea- 
spoonsful of soda, one table-spoonful of cinna- 
mon, one-half a table-spoonful of cloves, and a 
cup of hickory-nut meats if convenient. More 
fruit and spice, and flavorings can be added if 
desired. 

Gingerbread. — Take five cups of flour, two- 
thirds of a cup of butter, two cups of molasses, 
one cup of milk, one tea-spoonful of soda, and 
two tea-spoonsful of ginger. This is a nmch- 
admired cake, e.specially when hot. 

Hard Gingerbread. — One cup of butter, two 
cups of sugar, one-half cup of sweet milk, one 
tea-spoonful of saleratus, one egg, ginger, rose 
water. Flour to roll out. Cut in long cakes, 
and crease with a creased roller. 

S(.ift Gingerbread. — One cup of sour milk, two 
cups of molasses, one tea-spoonful of ginger, a 
tea-spoonful of saleratus, a piece of melted biit- 
ler as large as a hen's egg. Flour enough to 
make a thick batter. Pour into a flat tin and 
bake quick. 

Ginger Sats. — Two cups of molasses, one cup 
of .sugar, one cup of shortening, one cup of but- 
termilk, a table-spoonful of soda, and a table- 
spoonful of ginger. Mix as soft as you can roll, 
and bake. 

Ginger Snaps. — One cup of butter or lard, 
one cup of sugar, two cups of molasses, one egg, 
two-thirds of a table-sjioonful of soda, three 
tuble-spoonsful of ginger, and a tea-spoonful of 
cloves. Cut thin and bake quickly in a hot 
oven. 

Ginger Sponge-Cake. — One cup each of mo- 
lasses, butter, and milk, two cups of sugar, 
three cups of flour, four eggs, a little soda and 
ginger. 

Gold-Cake. — One cup of brown sugar, one- 
half cup of butter, the yolks of four eggs, one 
whole egg, one-half cup of sweet milk, one and 
a half cups of flour, one tea-spoonful of cream 
of tartar, the yellow of one lemon and juice, 
one-half teaspoonful of soda, aftd nutmeg or 
vanilla to suit the taste. 

Hard Times-Cuke. — Take one cup of molasses 



658 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM : 



one cup of dried apples, and simmer together ; 
one cup of sugar, one half cup of milk, two 
and one-half cups of flour, one egg, and one 
tea-spoonful of baking powder. This will be 
found to be a very palatable cake, and much 
more healthy for children than the richer cakes. 

Jelly-Cake. — Spread or roll sponge-cake with 
jelly as soon as out of the oven, and lay the 
slices together. 

Jumbles. — One pound of butter, one of sugar, 
two of flour, three eggs, half cup of sour milk, 
one tea-spoonful of soda. KoU in white-coffee 
sugar. 

Lemon-Cuke. — Four tumblers flour, two and a 
half tumblers of white sugar, three-fourths of a 
tumbler of butter, one tumbler of milk, two 
lemons' juice and grated rind, one heaping tea- 
spoonful of soda, three eggs beaten separately. 
A tumbler and a half of currants improves this 
cake. " 

Litlle White-Cuke. — Dry half a pound of flour, 
rub into it a very little powdered sugar, one 
ounce of butter, one egg, a few caraways, and 
as much milk and water as to make a paste; 
roll it thin, and cut it with the top of a canister 
or glass. Bake fifteen minutes on tin plates. 

Loaf-Cake. — Take three cups of sugar, three 
cups of butter, three eggs, and two grated nut- 
megs, or two tea-spoonsful of oil of lemon. 
Rub ihe sugar and butter to a cream and beat 
in the eggs; take out half of this mixture, and 
to the remainder add three cups of milk quite 
warm, and a litlle yeast, and stir in sifted flour 
enough to make it quite stifl!". Allow this to 
stand several hours till perfectly light, then add 
the reserved portion of buttei-, sugar, and eggs ; 
mix well together, and bake. By adding two 
pounds of raisins the cake will be very rich. 

Macaroons. — Blanch four ounces of almonds 
and pound; whisk the whites of four eggs to a 
froth; then mix it and a pound of sugar, sifted, 
with the almonds, and a finely-grated lemon 
rind, to a paste; and laying a sheet of wafer 
paper on a tin, put it on in different little cakes 
the shape of macnroons. 

Measui-e-Cake. — One cup of butter, two of 
Bugar, three eggs, one-lialf a tea-spoonful of 
cream of tartar, and five cups of flour; Stir 
the butter and sugar to a cream, add the eggs, 
the whites and yolks beaten separately; then 
the soda and milk, and lastly the cream of tar- 
tar and flour. Flavor as you please. Bake in 
email tins or in a loaf. 

Molasses-Cake. — Half a pound of butter, three- 
fourths of a pound of sugar, a pound and a half 
of Sour, five eggs, a cup and a half of molasses. 



two-thirds of a cup of milk, a tea-spoonful of 
saleratus, a pint bowl of stoned raisins. 

Orange-Cake. — Two cups of flour, two of 
powdered sugar, five eggs, the whites of four, 
and yolks of five — saving one white for frost- 
ing — half a cup of boiling water, a little salt, 
one orange grated in, skin, juice, and all, half 
a tea-spoonful of soda, one cream of tartar, 
icing. Beat the whites stifl", stir in powdered 
sugar till stiff", grate in one orange, and spread 
on likejelly. 

Plum-Cake. — One and a half pounds of butter 
beaten to a cream, three-quarters of a pound of 
sugar finely powdered ; these must be beaten 
together until white and smooth; take six eggs 
(the yolks and whites to be beaten separately), 
when the whites are beaten to a stiff' snow and 
ready to put to the cake, mix in the yolks, then 
add them to the butter.; beat it enough to mix 
them ; add to it one pound of flour, and one 
pound of currants; do not beat it much after 
you put in the flour; let it stand in a cold place 
for two hours; bake it about an hour and a 
half. 

Little Plum-Cake for Long Keeping. — Dry one 
pound of flour, and mix with six ounces of 
linely-pulverized sugar; beat six ounces of but- 
ter to a cream, and add three eggs well beaten, 
half a pound of currants washed and nicely 
dried, and the flour and sugar; beat all for 
some time, then dredge flour on tin plates and 
drop the batter on them the size of a walnut. 
If properly mi.'ced, it will be a stiff" paste, 
Bake in a brisk oven. 

Pound-Cake. — Beat a pound of butter to a 
cream, and mix with it the whites and yolks 
of eight eggs beaten apart. Have ready, warm 
by the fire, a pound of flour, and the same of 
sifted sugar; mix them and a few cloves, a 
little nutmeg and cinnamon in fine powder 
together; then by degrees work the dry in- 
gredients into the butter and eggs. When well 
beaten, add a glass of wine and some caraways. 
It must be beaten a full hour. Butter a pan, 
and bake it a full hour in a quick oven. 

The above proportions, leaving out four 
ounces of the butter and the same of sugar, 
make a less luscious cake, and to most tastes a 
more pleasant one. 

Corn Meal Pound- Cuke. — To one quart of sour 
milk add two tea-spoonsful of finely-powdered 
saleratus, well stirred in; two eggs well beaten, 
one table-spoonful of brown sugar, ami a piece 
of butter as large as an egg. Salt to the taste, 
and then stir in the meal, making the mixture 
about as stiff as you would for pound-cake. 



G59 



Now comes the secre! of its gooiliiess — bake 
quick, to the color of a lich liglit brown. Eat 
it moderately warm with butler, honey, qio- 
lasses, or cheese. 

Puff-Cake. — Two cups of sugar, three cups 
of flour, one cup of butter, one cup of sweet 
milk, three eggs, two tea-spoonsful of cream of 
tartar, and one of soda; flavor with lemon. 

Queen-Culce. — Two cups of sugar, four cups 
of flour, one cup each of butter and sweet milk, 
and si-t eggs. ■> 

Rice-Cake. — Mix together half a pound of 
very soft boiled rice, a quarter of a pound of 
butter, one quart of milk, six eggs, and enough 
(lour to form a thin batter. 

Scntch-Cakc. — One pound of brown sugar, one 
pound of flour, a half pound of butter, two 
eggs, cinnamon. Roll very lliin and bake. 

Snow-Cake. — One cofTee-cup of sour cream, 
two and a half cofTee-cups of flour, two coffee- 
cups of sugar, two table-spoonsful of butter, 
one pound of arrow root, one tea-spoonful of 
creiun of tartar, half a tea-spoonful of soda, 
the whites of eight eggs beaten to a stiff' froth, 
and flavoring to the taste. This is much quicker 
made than where butter is used instead of cream, 
as it requires no beating after the ingredients 
are together, but will not keep as long. 

Sponge-Cake. — 1. Tliree fresli eggs, one cup 
of sugar, one cup of sifted flour; eggs and sugar 
beat together from five to twenty minutes; when 
light, merely stir in the flour; make thin and 
bake, and roll with jelly ; put in as soon as out 
of the oven. 

2. One tea-cupful of sugar, one tea-cupful of 
milk, one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar, one 
pint of flour, two tea-spoonsful of soda, one 
egg, one table-spoonfiil of melted butter; salt, 
spice, and bake in thin sheets; when baked, 
spread jelly of any sort between the sheets. 
This makes one cake in three small divisions. 

3. Take the weight of six eggs in sugar, half 
the weight in flour, the grated rind and juice 
of one lemon, a small tea-spoonful of salt. 
Beat the whites and yolks separately to pre- 
vent its looking streaked in the cake. 

Another Way. — One tumbler of flour, one of 
sugar, and three eggs. 

Tea-Cake. — 1. With a pound of flour rub a 
quarter of a pound of butter ; add the beaten 
yolks of two and the white of one egg, a quar- 
ter of a pound of fine loaf sugar, and a few cara- 
way-seeds; mix it to a paste, with a little warm 
milk ; cover it with a cloth, and let it stand 
before the fire for nearly an hour; roll out the, 



paste, and cut into round cakes with the top of 
a glass, and bake them upon floured tins. 

2. Rub fine four ounces of butter into eight 
ounces of flour; mix eight ounces of currants 
and si.'c of fine sugar, two yolks and one white 
of eggs. Roll the paste the thickness of a 
cracker, and cut with a wine-glass. You may 
beat the other white, and wash over them ; and 
either dust sugar, or not, as you like. 

3. Mix two cups of cream, three cups of su- 
gar, five eggs, the whites beaten to a stiff froth, 
one tea-spoonful of soda, flour to make about as 
stiff as pound cake. Salt, brandy, spice, or 
other flavor, to the taste. 

Wedding-Cake. — Four pounds of flour, three 
pounds of sugar, two pounds of currants, three 
pounds of raisins, twenty-four eggs, one ounce 
of mace, three nutmegs. This will keep two or 
three years. 

Wine-Cuke. — Beat two eggs and mix them 
with eighty ounces of butter which has been 
beaten to a cream. Mix together six ounces of 
powdered lump sugar, fourteen ounces of finely- 
sifted fl(]Ur, half a grated nutmeg, a tea-spoon- 
ful of ground ginger, and a table-spoonful of 
caraway-seed. When well mixed, work this 
well into the butter and eggs, beat it half an 
hour, and then add a large wine-glass of sherry 
or other good wine. Bake it in tin patty-piins, 
in a moderately-quick oven. 

Soups. — All soups are better to be made 
with fresh, uncooked meat, and not from meat 
once cooked, from which has been extracted 
most of its flavor and juices — leaving your 
cold meats for spicing or hashing. Of what- 
ever meat soup is to be prepared, it should be' 
carefully washed, not .soaked, and then placed 
in water quite cold, bringing this, very slowly, 
to a scald. If boiled at all, it should only be 
after a long simmering. This will bring out 
all the natural juice of the meat, so that when 
ready for the seasoning, and such vegetables as 
you choose to add, the scraps of meat may all 
be skimmed out without loss. Vegetable sea- 
sonings, such as summer savory, parsley, cel- 
erj', thyme, sage, onions, garlic, and other sea- 
soners should not be put into soups or stews 
until the soup is nearly done ; chop fine and 
put in five minutes before the soup is taken 
from the fire. 

Beef Soups. — Get a good beef soup bone, boil 
two hours, leaving about two quarts of broth ; 
break two eggs into some flour, and knead it 
very stiff"; roll out in three sheets to the thick- 



ceo 



THE kitciij;n and dining-room : 



ness of wrapping-paper; spread them on the 
table to dry half an hour; then place them on 
oire another, and roll them up as you would 
jelly-cake; with a sharp knil'e cut very fine 
strips from the end, not wider than the thick- 
ness of a case-knife; shake them up to sepa- 
rate them; drop them into your broth slowly, 
stirring your soup all the while. Boil ten min- 
utes; season with pepper, salt, celery, summer 
savory, or a little parsley. 

Baked &«;).— Take one pound of lean beef, 
chop rather fine, place in an earthen pot which 
will hold five quarts of liquid. Slice and add 
two onions, two carrots, two table-spoonsful of 
rice well washed, a pint of whole or split peas, 
a tea-spoonlnl of black pepper, and a table- 
spoonful of salt; pour overall one gallon of 
cold water; put the lid of the jar on it, or a 
close-fitting plate, and bake four hours. This 
is a nice, wholesome dish. 

Chicken Snvp. — Cut up a nicely-dressed 
cliicken ; put it in the pot with water to cover 
it, which must be measured, and half as much 
more added to it before the soup is dished. 
Keep it covered tight, boiling slowly, and take 
off' the fat as fast as it rises. When the chicken 
is tender, take it from the pot and mince it 
very fine ; season it to the taste, and brown it 
with butter in a dripping pan. When brown, 
put it back in the pot. Brown together butter 
and flour, and make rich gravy by adding a 
pint of the soup; stir this in the soup, and 
season it with a little pejiper, salt, and butter. 
Be careful the chopped chicken does not settle, 
and burn on the pot. It will be well to turn a 
small plate on the bottom of the kettle to pre- 
vent this. Toast bread quite brown and dry, 
but do not burn it, and lay the toast in the 
tureen, and serve it with the soup; stir the 
chicken through it, and pour it in the tureen. 

Mock Turile Soup — Scald a calf's head, and 
wash it clean. Boil it in a large pot of water 
for half an hour, then cut all the .skin ofT by 
itself; take the tongue nut, take tlie broth made 
of a knuckle of veal, put in the tongue and 
skin, with an onion, one-half ounce each of 
cloves and mace, half a nutmeg, all kinds of 
sweet herbs chopped fine, three anchovies; stew 
it till tender; then take out the meat, and cut 
it in pieces two inches ."square; cut tlie tongue, 
previously skinned, in slices; .strain the liquor 
through a sieve. Melt one-half pound of butter 
in a slew-pan; put in it one-Tialf pound of 
flour; stir it till smooth ; if at all lumpy, .strain 
it; add the liquor, stirring it all the time; then 
put to the meat the juice of two lemons, and 



one bottle of Madeira wine, if you choose. 
Season with pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper, 
pretty high ; put in five meat balls, eight eggs, 
boiled hard. Stew it one hour, gently. 

Clum Soup. — Twenty-five large clams, opened 
raw, drained from the liquor, and cliopped fine; 
three quarts of water with the liquor of the 
clam.s, just come to a boil ; then add a pint 
of milk, thickened with four table-spoonsful 
of flour and four of butter, rubbed together. 
.\.fter it is removed from the fire add three 
well-beaten eggs, and slir well. 

Vegetable Soup. — Take a shin of beef, six 
large carrots, six large yellow onions, twelve 
turnips, six tomatoes, one pound of rice or bar- 
ley ; parsley, leeks, summer savory ; put all 
into a soup-kettle, and let it boil four hours; 
add pepper and salt to taste; serve altogether. 
It makes a good*family soup. 

Corn Soup. — Boil twelve ears of corn — which 
should be young and tender — in four quarts of 
water. Take the liquor in which they are 
boiled, and put in a knuckle of veal or piece 
of "soup beef." If no grater is to be had, u.se 
a sharp knife to cut down each row of corn. 
Then with a spoon scrape off" all the corn, 
leaving the hulls on the cobs. Put the cobs 
back into the liquor to boil with the meat three 
or four hours. Strain all throngh a sieve, set 
it aside to cool, and skim ofi the fat. Mix four 
table-spoonsful of flour with a quarter of a 
pound of butter. Put the liquor into the pot, 
add the flour and butter and corn. Season with 
pepper and salt. Boil half an hour and .serve. 
If a stock is on hand use it, in proportion to 
its strength, with the clear water. This should 
make two and a half quarts of soup. The 
knuckle of veal or beef can be again boiled 
for second stock. 

Bean Soup. — Wash a quart of common white 
beans, or turtle-soup beans, and put them into a 
bowl and cover with water — soak over night. 
The next morning put four quarts of water into 
a pot, turn in the beans, with three or four 
onions, a couple of carrots, and a table-spoonful 
of celery-seed tied in a muslin bag. If black 
beans are used, stick three cloves in each onion ; 
put it on to boil slowly for four hours. Then 
pour thesoup on a sieve, and rub all thoroughly 
throngh it. Put on the sonp again, that it may 
heat and boil down if too thin ; or if too thick, 
add hoi water. Season with pepper and salt. 
A half a pound or a pound of salt pork may be 
cooked with the beans. Have some slices of 
bread toasted, cw( in small pieces and put in the 
tureen, and turn on the hot soup. If the black 



661 



beans are used, !>maU bits of sliced lemon are a 
great improvement. 

A richer soup may be made by boiling a sliin 
of beef the day before, and taking off all the fat 
after straining and cooling; or any bones suit- 
able for soup can be used. This receipt will 
make three quarts of superior soup. 

German Pancake Soup. — Miike a batter with 
a pouml of flour, a little salt, half a pint of 
milk; stir well, and add two eggs beaten; it 
should be of the consistency of cream. Make 
this into pancakes fried very pale-yellow. As 
each one is fried,, lay it on a board and double 
over once. Roll each slightly, and cut into 
strips half an inch wide, and put them.into the 
soup tureen, and pour good stock well seasoned 
and strained over them. Serve hot. 

JBeer Soup. — White beer (or wheat beer) is 
best for this. First boil the beer, and then 
beat up four eggs with a few spoonsful of flour 
in a little cold beer; throw this into the boiling 
beer; take it from the fire, put butter, salt, and 
sugar in it, and (ill it with crisp stale rolls cut 
in dice; dust the whole with cinnamon. 

Selecting Mead. — In purchasing meat by the 
quarter or in less quantities, select such pieces 
as have the smallest, thinnest, and flattest 
bones, covered by tine-grained flesh with fat 
intermi.Ked in thin streaks or layers with the 
lean. Such pieces will be foftnd tender, juicy, 
and most profitable. 

A piece of roast beef, iu the process of cook- 
ing, loses fifteen per cent.; if boiled, it loses 
only eleven per cent. If a leg of mutton is 
roa.sted, it loses twenty-iive per cent.; but only 
ten per cent, if boiled. There is, therefore, 
less loss in a beef than a mutton roast, but 
mutton, however, is four per cent, more nutri- 
tious than beef. 

Freshening Meats and Fish. — To freshen salt 
meat or fish, put it in water and let it simmer, 
not boil, awhile over the fire. The w.ater 
should be changed two or three times before it 
is sufficiently freshened for cooking. 

Roasting Beef. — It should be e.xpo.sed to a 
quick fire, that the external surface may be 
made to contract at once, and the albumen to 
coagulate before the juice has had time to es- 
cape from within. And so in boiling. When 
a piece of beef or mutton is plunged into boil- 
ing water, the outer part contracts, the albumen 
which is near the surface coagulates, and the 
internal juice is prevented either from escaping 
into the water by which it is surrounded, or from 
being diluted or weakened by the admission of 
water among it. When cut up, therefore, the 



meat yields much gravy, and is rich in flavor. 
Hence, a beefsteak or a mutton chop is done 
quickly, and over a quick fire, that the natural 
juices may be retained. On the other hand, if 
the meat be exposed to a slow fire, its pores 
remain open, the juice continues to flow from 
within, as it has dried from the surface, and 
the flesh pines and becomes dry, hard, and un- 
savory. Or, if it be put into cold or tepid 
water, which is afterward gradually brought to 
a boil, much of the albumen is extracted be- 
fore it coagulates, the natural juices for the 
most part flow out, and the meat is served in a 
nearly tasteless state. 

The Roa.'sting Spit. — The spit used in roasting 
meat ought to be kept very clean, anil should 
be rubbed with nothing but sand and water, 
and wiped dry with a cloth. Oil, brickdust, 
etc., will injure the meat. 

Rendering Tough Meats Tender. — Tough cheap 
pieces of beef can be made tender and palatable 
by being put into the pot with a trifle more 
water than will be finally needed. Set into 
the top of the cooking pot a closely-fitting tin 
pan or pail, and fill it with cold water. If this 
gets boiling hot, dip out some and add cold 
water from time to time. Boil the meat until 
it gets so entirely tender that the bones will 
drop out, even if it takes five or ten hours. 
The steam and aroma or flavor of the meat 
will be conden.sed on the bottom of the cover- 
ing pan or pail of water, and drop back, and' 
thus be retained. When thoroughly done, le- 
move the cover and slowly simmer down thick 
enough to jelly when cold. Dip out the meat, 
remove the bones, place it in a pan, pour over 
it the boiled liquid, lay over it a large plate or 
inverted tin platter, and put on fifteen or twenty 
pounds weight. When cold, it will cut into 
nice slices, and if lean and fat or white meat be 
mixed, it will be beautifully marbled. The 
juice will jelly and compact it firmly together, 
and you will have nice juicy meat, good for 
breakfast, dinner, or supper, and .so tender that 
poor teeth can masticate it. Fresh beef, or 
corned beef well freshened in cold water, may 
be used in this way with decided economy, .aid 
it is far superior to meat boiled in an open 
vessel from which the flavor has constantly 
escaped, as you can perceive by the odur all 
through the house. 

To render pork and veal wholesome, says 
Professor Blot, they should always be baked 
till overdone. 

Place a paper greased with butter over meats 
that are being baked. 



c(n2 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-KOOJI ; 



Braising Meats. — Use an oUi-fasliioned baUe- 
pan or bake-ketlle — if by an old-fasliioned fire, 
with a cover arranged to hold live coals. Meats 
cooked slowly, and for a long time, in a brais- 
ing or bake-|ian, with the steam confined around 
them, have a richness of flavor not otherwise 
obtained. The meat should be browned, and 
water enough added from tim6 to time to pre- 
vent burning, and form a rich gravy with the 
juice of the meat. Veal, usually .so badly 
cooked, becomes, when treated in this way, a 
delicious morsel; and so of a thick slice of 
ham cooked long and slowly. 

Potpie Crust. — Beat up one egg and mix it 
with a tea-cupful of new sweet milk, and a tea- 
spoonful each of saleratus and salt; then mix 
half a tea-spoonful of cream of tartar in dry 
flour, of which latter add till the crust is as soft 
or softer than ordinary soda biscuit ; then put 
the crust in the pot, with the water and meat 
already boiling, with a plenty of water to cover 
both crust and meat, and a tight cover to keep 
the steam in the pot, and boil three-quarters of 
an hour. 

Gravies. — Drawn Butter. — Work a heap- 
ing tea-spoonful of flour and two ounces of 
.sweet butter together, and then add two tea- 
spoonsful of sweet milk ; put it in a sauce-p.an 
on a slow fire, when melted, add a t.-\ble-spoon- 
ful of milk mixed in six of water — let it sim- 
•iner awhile till it begins to thicken, and when 
it gently boils it is done. Celery, spices, cat- 
sups, or essences may be added, if desired. 
This is a proper sauce for boiled fish, mutton, 
lamb, turkeys, and game of all kinds; but not 
for roasts. 

Gravy for Roast Beef. — Take the drippings 
and water in which the beef was basted, pour- 
ing ofi" most of the water with the oil, and 
thicken it over the fire with a trifle of flour. 
Wine may be added. 

Gravy for Roast Mutton, Lamb, Venison, etc. — 
Stew some mutton, cut fine, in as little water as 
will cover it, for an hour; drain ofT the liquor, 
season with pepper and salt, and thicken with 
a little butter and flour rubbed together. 

Grain/ for Steaks. — For two slices of steak, 
put on a platter butter the size of an egg, cut 
in small pieces, with a little salt, a dust of pep- 
per, and two table-spoonsful of hot water; do 
not boil, but simply melt and keep warm. 

An excellent gravy may be made with steaks 
by adding a little cream, thickened with a pinch 
of flour, into which, when off the fire and partly 
cooled, stir the well beaten yolk of an egg. 



Tomato Sauce for Steak. — Cut ten tomatoea 
into quarters, and put tliem into a sance-pan 
with four onions sliced, a little parsley, thyme, 
one clove, and a quarter of a pound of butter, 
set the sauce-pan on the fire, stirring occasion- 
ally for three-quarters of an hour; strain the 
sauce through a hair sieve, and serve with 
steak. 

Gravy for Game. — Boil the hearts, livers, 
gizzards, and lights in the stock of beef or veal 
soup; when done chop fine, and season with 
butler, pepper, and salt, and thicken with the 
yolk of an egg. 

Wine Sauce for Venison. — One gill each of 
mutton .broth and port or other wine, one 
table-spoonful of currant jelly ; heat them 
nearly boiling hot, and thicken with the yolk 
of an egg. 

Sour Sauce for Venison. — Brown, not burn a 
coflee-cup of sugar in an iron kettle; take it 
out and dissolve it in half a pint of strong 
vinegar; heat it, and add a gill of cranberry 
juice or jelly, and .serve hot. 

Gooseberry Saute for Boiled Lamb. — Stir half 
a pint of gooseberries, after they have been 
scalded, into a pint of drawn butler, and serve 
hot. 

Sauce for all Kinds of Fresh Fish. — Half a 
pint each of wine and rich gi-avy, a little nut- 
meg, two table-spoonsful of catsup, salt; sim- 
mer well together, and add three ounces of 
butter thickened with flour, arrow root or corn 
starch; and when it boils, it will be still fur- 
ther improved by the addition of some scraped 
horse-radish and a dozen or two of oysters. 

Egg Sauce for Suit Fish . — Three hard boiled 
eggs to half a pint of thin drawn butler — using 
all the yolk.s, but only half of the whites, chop- 
ped fine and mix well. 

Spice for Chops and Gravy. — Three drams 
each of ginger, black pepper, and cinnamon, 
an ounce and a quarter of white pepper, one 
ounce grated nutmeg, half an ounce mace, one- 
fourlh ounce cayenne pepper, and seven cloves ; 
mix well, bottle and keep dry. 

Stuffing. — In stufiing, care should be taken 
to leave room for swelling, or it is apt to be 
hard and heavy. 

Stuffing for Roast Fork, Dueks, Turkeys, or 
Geese. — Two-thirds onion, one-third green sage 
chopped fine, bread crumbs equal in weight to 
the sage and onions; season with a little pep- 
per and salt, and incorporate it well with the 
yolk of an egg or two, and a bit of butter. 
Some omit the bread crumbs ; some again, omit 



STlIFi'ING BEEP. 



063 



the onions; while otliers add to tlicm a clove 
of gallic. 

Slaffing for a Pig, — A lai'ge tea-cupful of 
grated bread, two ounces of butter, seasoning 
witli nutmeg, salt, and pepper ; scald two small 
onions, chop fine, and about thirty leaves of 
young sage, and an egg beat fine, and mix all 
together, stuff, and sew up. 

Htuffiny for Roast Fowls, — A good stuffing for 
baked or roast chicken may be made by chop- 
ping an onion fine, and stirring It with two 
ounces of butter in a sauce-pan on the fire. It 
is t:iken ufl' a moment, and bread which has 
been soaked in water and the water squeezed 
out is added with salt, pepper, a little nutmeg, 
and some parsley chopped fine. Then one 
yolk of an egg, mixed in thoroughly on the 
fire for half a minute. This stutKiig is then 
inserted in the chicken. 

Another. — Spread pieces of stale, but tender 
wheaten bread liberally with butler, and sea- 
son rather high with salt, pepper, and summer 
savory, working them into the butter; then dip 
the bread in wine, and use it in as large pieces 
as is convenient to stuff" the bird. The deli- 
cious flavor which the wine gives is very pene- 
trating, and it gives the fowl a rich, gamey 
character, which is very pleasant. 

Beef. — Beefsteak. — The rules adopted by 
the celebrated " Beefsteak Club," organized in 
England, in 1734, were thus represented: 

" Pound well your moat until the fibers lircak ; 
Be sure that next you have, to broil the steak. 
Good coal in plenty ; nor a moment leave, 
But turn it over this way and then that, 
The lean should be quite rare— not so the fat ; 
The platter, now and then, the juiee receive. 
Put on your butter— place it on your meat- 
Salt, pepper; turn it over, serve, and eat." 

Take a nice cut of sirloin or porter-house 
steak — or a steak from the seventh and eighth 
ribs, an inch and a quarter or an inch and a 
half thick — rub in salt and pepper well with 
the bands, and grease both sides slightly with 
sweet lard or fresh butter — using no strong or 
rancid butter. Place it between the bars of a 
well-warmed gridiron, so that it can be easily 
turned over the fire, which sliould be one of 
hot living coals; and there should be no smoke 
from drijjping gravy, which can be easily 
avoided with proper care. Turn it frequently 
till done, for much of the deliciousness of a 
good steak depends upon its frequent turning; 
and, when done, place it upon a hot dish, 
spiinkle over it a little more salt and pepper, 
spread over it a little sweet butter, and let it 
be served and eaten immediately. A delay of 



even five minutes makes an immense difTerence 
ill the flavor. The meat should be cooked en- 
tirely through, and the interior should be of 
a uniform red color — never dark and raw ; thus 
it is rendered exceedingly digestible, and very 
beneficial to convalescing patients. 

Another mode of broiling a beefsteak is as 
follows: The frying-pan being wiped dry, place 
it upon the stove and let it become hot. In 
the meantime mangle the steak — if it chance 
to be sirloin, so much the better — pepper and 
salt it, then lay it on the hot, dry pan, which 
instantly cover as tight as possible. When the 
raw flesh touches the heated pan, of course it 
seethes and adheres to it, but in a few seconds 
it becomes loosened and juicy ; every half min- 
ute turn the steak, being careful to keep it as 
much as possible under cover. When nearly 
done, lay a small piece of butter upon it, and, 
if you want much gravy, add a table-spoonful of 
strong coflee. In three minutes from the time 
the steak first goes into the pan it is ready for 
the table. This makes the most delicious, del- 
icately-broiled steak, full of juice yet retaining 
the healthy, beefy flavor, that any John Bull 
could require. The same method may be ap- 
plied to mutton-chops, only they require more 
cooking to prevent them from being rare. 

Beefsteak for the Old. — Take coarse, lean beef, 
with a .small quantity of suet; run it through a 
.sausage-cutter, or chop it very finely; add pep- 
per and salt; make into cakes three-quarters of 
an inch thick, and cook asyou.would beefsteak. 

Stuffed Beefsteak. — Prepare a dressing of 
bread scalded soft, and mixed with plenty of 
butter, a little pepper, salt, sage, a little onion, 
and an egg. Lay it upon one-half of a round 
of steak, cover with the other half, and baste 
it down with needle and thread. Salt and pep- 
per the other side of the steak, and place it in 
a dripping-pan with half an inch of water. 
When baked brown on one side, turn and bake 
the other, watching closely that it does not burn. 

Roast Beef. — When the meat is put on the 
fire, a little salt should be sprinkled on it, and 
the bony side turned toward the fire first. When 
the bones get well heated through, turn the 
meat, and keep a brisk fire — baste it frequently 
while roasting. There should be a little water 
put into the dripping-pan when the lueat is put 
down to ro»st. If it is a thick piece, allow fif- 
teen minutes to each pound to roast it in ; if 
thin, less time will be required. The tender- 
loin, and first and second cuts of the rack, are 
the best as roasting pieces. The third and 
fourth cuts are good. 



C6i 



THE KITCIIKN AND DINING-ROOII : 



Beef Alamode. — Take a thick jiiece of flank, 
or, if most convenient, the tliickest part of 
the ronnd, weighing eight or ten pounds. Cut 
oflf the strips of coarse fat upon the edge, make 
incisions in all parts, and fill them with a stuff- 
ing made of bread, salt pork chopped, pepper, 
and sweet marjoram. Push whole cloves here 
and there into the meat; roll it up, and fasten 
it with skewers, and wind a strong twine or 
tape about it. Have ready a pot in which you 
liave fried to a crisp three or four slices of salt 
pork; take out the pork, lay in the beef, and 
brown every side. When well browned, add 
hardly water enough to cover it, chop a large 
onion fine, and eighteen or twenty cloves, and 
boil gently, but steadily, four hours. The water 
sliould boil away, so as fo make a rich gravy, 
if it needs to be thickened. 

Stewed Beef. — Clieap pieces of beef can be 
stewed so as to make a capital dish. Wipe 
all the blood from the meat, salt and pep- 
per it well, cover it in the pot with water; 
boil from two to three hours till thoroughly 
lender; add half an onion, a sprinkle of sage, 
thyme, or summer savor}'. If the meat is fat, 
let the water all stew out half an hour before 
the meat is put on the table, and, when it is 
well browned on one side in the gravy, turn it 
over and brown the other. 

Spiced Beef. — Take a piece of meat from the 
fore quarter, weighing ten pounds. Those who 
like fat should select a fatty piece; those who 
prefer lean may t<ike the shoulder clod or upper 
part of the fore leg. Take one pint of salt, one 
tea-cup of molasses or brown sugar, one table- 
spoon ground cloves, allspice, and pepper, and 
two table-spoons pulverized saltpeter. Place 
the beef in a deep pan ; rub with this mixture. 
Turn and rub each side twice a day for a week. 
Then wash off the spices; put in a pot of boil- 
ing water, and, as often as it boils hard, turn in 
a tea-cup of cold water. It must simmer for 
five hours, on the back part of the stove. When 
cold, press under heavy weights, and you will 
never desire to buy corned beef of the butcher 
again. Your pickle will do for another ten 
pounds of beef, first rubbing into it a handful 
of sftlt. It can be renewed, and a piece kept 
constantly in preparation. This is a good pickle j 
for tongues fresh from the market. 

Rnlted-up Beef. — Cut pieces of baef, about as 
broad as a hand, and three-eighths of an inch 
thick, pound well, and add pepper and salt. Cut 
slices of bacon of the same size as the beef, roll 
the slices together, and tie them with a string, j 
Boil with water enough to cover the meat ; 



keep in a pot well closed. When the beef is 
tender, take it out, and also half the liquor; let 
the other half boil down, and then add the 
first half to it. Season with onions and salt 
to taste. Cut the strings off the meat and put 
on the table with the gravy. If to be used on 
the second day, boil it up again, cutting a pickle 
in the sauce, and it will be.ju.st as good. If to 
be kept for a time, put it in a dish and cover 
with fat. It will keep good for several weeks. 

Pressed Beef. — Salt a piece of the thin part 
of the flanks, the tops of the rilw, or a piece of 
the brisket, with salt and saltpeter, for five 
days. Boil until very tender; then place be- 
tween two boards, with a heavy weight upon 
the top one, and let it remain until cold. 
Serve it as it is, and garnish it with parsley. 

To Mince Berf. — Shred the underdone part 
fine, with some of the fat; put it into a .small 
stew-pan, with a little onion, a little water, 
pepper, and salt; boil it till the onion is quite 
soft ; then put some of the gravy of the meat 
to it, and the mince; but do not let it boil 
again. Have a small hot dish with bits of 
bread ready, and pour the mince into it, but 
first mix a large spoonful of vinegar with it. 

Beef Cakes. — Pound some beef that is under- 
done with a little fat bacon, or ham; seasou 
with pepper, salt, and a little onion ; mix them 
well ; and make into small cakes three inches 
long, and half as wide and thick; fry them a 
little brown, and serve them in a good thick 
gravy. 

Beef Patties. — Shred underdone dressed beef 
with a little fat; season with pepper, salt, and 
a little onion. Make a plain paste; roll it thin 
and cut it in shape like an apple-puif; fill it 
with the mince, pinch the edges, aiid fry them 
of a nice brorfn. The paste should be made 
with a small quantity of butter, egg, and milk. 

Beef Pie. — Take cold roast beef or steak, cut 
it into thin slices, and put a layer into a pie- 
dish. Shake in a little flour, pepper, and salt; 
cut up a tomato (if in the season) or onion, 
chopped fine ; then another layer of beef and 
seasoning, and so on until the dish is filled. 
If you have any beef gravy, put it in; if not, 
a little beef drippings, and water enough to 
make sufficient gravy. Have ready one dozen 
potatoes well boiled and mashed, half a cup of 
milk or cream, and a little butter and salt. 
Spread it over the pie as a crust, an inch thick, 
brush it over with egg, and bake about twenty- 
five minutes. 

Cooking Tripe. — Clean it well; let it lie for 
several days in salt and, water. Wash it well 



MUTTON — POKK. 



665 



before cooking, then roll it, tie with twine, put 
it into cold water, and boil slowly for three 
hours, skimming it frequently. Then peel and 
cut into halves half a dozen white onions, lay 
them in a, pan of cold water for half an hour, 
to extract the strong taste ; then put them into 
fresh cold water, and boil for half an hour, 
witli a little salt. Throw o(f the water, and 
cover them with new milk, and let them sim- 
mer for fifteen minutes, nuish them well; then 
rub a large spoonful eacli of butter and flour 
together ; stir this into the milk and onion, and 
let it simmer and mix together. Eub through 
a sieve, and add a cuiiful of cream or milk. 
Serve this hot with the tripe, which sliould be 
cut info slices before sending it to the table, 
keeping it rolled in cutting. 

Mutton.— Steaks Mainlenon. — Half fry; 
stew them while hot, with herbs, crumbs, and 
seasoning ; put them in paper immediately, and 
linish on the gridiron. Be careful the paper 
does not catch ; rub a bit of butter on it first to 
prevent that. 

Mutton Chops. — Cut the pieces from the loin 
or the best part of the neck ; take off most of 
the fat. Dip them in a beaten egg, or not, as 
you prefer, strew over them some crumbs of 
cracker or bread, sprinkle them with salt or cut 
parsley, and fry them in a very little butter. 
Two or three slices of salt pork or a little lard 
may be substituted for butter. When the chops 
are do'ne, lay tliem in a hot dish; pour a tea- 
cupful of hot water into the frying-pan, dredge 
in a little flour, and as it boils up stir it thor- 
oughly, then pour it over the chops. 

Mutton chops are very good broiled ; and 
steaks cut from a good leg which has been 
kept several days, are as fine as any meat can 
be for this purpose. 

Emjoui of Mutton. — Put in the pot a quarter of 
a pound of dripping; when hot, peel and cut 
twenty small turnips, or ten large ones, into 
pieces the size of a walnut; put them into the 
fat and fry until brownish. Take them out; 
then put into the fat a quarter of a pound of 
flour; stir round until brown. You have pre- 
pared four pounds of scrag of mutton, cut in 
small pieces ; put them in, and stir round ; 
then add enough water to cover the meat ; stir 
until boiling. When the mutton is nearly 
done, which you will find by trying it with a 
fork, add the turnips; season with three tea- 
epoonfuls of salt, one of pepper, the same of 
brown sugar, and a little bit of scraped garlic, 



if handy. Any part of mutton may be used. 
Ragout of veal or lamb may be done in this 
manner. 

Lamb and Rice. — Half roast a neck of lamb, 
take it up and cut into steaks ; take half a 
pound of rice boiled ten minutes in a quart of 
water, put it into a quart of good gravy, with 
two or three blades of mace, and a little nut- 
meg; do it over a stove or fire till the rice be- 
gins to be thick ; then take it off and stir in 
half a pound of butter, and when th.it is quite 
melted, stir in the yolk of six eggs well beaten, 
then take a dish and butter it all over tliom, 
dip them into melted butter, lay them iiito a 
dish, pour tlie gravy that comes off ihem and 
then the rice ; beat the yolks of three eggs and 
[lOUr all over, send it to the oven and bake it 
better than half an hour. 

Hashed Mutton and Fried Eggs. — Cut the cold 
mutton into neat slices, cutting off the brown 
outside and fat; warm the me.at in the sauce, 
and add some tomato sauce to the gravy; then 
put round the dish some sippets of bread and 
fried eggs. 

Haricot. — This dish, simple as it is good, is 
made by stewing the breast of mutton and po- 
tatoes together. 

Porli.— "Swine's flesh," says the Journal of 
Physical Culture, "is the worst of meats. Ciod 
told the Jews not to touch pork, because He 
knew pork was bad for them. And I echo the 
voice of my profession from almost every civil- 
ized country when I say that this immen.se use 
of the flesh of the swine is filling all Christen- 
dom with saltrheura, erysipelas, scrofula, and 
other vile hunuirs. And all this is more em- 
phatically inie when the animal is fattened in 
a close pLMi, without exercise, and stufl'ed with 
every conceivable kind of filthy food." Yet, 
as pork is largely used as an article of food, it 
is proper to give some of the best modes of its 
preparation. 

Pork Chops. — Cut the chops about half an 
inch thick; trim them neatly, put a frying-pan 
on the fire, with a bit of butter; as soon as it is 
hot, put in your chops, turning them often till 
brown all over; they will be done enough Tii 
about fifteen minutes. Season with a little 
fineiy-minced onion, powdered sage, pepper, 
and salt. A little powdered sage alone will give 
them a nice relish. 

Pork Cutlets. — Cut fat salt pork into slices; 
parboil it; fry it; then add a batter made of 
eggs, milk, and flour. Cook in such a way that 



666 



THE KITCUEN AND DINIXO-ROOM : 



the pork will be encased in tlie batter when 
done. It ia superior to tlie old-fashioned farm- 
ers' dish of fried pork and eggs, 

Roast Pork. — Lay it at some distance from 
the fire, and flour it well. When the flour 
dries, wipe the pork clean with a coarse cloth; 
then cut the skin in rows with a sharp knife, 
put your meat close to the fire, and roast it as 
quick as possible. Baste with butter and a lit- 
tle dry sage. Some persons add unions finely 
slired, and sage. 

Roctsl Pig. — To liave it in prime order it 
sliould be from four to five weeks old, not older, 
and should be killed and dressed the day before 
roasting. Make astufling of bread crumbs, dry, 
and two or three good-sized onions chopped 
fine, and about two table-spoonsful of finely 
powdered sage, well seasoned with salt and 
pepper. Allow no water in the pan, bake 
whole in a good oven, and rub often with a 
little bag of butter. When done, the I'at should 
all be poured from the pan, a little water added 
to the brown gravy, boiled up, and either 
poured over the pig or served in a tureen. It 
siiould be served with hot plates, apple sauce, 
hot, and very nice onion sauce. 

Baked Pork. — Any part, not too fat, is ex- 
ceedingly good done in this way: Cut two 
pounds in slices, rather large and thin, season 
with salt and pepper, then add a few slices of 
fat, then some slices of potatoes, then pork, and 
then potatoes, until all is in; add half a pint of 
water. Bake one hour and a half. 

Pork Pie. — Cut the pork in thick pieces, peel 
two baking apples, four onions, and eight pota- 
toes, cut them in slices, season with pepper and 
Bait, and if liked, a little powdered s-.me; inter- 
mix the vegetables, lay the slices and the vege- 
tables together, half a pint of water, or enough 
to cover it. Bake two hours and serve. 

Tomato Ham. — Cut a slice of ham, with but 
little of the fat, an inch thick across the middle ; 
peel and slice eight or ten, red tomatoes and ijn 
onion, put them in a small stew-pan, cover 
close, and cook three-quarters of an hour; 
season with pepper. 

To Broil Ham. — BTam is better broiled than 
flwd. Slice it thin, and broil the slices on a 
gridiron; when dished, place a fried egg on 
each slice and serve out. It should be broiled 
over bright, hot coals, from five to eight min- 
utes, turning it once. 

To Boil Hams — If it be a Maryland or Vir- 
ginia ham, or any one rather old or hard, it 
should be soaked over night in plenty of water, 
then put into a suitable cooking pot of cold 



water, which should be raised to a gentle boil, 
or rather simmer, and this should be continued 
for fil'teen minutes for every pound weight of 
the ham. Then lake out, remove the skin, and 
dust over it plentifully of bread crumbs, and 
set in the oven to bake from fifteen or thirty 
minutes. This very much improves the meat, 
for much of the fat fries out, and it becomes 
much more tender and healthy. I 

Baked Hums. — Under the head of braising 
meats, we have spoken of that delicious mode 
of cooking hams. Hams are said to be rnucli 
better baked, if baked right, than boiled. Soak 
the ham for an hour in clean water, and wipe 
it dry; ne.xt spread it all over with thin baiter, 
and then put into a deep dish, with sticli.< under 
it to keep it out of the gravy. When it is fully 
done, take off the skin and batter crusted upon 
the flesh side, and set it away to cool. You 
will find it very delicious, but too rich for 
dyspeptics. 

Teal.— Cu</e(s— Cut steaks from a leg of 
veal; rub them with salt and a little pepper; 
dip them first in one or two beaten eggs, and 
then in rolled cracker crumbs, or grated bread 
crumbs, and fry in lard or with slices of |iork. 

Brown Ragout of Veal. — Take two pounds of 
the breast, cut it into rather small pieces, about 
the .size of an egg, roll them well in flour, put 
some fat in the frying pan, fry tlie meat until a 
nice brown, take it out, then fry four onions, 
two turnips cut in large slices, and one carrot 
the same. When brown, take them out, put 
the veal and vegetables into a pan, season with 
two tea-spoonsful of salt and one of pepper, 
add a pint of water, put into the oven for one 
hour, skim the fat, shake the pan, and serve. 
A few herbs and a little ham or bacon is an 
improvement. Beef, mutton, lamb, and pork 
may be done in the same way. A tea-spoonful 
of sugar is an improvement. 

Veal Omelet. — Take four pounds of lean veal, 
and one and a half of fat salt pork ; chop them 
very fine, or run them through a sausage cut- 
ter; add one table-spoonful of salt, one of 
black pepper, two of sage or summer savory, 
four table-spoonsful of bread crumbs or pul- 
verized crackers, four eggs, and two gills of 
sweet cream; mix eggs, cream, and bread or 
crackers together; tlien add the other ingredi- 
ents ; bake in a deep pan three to four hours ; 
put on the top small bits of butter before cook- 
ing; when done turn it out on a platter, and 
cut it in slices as you would head-cheese. It 
will keep for several days. 



POULTRY. 



667 



Slewed Veal. — Cut your meat in pieces, wash 
them clean, put them into the dinner pot, add 
three pints of water, put in one onion, some 
pepper and salt, let it stew one hour ; then add 
potatoes sliced, and make a crust of sour milk 
or cream of tartar, and put in and stew till the 
potatoes are done, about half an hour ; the 
crust may be made into biscuits. Crumbs of 
any kind of fresh meat may be used in making 
a stew. 

Veal Polpifi. — Take a scrag or breast-neck of 
veal; cut it into slices about an inch thick; fry 
some slices of salt pork in an iron pot ; flour the 
veal; lay them into the hot fat, and let it brown 
a little; add water enough to just cover the 
meat; let it simmer about half an hour; season 
it with pepper and salt; dredge in a little flour. 
Have ready a common paste, roll it about half 
an inch thick, just large enough to cover the 
meal; cover the pot with a bot iron cover. Let 
it cook gently about three-quarters of an hour. 

Or, instead of boiling a crust with the gravy, 
make some cream biscuit, bake brown, pull 
them open, and drop them into the boiling 
gravy, leaving them in a few moments. 

Stuffed Leg of Veal. — Take out the bone ; rub 
the meat well with salt and a little pepper; sew 
up one side, and fill the center with a stuffing 
made of soaked bread, a heaping spoonful of 
lard or butter, four ounces of chopped suet, 
three chopped boiled eggs, a little salt, pepper, 
summer savory, and a beaten egg to bind it; 
fill the spaces in the meat ; sew a piece of 
white cloth over the top, and put it in the oven 
in a baking pan with some cold water. Fre- 
quently dip up the water and pour over the 
meat until it i,s thoroughly cooked. Then 
thicken the gravy with a little flour. It is good 
hot or cold. 

Potted Veal. — Pound cold veal in a mortar, 
work up with it in a powder, mace, pepper, 
and salt; shred the leanest part of tongue very 
finely, or bam is sometimes used ; place in a 
jar or pot a layer of the pounded veal, and 
upon that a layer of the tongue, and continue 
alternately until the pot is full, seeing that 
every layer is well pressed down; pour over 
tlie top melted clarified butter. If it is desired, 
anil which is frequenly done, to marble the 
veal, cut the tongue or ham in square dice in- 
stead of shreding it, but care must be taken 
that they do not touch each other or the effect 
is destroyed. 

Vecd Cake. — Take away the brown outside of 
cold roast veal and cut the white meat into thin 
elices; have also a few thin slices of cold ham, 



and two hard boiled eggs, which also slice, and 
two dessert spoonsful of finely-chopped parsley. 
Take an earthenware mold and lay veal, ham, 
eggs, and parsley in altwrnate layers, with a little 
pepper and a sprinkling of lemon on tlie veal. 
When the mold seems full fill up with strong 
stock and bake for half an hour. Turn out 
when cold and garnish with sprigs of parsley. 
Breakfaat Balls. — A little cold muttoji or hoc!', 
or both, a slice of cold ham, a small quantity 
of tine bread crumbs, a bit of sage, parsley, 
or thyme; chop well together; add an egg, a 
little melted butter, pepper, and salt. Take a 
table-spoonful of this mixture, dredge it well 
with flour, drop it into hot lard and fry brown; 
it is very nice. 

Poultry. — Preparing Fowls for Cooking. — 
Professor Blot, in one of his lectures on cook- 
ing, gave the following excellent directions for 
preparing fowls : Never wash meats or Ibwls. 
Wipe them dry if you choose, and if there is 
anything unacceptable, it can be sliced off 
thinly. In cooking a chicken whole, no wasli- 
ing is to be done, except the gall bladder be 
broken, when it is best to cut the chicken up 
and wash it thoroughly. And again, in cleans- 
ing chickens never cut the breast; make a slit 
down tlie back of the neck, and take out the 
crop that way. Then cut the neck bone close, 
and alter the bird is stuSed the skin of the neck 
can be turned up over the back, .sewed down, 
and the crop will look full and round. Further, 
the breast bone should be struck smartly with 
the back of a heavy knife, and with a rolling- 
pin to break it. This will make the chicken 
lie rounder and fuller after it is stufl'ed. The 
legs and wings should also be fastened with 
thread close to the side, running a long needle 
through the body lor that purpose. 

Broiling Fowls. — A good bed of coals, and a 
good gridiron, several inclies I'lom the coals, are 
quite essential. Put the meat on the gridiron, 
the cut side down, cook slowly, fri'quently 
taking it ofl', and dipping the side broiled in 
butter, pepper, and salt. It should be cooked 
fully half an hour, wiili an inverlcil pan cnver- 
ing the gridiron. • 

Boa-^ting a Turkey. — Having tilled the turkey 
with dressing, sew up the opening, tru>s it 
nicely, oil it with butter, put it before a moder- 
ately-hot bright tire or in an oveti, heating tlie 
skin as evenly as possible, and covering it 
with paper if there is the least danger of 
browning too soon. Roast pretty fast t lie fir.^t 
half hour without scorching, and baste the 



668 



TIIF, KITCHEN AND DIiMNG-ROOM: 



fowl every five minutes ; then let it roast 
steadily— -rather slowly — I'or two hours, or two 
and a Iialf, for a good-sized tender turkej-, 
when it will be done (Juite through. If the 
fluid which follows the sticking of a fork 
through the breast and thighs is entirely free 
from blood, it is done. If not sufficiently 
browned, replenish the fire, wet the fowl with 
a very little yolk of egg, dust it lightly with 
flour, and let it brown evenly all over. 

Boned Turkey. — Boil a turkey in as little 
water as may be, until the bones can be easily 
separated from the meat. Remove all the skin ; 
cut tlie meat in thin slices, mixing together the 
light and dark parts. Season with salt and 
pepper. Take the liquid in which the turkey 
was boiled, having kept it warm, pour it on the 
ni£;U, and mix it well. Shape it like a loaf of 
bread, wrap it in cloth, and press with a heavy 
weight for a few hours. When served up it is 
cut in thin slices. Some of our professional 
cooks can shape it somewhat like the original 
bird, so that one can not tell at once when it is 
seen that it is boned turkey; but this requires 
skill and labor. It is a favorite cold relisli at 
evening parties. 

To Roast Geese and Dueks. — Boiling water 
should be poured all over and inside of a goose 
or duck before you prepare it for cooking, to 
take out the strong oily taste. Let the fowl be 
picked clean, and wiped dry with a cloth inside 
and out; then fill the body and crop with stufT- 
ing. If preferred to stufling, fill with onions; 
jiut it before the fire, and roast it brown — re- 
quiring about two hours and a half. 

When a goose is less than a year old it can 
be cooked so as to taste almost as well as a tur- 
key. When the fowl is nearly ready to be 
killed, put vinegar into its food, and the day 
before its neck is brought to the block, pour a 
spoonful of vinegar down its throat. It has 
the effect — the reason of which is not well un- 
derstood — of making the flesh tender. Boil 
slowly for about two hours, if the goose is old, 
taking care to skim away the oil. One hour 
for a young goose. Then stuff, and roast, or 
bake, like a turkey, using a little good vinegar 
with the basting. 

Minced Fowl. — Take the remains of a cold 
roast fowl and cut off the white meat, which 
mince finely without any skin or bone; but put 
the bone, skin, and etceteras into a stew-pan 
with an onion, a blade of m.aoe, and a handful 
of sweet herbs tied up, and nearly a pint of 
water; let it stew for an hour, and then strain 
and pour off the gravy. 



Cooking Old Fowls. — Cut up in pieces, season 
to taste, with a little water in the dish; cover 
light, set in a moderate oven after breakfast, 
and when you take it out for dinner, you will 
find the meat tender and very nutritious. 

Fricasseed Chicken. — Joint, wash, and lay them 
in the stew-pan with pepper and salt on each 
piece, and water scarcely to cover them ; stew 
them half an hour, take tliem up, thicken the 
gravy with flour and a table-spoonful of butter. 
If convenient, add a gill of cream, let it boil 
up a minute, return the chicken to the stew- 
pan, and boil five or six minutes mure, then 
serve them. 

Chicken Pie. — Take two common-sized chick- 
ens, put them in the pot with plenty of water, 
some salt, and boil until tender, but not too 
much. Then make a crust, as you would for 
biscuit — cream is best for mixing it. Roll 
about one- fourth inch thick, and line the sides 
of a six-quart pan with the crust, then dip in a 
layer of chicken, season with butter, pepper, 
and salt to suit the taste. Then another layer 
of crust, and again a layer of chicken, and so 
on until the pan is full. Then roll a top crust 
large enough to cover tlie pan, put into the 
oven, bake moderately one hour and a half. 
Make holes in the top crust to let out the poi- 
sonous gases. 

Rice Chicken Pie. — Cover the boltimi of a 
pudding-dish with slices of broiled ham; cut 
up a broiled chicken and nearly fill the dish; 
pour in gravy or melted butter to till the dish ; 
add chopped onions, if you like, or a little 
curry-powder, which is better; then add boiled 
rice to fill all interstices and to cover the top 
thick. Bake it for one-half or three-quarters 
of an hour. 

Green sweet corn also makes a good addition 
to chicken pie. 

Chicken, Croqiielles. — Chop up cold chicken ; 
one onion chopped fine to every half pound 
of meat — the onion to be fried with a table- 
spoonful of butter; but before the onion ia 
quite fried, add a table-spoonful of flour- 
stir; then add some broth made from the 
chicken bones — stir again; add a gill and a 
half of broth, salt; then the meat is put in — 
stir again, and put on a slow fire. Three small 
mushrooms, or tomatoes chopped fine, are then 
added to the meat, a little nutmeg grated, a 
little pepper; keep on the fire a little while, so 
as to finish the onions, and mix thoroughly 
about ten minutes ; then remove from the fire 
and stir in two yolks of egga; then put back on 
the fire, give one boil and pour into dish; 



669 



spread and let it cool; then work a little with 
the hands to soften it, and divide it for the 
croqnettes; spread a few bread crumbs on the 
pasteboard and shape ; dip each piece into egga 
little beaten, roll in bread crumbs again, then 
drop the croquettes into hog's fat and fry them. 
Squirrel Pie.- — Cut them up and parboil in 
water, with a little salt in it, for half an hour. 
Then proceed as in chicken pie. 

Fisll. — Filling Fresh Fish. — They should be 
wiped out with a clean cloth — not washed nor 
soaked in water. Never put them into cold fat. 
Let the lard, butter, or oil be first heated to a 
degree just short of burning, and then plunge 
in the fish — well rubbed with salt — -the greater 
the quantity of fat, and the quicker the fish are 
cooked, the better they will be, as they give off 
their own fat instead of absorbing that in which 
they are cooked. 

ITow to Boil Fish.— For all kinds of fresh 
fish, put two spoonsful of salt to every quart of 
water; put the fish in with the water cold; 
remove the cover, and only let the water sim- 
mer. Try with a skewer whether the flesh of 
the fish stick to the bone; if .so, it is not enough 
— if the flesh drop off, it is too much cooked. 
A mackerel will take from fifteen to twenty 
minutes, a haddock a little longer; a pound of 
fis'li takes from fifteen to twenty minutes.. 

Stuffed FiA.—FiU the fish with a stufling of 
chopped salt pork and bread, or bread and but- 
ter, seasoned with salt and pepper, and sew it 
up. Then sew it into a cloth, or j'ou can not 
take it up well. Put it. in cold water, with 
water enough to cover it, salted at the rate of 
a tea-spoonful of salt to each pound offish; 
add about three table-.spoonsful of vinegar, 
lioil it slowly for twenty or thirty minutes, or 
until the fin is easily drawn out. Serve with 
ilrawn butter and eggs, with capers or nastur- 
tium in it. 

Fish can be baked in the same way, except 
sewing it up in a cloth. Instead of this, cover 
it with egg and cracker, or butter crumbs. 

Fish Chowder. — The best fish for chowder are 
liaildock and striped bass. Cut the fish in pieces 
an inch thick and two inches square; take six 
or eight good-sized slices of salt pork ; put them 
in the bottom of an iron pot, and fry them till 
crisped. Take out the pork, leaving the fat; 
chop the pork fine. Put in the pot a layer of 
fish, a layer of split crackers, some of the chop- 
ped pork, a little black and red pepper, a little 
chopped onion, then another layer of fish, split 
crackers, and seasoning. This do till you have 



used your fish. Then just cover the fish with 
water and stew slowly till it is tender; thicken 
the gravy with pounded cracker; add catsup if 
you like. Boil up the gravy once, and pour 
over the fish; squeeze in the juice of a leiijon. 
Add salt if necessary. 

Curry Fish. — Put into the pot four onions and 
two apples, in thin slices, some thyme or savory, 
with a quarter of a pound of fat or dripping, 
three table-spoonsful of salt, one table-spoonful 
of sugar, and fry for fifteen minutes; then pour 
in three quarts of water and one pound of rice ; 
boil till tender; add one table-spoonful of curry- 
powder, mixed in a little water; cut up six 
pounds of cheap fish the size of an egg; add to 
the above, and boil for twenty or thirty minutes, 
according to the kind of fish. If salt fish is 
used, omit the salt. If no herbs, do without, 
but always use what you can get. 

To Freshen Salt Fish. — Pour a little vinegar 
into the water, and soak the fish with the skin 
side up. 

Codfah. — Salted codfisli, if well freshened and 
cooked with milk, is one of the best kinds of 
animal food. It is nice freshened and broiled 
with butter; codfish and potatoes, and fish-balls 
are favorites with most persons. 

Dish of Dried Salmon. — Pull some into flakes ; 
have ready some eggs boiled hard, and chopped ; 
put both into half a pint of thin cream, and 
two or three ounces of butter rubbed with a 
tea-spoonful of flour ; skim it and stir till boil- 
ing hot; make a wall of mashed potatoes round 
the inner edge of a dish, and pour the above 
into it. 

Stewed Oysters. — To a half can of fresh 03's- 
ters poured into a stew pan, add about an ounce 
of butter, more if you like, about half a ta- 
ble-spoonful of flour previously stirred with a 
small quantity of milk ; when nearly to the 
boiling-point add milk to the taste, then allow 
them to boil about two minutes. When pre- 
ferred, the milk can be omitted. 

Curried Oysters. — Wash a quart of oysters 
from their liquor ; put the liquor into a sauce- 
pan ; mix a quarter of a pound of butter with 
two table-spoonsful of flour, and stir it into the 
liquor, with a table-spoonful of curry-powfler, 
or such spices instead, as your taste may dictate. 
Let it come to a boil ; put in the oj-sters, give 
them one boil, and serve in a deep dish. 

Fried Oysters — Select the largest oysters fer 
frying. Take them out of their liquor with a 
fork, and endeavor in doing so to rinse off all 
the particles of shell which may adhere to 
them. Dry them between napkins ; have ready 



670 



THE KITCHEN AND IHNINC-ROOM : 



some grated cracker, sensoned with Cayenne] ble to llie palale, and easy of digestion. There 



pepper and salt. Beat the yolks only of some 
eggs, and to each egg add half a table-spoonful 
of thick cream. Dip the oysters, one at a time, 
first in the egg, then in the cracker crumbs, 
and fry them in plenty of hot butter, or butter 
and lard mixed, till they are of a light brown 
on both si<les. S^rve them hot. 

Ot/ster Patties. — Put a fine puff crust into 
Bninll patty-pans, and cover with paste, with a 
bit of bread in each ; and when they are baked 
have ready the following to fill with, taking 
out the bread. Take off the beards of the oys- 
ters, cut the other parts in small bits, put them 
in Ti small tosser, with a grate of nutmeg, the 
least white pepper and salt, a morsel of lemon 
peel, cut so small that you can scarcely see it, 
a little cream, and a little of the oyster liquor. 
Simmer a few minutes before you fill. Ob- 
serve to put a bit of crust into all patties, to 
keep them hollow while baking. 

Yorkshire Pie. — Make a good crust of beef- 
Buet and flour, and line your dish; fill with 
alternate layers of as many kinds of game as 
you can get, including venison, ducks, geese, 
turkeys, chickens, pheasants, quails, pigeons, 
etc., together with ham, oysters, and sausage — 
all the meat boned and well-seasoned with 
Bweet herbs, filling the interstices with calve's 
feet jelly, and covering the whole with a crust 
with vent-holes — heat up gradually, and bake 
slowly for three or four hours; let it get cold, 
and then it will furnish variegated cuts, that 
would almost "raise an appetite beneath the 
ribs of death." A glorious dish for the Christ- 
mas holidays, a large family gathering, or a 
wedding occasion. 

Egg's. — Cooking in the Shell. — There is but 
one way of cooking an egg, to have it in per- 
fection, and that is, cook it in boiling water 
long enough to have both the white and the 
yolk just begin to thicken a very little, so that 
when the egg is opened it will run, and that the 
white shall not be hard but milky. Here you 
have all the taste and flavor of all parts of the 
egg in the highest degree, and that delicacy of 
touch which is very agreeable. It should not 
be boiled, but only scalded or coddled. The 
yolk first yields to the power of the caloric, 
and will be even firmly set while the white 
will be milky, or most tremulously gelatinous. 
The flavor, superior to any thing which a 
plover ever deposited, will be that which the 



is perfect absence of that gutta perclia quality, 
in the while especially, at once the result and 
the source of dyspepsia. Eggs would be much 
more p^itronized, and much more wholesome, 
if boiling were discarded. 

One way to cook eggs is to drop them into 
boiling water, and let them remain there three 
minutes— the water all the time boiling, This 
hardens the while next the shell to almost 
leathery toughness, while witliin it is still un- 
cooked. .\nother and preferable mode is, to 
pour boiling water upon the eggs; let them 
stand in this five minutes; pour off this, and 
add more boiling water, and immediately bring 
them to the table in the water. Tliose taken out 
at once will be somewhat cooked tlirongh; and 
those left in five minutes will be " hard boiled,"^ 
or nearly so, and thus the taste of every one 
may be suited and no toughness of the whiten 
be observed. 

JSggs and Sausages. — Boil four sausages for 
five minutes; when half cold, cut them in half 
lengthways, put a little butter or fat in a frying- 
pan, and put the sausages in and fry gently, 
break four eggs into the pan, cook gently, and 
serve. Raw sausages will do as well, only keep 
them whole, and cook slowly. 

Scrambled Eggs. — Put a tea-cupful of milk on 
to boil; put in a piece of butter the size of a 
walnut; salt, and dredge in a little flour; have 
three eggs well beaten, and stir them in quickly 
when it boils; stir it till it is thickened, not 
curdled. It is much improved by being turned 
over buttered toast in a deep dish. 

Scra7nbled Eggs irith Bread. — Put half a hand- 
ful of bread crumbs into a sauce-pan, with a 
small quantity of cream, salt, pepper, and nut- 
meg, and let it stand till the bread has imbibed 
all the cream ; then break ten eggs into it, and 
having beaten them up together, fry it like an 
omelet. 

Fried Biscuit and Eggs. — Slice a few cold bis- 
cut, or some dry, light-bread, fry them sligh'tly 
in a little butter or nice gravy. Beat three or 
four eggs with half a tea-cupful of new milk 
and a pinch of salt When the bread is hot, 
pour the eggs over it, and cover for a few min- 
utes, stir lightly, so that all the eggs may be 
cooked. 

A Plain Omelet. — Break six eggs into a basin, 
rejecting the whites of two; beat them till they 
are light. Strain them through a sieve, and 
season them with pepper and salt, or sugar, 
egg of the gallinaceous domestic was intended according as a savory or sweet omelet may be 
to have; the substance, that which is delecta- ' desired. Melt in the pan a piece of butter 



COOKING VEGETABLES. 



G71 



about the size of a small walnut ; be careful 
that it does not get hot. Whisk the eggs to the 
latest moment, and pour the mixture into the 
pan ; stir the omelet gently with a spoon till it 
begins to thicken, then slip a little more butter 
beneath it. Shake the pan until the center of 
the omelet begins to set; fold it in half, place 
a di?h on the top of the pan, and turn the om- 
elet out. 

Su'eet Omelet. — Beat four eggs into a basin 
add a table-spoonful of milk, a table-spoonful 
of sugar, a pinch of salt, and beat them vrsll 
up; put some nice butler into a pan, put in the 
eggs, and fry. Serve wiili sugar sifted over. 

Chopped Ham Omelet. — Six eggs well beaten, 
cold ham or raw, chopped fine, and stirred in, 
the whole well seasoned with salt, pepper, 
sugnr, and mustard, making a very .savory dish. 
Fni- brown in a buttered pan and turn over in 
a half minute. Another way to cook ham is 
to cut out the slices very thin, broil nicely, and 
put a bit of butter on. Then heat up a pint of 
rich cream, with mustard, sugar, pepper, and 
other condiments; butter some slices of toasted 
bread and lay around the side'of a dish, and 
turn the hot cream over, having first thickened 
it with a te.a-spoonful of flour paste. 

French Omelet. — Beat up one dozen eggs with 
a small cupful of new milk ; salt to your taste. 
Have ready on the stove a large frying-pan or 
dripper; let it be sufficiently hot to melt a 
small piece of butter, just enough to grease the 
pan so that the egg will not stick to it; pour in 
enough of the egg to cover the bottom of the 
pan rery thin; move the pan gently, first raising 
it on one side and then on the other, .so as to 
expose the egg evenly to the heat. In a moment 
or so, the egg next to the pan is jellified; then 
peel it up from the pan with a spoon, and roll 
it lightly over and over till the whole comes 
off, and then it is sufliciently cooked, and ra.ay 
be put into a napkin and kept hot (not cooked 
any more), till another portion of the egg is 
cooked in the same way as the first. 

The important thing to be observed in this 
process is to cook the egg evenly, and so slightly 
that it does not pass from the jelly stage, which 
is delicious and wholesome, to the ^onrjy stage, 
which is tough and indigestible. An epicure 
would sprinkle in some sprigs of finely-chopped 
parsley, or thin shavings of ham, some kidneys 
chopped, or garnish the dish with nice apple 
sauce or jelly. 

Green- Com Omelet. — Grate the corn from 
twelve ears of corn, boiled, beat up five eggs, 
stir them with the corn, season with pepper and 



salt, and fry the mixture brown, browning the 
top with a hot shovel. When tried in small 
cakes, with a little flour and milk stirred in for 
a batter, it is very nice. 

Tomato Omelet. — Beat six eggs, mix two 
table-spoonsful of flour in a little wiiter, and add 
some salt and pepper; peel and chop very fine 
four tomatoes, stir this all together. Put ;. bit 
of butter the size of an egg into a frying-pan, 
heat it hot, turn on the mixture, stirring all the 
time until it begins to thicken, then let it stand 
to brown three minutes, flap it half over, slip it 
on a dish, and send it to the table very hot. 

Professor Blot states, that by placing ome- 
lets in the oven as soon as done, they are ren- 
dered more flaky. 

Cooking- Vrg^etables. — Put no green 
vegetables into the water lor cooking till it 
boils, if you would liave them retain all their 
sweetness. If you would have them retain 
their green color, such especially as asparagus 
and peas, not only put them at first into boiling 
water, suitably salted, but keep the kettle un- 
covered, and the water boiling till done. To 
counteract the hardness of the water, should it 
exist, add a little carbonate of soda with the salt. 

Jervsalem Artichoke. — It was originally baked 
n pies, with dates, ginger, raisins, etc., but the 
modern way of serving them up, is to boil them 
until they become tender, when, after being 
peeled and stewed with butter and wine, they 
are considered very pleasant. Or, when cooked 
tender, browned in butter, or served with butter 
ravy. 

Afparaguji. — Cook as soon as possible after 
cutting, discarding all that is not brittle enough 
to break easily. Tie in small bunches, and 
boil in very little water, slightly salted, or 
steam them till tt'uder; take them out, and put 
in a covered dish; add sufficient butter to the 
water to make a rich gravy, thickened with a 
little flour, and poured over the asparagus. To 
be eaten as thus prepared or spread over soft 
toast; or, when boiled soft, it may be chopped • 
or mashed finely, and incorporated with well- 
bfeaten eggs, salted, witii a little sweet cream 
added, and served as an omelet. 

String Beans. — Gather them while young 
enough to break crispy; break off' both ends 
and string them; break in halves, and boil in 
water with a little salt until tender; drain free 
from water and season with butter. 

Baked Beans. — Take two quarts of middle- 
sized white beans, three pounds of salt pork, 
and one spoonful of molasses. Pick '.he beans 



672 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



over carefiillv, wash, anil turn about a gallon 
of soft water to tlieni in a pot ; let them soak 
in it lukewarm over ni^^ht ; pet them in the 
morning where they will boil till tlie skin is 
very tender and about to break, adding a tea- 
ppoonful of saleratus. Take them up dry, put 
them in ycur dish, stir in the molasses, gash 
the pork, and put it down in the dish, so as to 
have the beans cover all but the upper surface; 
turn in water till the top is covered ; bake WMth a 
steady fire four or five hours, or let tliem remain 
in the oven all niglit. Beans are good prepared 
as for baking, made a little thiimer, and tlien 
boiled several hours with the pork. 

Cabhaye. — Cabbage may be cooked in almost 
an endless variety of ways. Everybody knows 
how to boil it with pork and beef, but it does 
not agree with everybody's digestion in that 
form. A more delicate process is to cut it fine, 
not chopping, but shaving it, and put it in a 
tin basin, with just enough water to wet it 
through and keep it from burning. When it 
is well healed, and greened all through, put in 
a lump of butter as big as a hen's egg for one 
cabbage, and stir it through. Then beat up an 
egg in half a cup of vinegar, and add a table- 
spoon ful of salt, and stir it well through, taking 
it immediately from the lire. It can easily be 
prepared in fifteen minutes, and is excellent. 

Stuffed Cabbage. — Take a large fresh cabbage, 
and cut out tha heart. Fill the vacancy with 
stuffing made of cooked chicken, or veal, chop- 
ped very fine, and highly seasoned, rolled into 
balls with yolk of egg. Then tie tlie cabbage 
firmly together, and boil in a covered kettle for 
two hours. It makes a very delicious dish, and 
is often a useful way of using up small pieces 
of cold meat. 

Hot Skm. — Take an egg, a tea-spoonful of 
|lour, a table-spoonful of butt*, with salt and 
pepper to taste, and stir in a tea-cup of vinegar, 
and let the whole come to a boil ; have ready 
about a pint and a half of finely-cut cabbage, 
mix it thoroughly, cover it closely, and let it 
stew, stirring it frequently till tender, when 
serve. 

CardooTxs. — When cooked, the solid stalks rff 
the leaves of the cardoon are to be cut in pieces 
about six inches long, and boiled like any 
other vegetable, in pure water, without salt, till 
they are tender. They are then to be carefully 
deprived of the slime and strings that will' be 
found to cover them, and having been thus 
thoroughly cleansed, are to be plunged in cold 
water, where they must remain until they are 
wanted for the table. They are then taken 



out and heated with while sauce, ormarrow. 
The cleansing process just described, is for the 
purpose of rendering them white, and of de- 
priving them of a bitterness which is peculiar 
to then). If this is neglected the cardoons will 
be black, not white, ;is well as di.sagreeable. 

Cauliflower. — Put a good sized cauliflower in 
just enough boiling water to cover it, with a 
large tea-spoonful of coarse salt, and a piece of 
carbonate of soda the size of a moderate green 
pea, and boil for twer.ty-flve minutes; then dish 
and drain out all the water, and put two ounce.s 
of butter on top of the cauliflower and cover 
close. Or, a sance may be made for the cauli- 
flower by stirring together a cup of butter, a 
table-spoonful of flour, half a cup of sweet 
cream, two or three yolks of eggs, with a little 
grated nutmeg to suit the taste, adding meat 
soup, or some of the liquor in which the cauli- 
flower was boiled, and cook it five or ten min- 
utes till it forms a somewhat thick sauce — a 
tea-spoonful of vinegar, or wine, will itepart 
to the whole an excellent flavor. 

Sweet Corn. — Trim off' the husks and immerse 
in boiling water. Boil gently half an hour; 
thei>take out the cars, rub over some butter, 
pepper, and salt, and brown before a quick fire. 
Another plan, and one which most persons 
prefer, is to boil as above; afterward cut oflf the 
corn neatly ; return to a pan containing a suffi- 
cient quantity of mMk to cover; throw in a 
table-spoonful of butter, the same of sugar and 
salt, to flavor; simmer slowly for fifteen min- 
utes, and serve up hot. 

Succotash. — Green corn and shelled beans 
cooked together, and suitably seasoned with 
butter and .salt. Succotash, says Mr. Beechek, 
is a liquid compromise between corn and beans. 
It is perfect when its flavor is that of corn 
lapsing into bean, and of bean just changing 
into corn. In short, it i.s a dish whose flavor 
represents the evanishing point of both beans 
and corn, toward a mystic vegetable union in 
some happier sphere. But to be perfect there 
should always be a hierophantic bit of pork 
presiding over the nuptials, and giving its 
unctions blessing. 

Cucumbers. — Slice them into cold waterwhioli 
soon extracts the acid from them, which causes 
their unwholesomeness. Salt is a good condi- 
ment for them, but get along with as little 
pepper and vinegar as possible. 

Stewed Cucumbers. — Slice them thick, or halve 
and divide them into two lengths; strew some 
salt and pepper, and sliced onions; add a bit of 
butter. Simmer very slowly, and before serv- 



COOKING VEfiETABLES. 



673 



ing, if no butter was in before, put some, and a 
little fluui-, or if tbcre was bntter in, only a 
little flour, unless it wants ricliness. 

Egg-riant.— \i must be cooked before fully 
ripe. Pare, and cut in slices a quarter of an 
inch thick, placed in seperate layers on a plate, 
each piece properly salted, and let them remain 
over night, or at least, two hours or more, the 
salt extracting a bitter quality. Pour off thi.s 
dark liquid, fry brown, first one side and then 
the other, in bWter or lard, fir.st dipping each 
piece in a batter of eggs. 

Baked Egg- Plant.— Select a good-sized plant, 
free from defect, cut off the top carefully, as it 
must be replaced, then scoop out with a large 
spoon all the pulp; mix with it a large spoon- 
ful of bread crumbs, a little salt, some nicely- 
rubbed ihyme and summer savory, a little cay- 
enne and a spoonful of butter; stir these well 
together, return it to the hollowed plant, then 
lay on the top which was cut 08'; lay it in a 
stew-pan wiih some thin slices of fat corned 
pork laid on the bottom, cover tiglitly and let 
it cook slowly for about an hour; take ofi the 
string and send to table hot or cold. 

Hominy. — Wash slightly in cold water, and 
soak twelve hours in tepid, soft water, then boil 
slowly from three to six hours in same water, 
with plenty more added from time to time, with 
great care to prevent burning. Don't salt ickile 
cooking, as that or hard ivater will harden the 
corn. So it will peas or beans, green or dry, 
and rice also. When done add butter and salt; 
or a better way is to let each one season to suit 
the taste. It may be eaten with meat in lieu 
of vegetables, or with .sugar or .syrup. It is 
good hot or cold, and the more frequently it is 
warmed over, like bean porridge, the better it 
becomes. 

Hmninu and iJeaiis. — Mix equal (lai'ls of cold 
baked beans and cold hominy togellier, and 
warm up, and you will have an excellent dish. 

Hominy and Milk, hot or cold, is as much 
better than mush and milk, as that is better 
than oat-meal porridge. 

Hulled Corn. — Shell a dozen ears of ripe, dry 
corn; put it in an iron kettle and cover with 
cold water; put in the corn a bag of two tea- 
cupsful of fresh wood ashes, and hoi' until the 
corn looks yellow and tastes strong of the 
alkali ; then take out the bag and boil the corn 
in the lye over an hour; then pour off the lye, 
add fresh water and simmer until the corn 
swells. If the hulls do not come off by stir- 
ring, turn off the water and rub them with a 
43 



towel ; add more water and simmer for three 
or four hour.s, often stirring to keep it from 
burning; when it swells out and becomes soft 
and white, add salt to liking, and let all the 
iter simmer away. Eat warm or cold, with 
cream or milk. 

Macaroni. — Put in an iron pot or stew-pan 
two quarts of water, let it boil; add two tea- 
spoonsful of salt, one ounce of butter; then add 
one pound of macaroni, boil till tender; let it 
be rather firm to the touch; it is then ready for 
use either for soup, pudding, or to be dressed 
with cheese. Drain it in a colander; pat it 
back in the pan, add four ounces of cheese or 
more, a little butter, cream, salt, and pepper; 
toss it well together and serve. It will be 
found light and nutritions, and well worthy 
the notice of vegetarians, though cooked cheese 
regarded as very indigestible for weak 
stomachs. 

Huw to Cook Onions. — Peel, wash, and put 
them into boiling milk and water — water alone 
will do, but it is not so good; when nearly 
tender salt them; when tender take them up, 
pepper them and put some butter on them, 
when they are ready for the table. Or, chop 
them alter they are boiled, and put them in a 
stew-pan, with a little milk, butter, salt, and 
pepper, and let them stew about fifteen min- 
utes. This gives them a fine flavor, and they 
can be served up very hot. 

Take large onions and parboil them ; roast 
them before the fire with their skins, turning as 
they require; peel and send them to the table 
whole, served with melted butter. 

Peel, .slice, and fry them brown in butter or 
nice dripping. 

Eggs and Onions. — Boil some eggs hard, ]u'e- 
.''erve the yolks whole; cut the whites into 
slips, and add them to a few small onions which 
you have first fried in butter ; give all a stir up, 
pour oft' the superfluous fat; dredge in a little 
flour; moisten it sufl5cienl,ly with gravy; add 
sea.soning to taste ; let it come to a boil ; put in 
the yolks, and when they are quite hot, serve. 

Parsnips. — Parsnips are cooked as carrots, 
but they do not require as much boiling, and 
are sometimes .served differently, being sliced 
lengthway.s, dressed with butter and pepper, or 
mashed with a little cream, some butter, and 
seasoned with pepper and salt. They are ex- 
cellent fried, also made into a stew with pork 
and potatoes. 

Green Peas. — These should be boiled in very 
little water, with a tea-spoonful of salt to a pint 



C74 



THE KITCHEN AND DIXINO-ROOM : 



of water, and if the peas are not very sweet' 
add a liltle sugar. When they are young, 
fifteen minutes is sufficient to boil them. Drain 
them and add butter, pcpi>er, and salt, to the 
taste. 

Peas Steired in Cream. — Put two or three 
pints of young green peas into a sauce-pan of 
boiling water; when they are nearly done and 
tender, drain them in a colander quite dry ; melt 
two ounces of butter in a clean stew-pan, 
thicken it evenly with a little flour, shake it 
over the fire, but on no account let it brown ; 
mix smoothly with it a gill of cre.im add half 
a tea-spoonful of white sugar; bring it to aboil, 
pour in the peas, and keep them moving until 
they are well heated, which will hardly oc- 
cupy two minute.s. Send them to talile im- 
mediately. 

Peas Pudding, with Corned liecf or Park. — 
Wash and pick one quart of split peas; put 
into a cloth, not tied too closely ; put them on 
in cold water, and let. them cook slowly until 
tender; take them out and rub ihom through a 
sieve into a deep dish ; mix with Ihein two well- 
beaten eggs, a large spoonful of butler, and a 
little black pepper; stir these well together, 
then flour the bag well, put in the mixture, and 
tie as closely as possible; then put the pudding 
into the pot, which is boiling with the corned 
pork or beef, and let it cook one hour ; serve 
hot with the meat. 

Slewed Pea Shells. — These sweet shells or 
pods, so commonly assigned to the hogs or 
cows in our country, are very popular in Ger- 
many, simply stewed with a little butter and 
savory herbs. 

Cooking Potatoes. — In boiling potatoes, if 
peeled, they lose much of their substance; but 
make an incision all around, and another cross- 
ways, or clip ofT a little of the largest end, to 
allow the steam to escape, and render them 
mealy; put them into water already boiling; 
when done, pour the water off, dash some cold 
water into the pot, and after a couple of min- 
utes, pour this off', partly remove the pot-lid, 
and let the potatoes remain over the fire till 
the steam is evaporated. 

Bake<l potatoes are excellent, healthful, and 
improve the blood. Care should be taken to 
select all alike in size, being sure to allow them 
just sufficient time to become nicely crisp and 
brown at the hour the remainder of the dinner 
is ready. Thej' should not be allowed in the 
open oven one moment after "done," there to 
shrivel and shrink, as if protesting against 
delay ; neither be sent to the table to wait five 



or ten minutes tlie movements of some tardy 
husband and children. 

Mashed potatoes, that are nicely pared, 
boiled, and dried, alter turning ofT the water, 
seasoned richly 'with salt, cream, or milk 
and butter, are always good, always nice, if 
smoothed down into the dish with care, and 
prettily spotted with pepper. 

The mashed potatoes left from dinner make 
a fancy dish for breakfast, by making into lit- 
tle cakes or patties, with the hand, and frying 
brown in drippings or butter. The butter 
should be hot when the cakes are put in. 

The boiled potatoes left from yesterday's 
dinner are very good chopped fine and warmed 
for breakfast, in good milk and butter, with 
salt and pepper. 

When yriu are boiling your tea-kettle to-night 
you can boil half a dozen good-sized potatoes, 
and when cold, slice them the long way, some- 
thing less than a quarter of an inch in thick- 
ness. In the morning lay them one by one on 
the griddle, to slowly toast or brown in good 
butter or fat, salting them carefully and evenly 
after placing them in the covered dish. These 
are always excellent with cofl'ee; and these or 
the potato balls are an addition to the tea- 
table. Still another way to fry U to pare the 
potato round and round like an apple, until 
all is used, cooking slowly and evenly, in a 
covered spider, until brown. ' 

In the Spring, when potatoes are poor, diffi- 
cult)' is experiencod in preparing them to rel- 
ish — pare and cut them half an inch in thick- 
ness, putting them first in cold water for two or 
three hours, and then boil in salted water until 
tender; then pour ofT the water and put on 
cream or good milk, seasoning and thickening 
carefully with only a little flour. If watery, 
put a bit of lime in the water in which you 
cook them as large as a walnut ; or the watery 
character of the pot.ito may be rectified by 
placing them around the stove forseveral days. 

Chinese Yam. — The be.st mode of cooking the 
yam is to parboil and bake them; the texture 
of the flesh becomes uniform, of a pearly and 
almost snowy whiteness; it is not watery but 
soft, and very delicate both in-appearance and 
flavor. 

Mock Sweet Potatoes. — Steam Irish potatoes 
well, and wring them in a towel to make them 
mealy; mash till there are no lumps left, and 
sweeten with common brown sugar, to the 
taste. They are now ready to be baked, fried, 
or made into puddings. 

To Boil Rice. — Soak a tea-cupful of rice in 



COOKIXG VF.GETABLES. 



675 



rolcl water, for six or eiglit lumrs, and [lul it in 
liiiiling water, just enongli to alisorlj it all, and 
let it boil briskly for ten minutes, adding a lit- 
tle salt and half a pint of cream or a pint and 
half of milk. The grains are double the usual 
size, and very delicious. Too much boiling 
will make it pa.ste-like, clammy, and indigest- 
ible. 

Rice Croquettes. — To a pound of rice boiled 
soft and dry, sallied to the taste, add one pint of 
milk, quarter of a pound of butter, quarter of 
a pound of sugar, the yolks of five eggs, and 
the grated rind of one lemon; let the mixture 
.•dimmer over the fire, but not boil, for twenty 
minutes; then spread it on a large platter to 
cool ; when cold cut in strip.s ; dip in tliewhites 
of the eggs well beaten, and then in bread 
crumbs, and fry brown in very hot lard. 

Rice Pilaff. — This truly delicious Oriental 
dish is thus made : Boil a sufficient quantity of 
rice in a large quantity of water. It should 
be put in cold water, with a little salt, and not 
stirred while cooking. When thoroughly done 
strain off the water through a colander or sieve 
and each kernel will be separate and solid. 
Then season with salt, pepper, butter, and a 
little tomato sauce; cut up (not very fine) 
roasted or boiled mutton, or veal, mix with 
rice in proportion of about two-thirds to one- 
third meat. Let them simmer together a few 
minutes, and serve hot with the meat gravy. 
The water that the rice has been boiled in 
makes the very best starch for fine work. 

Salsify, or Vegeldble Oi/ster. — Wash and scrape 
the roots clean; then slice in bits about half an 
inch thick, boil tender, mash fine, and mix with 
a batter of flour and eggs — say to a quart of sal- 
sify, two eggs and two table-spoonsful of flour. 
Put some butter in a frying-pan, and drop a 
large spoonful of the oyster batter in a place, 
and fry it a light brown. 

Spinach. — This is the earliest and most wel- 
come Spring vegetable, but it is very apt to be 
spoiled in the cooking. It is important to 
know that it does not require any water, the 
expressed juice being quite suflScient to keep it 
moist and free from burning. Boil it fifteen 
minutes, after a very careful washing and pick- 
ing, in a covered sauce-pan without water, and 
with a little salt ; drain thoroughly, and pour 
over egg sauce — mixing the flour with milk in- 
stead of water, and garnish with sliced hard- 
boiled eggs. 

Sumvier Squash. — Put the squashes in boiling 
water whole, and boil briskly till tender, spread 



a clean, coarse cloth over a colander, and lay 
them in it, cut a piece from each end, and re- 
move the seeds with a spoon. Mash the 
squashes fine, press quite dry, and again place 
them over the fire a few miTUites, and season 
with butter, pepper, and salt. 

Slewed Tomatoes. — If very ripe, will skin 
easily ; if not, pour scalding water on them ai\il 
let them remain in it four or five minutes. Peel 
and put them in a stew-pan, with a table-spoon- 
ful of water, if not very juicy ; if so, no water 
will be required. Put in a little salt, and stew 
them for half an hour; then turn them into a 
deep dish with buttered toast. 

Raked Tomatoes. — Another way of cooking 
them, which is considered very nice by epicures, 
is to put them in a deep dish, with fine bread 
crumbs, crackers pounded fine, a layer of each 
alternately; put small bits of butter, and little 
salt and pepper on each layer — some cooks 
add a little nutmeg and sugar. Have a layer 
of bread crumbs on the top. Bake in three- 
quarters of an hour. 

Rrmvned Tomatoes. — Take large round toma- 
toes and halve them ; place thciu, the skin side 
down, in a frying-pan in which a very small 
quantity of butter or lard has been previously 
melted; sprinkle them well with salt and pep- 
per and dredge them well with flour; place 
the pan on a hot .part of the fire, and let them 
brown thoroughly; then stir them and let them 
brown again, and so on until thej' are quite 
done. They lose their acidity, and the flavor 
is superior to stewed toiuatoes. 

Tomato Cheese. — Take a dozen large, ripe, 
tomatoes, .scald, and remove the skin, then 
thoroughly mix them after cutting into slices, 
with a pound of sweet dried beef, shaved .as 
thin as tissue paper. Pul in with the tomatoes 
and beef the sweet while curd from a quart of 
milk, seasoned with pepper and ground cloves; 
put the whole into a stout bag of loosely woven 
linen, and after kneading and manipulating un- , 
til all the ingredients are perfectly incorporated, 
first squeeze out every drop of liquid that can 
be forced through the cloth. Then place the 
material in a "hoop" from around wooden 
spice box, by taking out the bottom and cutting 
in the edge four little notches as vents for the 
escape of any juice that may remain. Then 
place the removed bottom on the top of the 
mass as a " follower," and press twenty-four 
hours, and put by in a cool dry place. For 
u.se, shave in thin slices. 

Turnips. — Take a slice off the top end and 



676 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROO.M : 



cut off tlie tap-root close, leaving the other part 
of the paring on. It boila soft, is short grained, 
and helps the flavor of the turnips. 

Salad Dressing. — Rub very fine through a 
sieve, the yolks of six eggs boiled thirty minutes; 
add the yolks of three unboiled eggs, one tea- 
spoonful of fine salt, one large table-spoonful 
of mustard, a very little cayenne pepper, if you 
like; one flask of very best oil, poured in very 
little at a time, and thoroughly beaten; two 
table-.spoonsful of vinegar. If you like it more 
acid, add more vinegar; if the dressing is too 
thick, add a little hot water or cream. 

Clilcken Salad. — Mince finely the white parts 
<:{ one chicken previously well boiled. Take 
blanched, crisp celery and chop very fine. With 
one measure of the minced chicken mix one and 
a half niea.sures of the chopped celery. Boil 
liard one large or two small eggs, roll the yolk 
fine, and mi.xing in a tea-spoonful of mustard, 
and nearly as much salt, with half a tea-cupful 
of vinegar; pour this over the chicken. Cut 
the boiled whites of the eggs in rings and lay 
on top, garnishing also with the smaller leaves 
of the celery. Usually the celery is not chop- 
ped half fine enough. 

Meat Salad. — Ten or a dozen potatoes boiled 
and peeled, are cut up into small dice, as also 
two herrings, three pared apples, a quarter of 
a pound of roast veal, and as much boiled ham, 
one large pickled beet, and ten small cucumber 
pickles ; all of them are cut up together, and 
dressed with oil freely, vinegar and salt spar- 
ingly, and a .spoonful of French mustard. 

Cabbage Scdad. — A cold salad of cabbage is 
thus prepared: Slice very fine and lay in the 
disli. Beat up two eggs in a cup of vinegar; 
add a tea-spoonful of mustard, two tea-ajjoons- 
fnl of sugar, one of salt, and a large lump of 
butter. Boil and turn over the cabbage. For 
u supper dish this is very nice eaten cold. 

Boiled Celery Salad. — Cut the celery in slices, 
boil it, and lay it in the dish; dress it with 
cresses, endives, and radishes, and flavor with 
vinegar and oil. 

Hominy Salad. — To a pint of cold hominy, 
add a small onion, a quarter of a boiled chicken, 
or about the same quantity of lobster, chopped 
fine, to which some add a small pickle. To be 
dressed with sweet oil, mustard, pepper, and 
vinegar. It is a very good substitute for green 
salads, at seasons when the latter can not be 
obtained. 

Lettuce Salad. — This is made by simply cut- 
ting the lettuce into strips, and decorating it 
by a covering composed of the petals of ro.seB, 



' pinks, lady's slipper.s, and the blossoms of wild 
chickory. 

I Sidney Smith's Winter S<dad. 

Two larffo pot.%toi'8, passed tlirongli kitrhen sieve. 

Unwonted softness to the sntiid give, 
I Of mordant mustard add a single spuon— 

Distrust tlie londiinent which lutes su soon ; 

But deem it n.it, thou man of herbs, a tault, 
; To add a double quiintity of suit ; 

Tliree times the spoon witli oil of Lucca crown. 

And once with vinejjar proenred from town. 

True flavor needs it and your poet bcgts. 

The pnunded yellow of two well-boiled eggs. 

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, 

And scarce suspected, animate the whole ; 

And lastly on the favored compound toss 

A magic tea-spoon of anchovy sauce ; 

Ttien, though arien Inrtlo fail, though venison's tongh. 

And ham an.l turkey are not boiled enough, 
I Serenely full, tlie epicure may Sftj — 

'•Fate can not harm me— I have ajned to-<lay," 

Table Drinks.— Professor LooMis thus 
speaks of milk, tea, and cofl'ee : "Milk con- 
tains in solution not only a due proportion of 
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, but all 
the other elements necessary for the construc- 
tion of bone, nerve, etc., and hence is alwaj s 
a proper food in all ciroiirastancea of health. 
Tea derives its beneficial qualities not from its 
direct supply of nutrition, but from its afford- 
ing a peculiar substance called theine, the effect 
: of which in the system is to diminish the waste, 
thus making less food necessary. Tea thus has 
a positive economic value, not as a supplying 
but as a saving nutriment. Coffee, though of a 
I taste so little allied to tea, derives its value in 
precisely the same manner and from nearly the 
' same substances. Its value and effect in the 
system are therefore the same a? those above 
stated. It is hence evident that milk, te.a, and 
coffee are valuable articles of food under all 
I conditiims of temperature." 

Housekeepers, especially in liotels and large 
boarding hoiLses, are sometimes compelled from 
' necessity to use milk for tea and coffee after the 
I cream has risen. As a consequence one boarder 
I will have the benefit of all the cream, and the 
I others of the skim-milk from the cream pitcher. 
j When several quarts are to be used, this may 
! easily be remedied by rnnning the milk through 
I a common tin strainer, wlicn the cream will be 
I thoroughly broken up and mixed with the milk 
and look and be essentially like new milk. By 
this simple device many a housekeeper may 
maintain her character of furnishing something 
besides skim-milk for her boarders. 

Never reduce coffee by adding hot water — use 
hot milk or cream. For such persons as find 
coffee disagrees with them, fill the cup two- 



TABLE DRINK. 



67^ 



(liirJs full of boiling liot milk, sugar to the 
taste, and till up half the space left with strong 
coft'ee. 

When creani oan not he had, the yolks of 
eggs beaten to a froth, and stirred gradually 
into cold milk, in the proportion of three to a 
pint, is a good substitute; pouring the milk and 
egg in the cup, and stirring with a spoon while 
tilling with coffee. 

Making Tea. — Good tea can not be made with 
hard water. Water can be made soft by add- 
ing a tea-spoonful of borax powder to an ordi- 
nary-sized kettle of water, in which it should 
boil; and the saring in the quantity of tea 
used will be at least one-fifth. 

Mrs. Stowe informs us, that as we look to 
France for th'! best cofl'ee, so we must look to 
England for the perfection of tea. Tlie tea- 
kettle is as much an English institution as aris- 
tocracy or the prayer-book; and when one wants 
to know exactly how tea should be made, one 
has only to a.sk how a fine old English house- 
keeper makes it. The first article of her failh 
is that the water must not merely be hot, not 
merely have boiled a few moments since, but 
be actually boiling at the moment it touches 
the tea. Hence, though servants in England 
are v.astly better trained than with us, this deli- 
cate mystery is seldom left to their hands. 
Tea-making belongs to the drawing-room, and 
high-born ladies preside at "the bubbling and 
lond-hissing urn," and see that all the due rites 
and solemnities are |)roperly performed — that 
the cups are hot, and that the infused tea waits 
tlie exact time belVu-e the libations commence. 

How to Make It. — First heat the tea-pot by 
pouring boiling water into it; pour this out, 
and put into the pot as much good tea as you 
wish to use; then pour in boiling water enough 
to completely cover the tea so as to wet it 
thoroughly. Set the pot on the cooking table, 
if that is handy (it need not be set on anything 
that is hot), and in five minutes pour in boil- 
ing water enough for the first cups, and pour 
out immediately. If a second cup, or cups, are 
wished, and tea enongli has been put in the pot, 
add boiling water in sufficient quantity. This 
rule applys particularly to Japanese and Hyson 
teas. Perhaps black tea would not be as good 
made in this way, as if it were steeped longer. 
That may depend on taste. 

To Make a Choice Cup of r«a.— Put, say half 
a t^a-spoonful of tea into a cuip, and fill with 
boiling water; and replenish with hot water as 
wanted. A slight infusion brings out the aro- 
ma, which is the agreeable and healthful qiial- 



ily of the tea, while the essential oil brought 
out by boiling or long steeping is disagreeable 
to the cultivated taste, and acts powerfully on 
the nerves. 

Properties and Preparation of Coffee. — In an 
able article by Baron LlEBro, in the London 
Popular Science Review, it is asserted that "tea 
acts directly on the stomach, whose movements 
sometimes can be so much augmented by it, 
that strong tea, if taken fasting, inclines to vom- 
iting. Coffee, on the contrary, furthers the per- 
istalic movement downwards; and, tlierefore, 
the German man of letters, more accustomed 
to a sitting life, looks on a cup of coffee, with- 
out milk, and assi.sted bj' a cigar, as a very ac- 
ceptable means of a-ssisting certain organic pro- 
cesses. 

" Coffee contains a crystalline substance, nam- 
ed caffeine or theine, because it is also a compo- 
nent part of tea. This matter is volatile, and 
every care must he taken to retain it in the cof- 
fee. For this purpose the berries should be 
roasted till they are of a pale-brown color; in 
those which are too dark there is no caffeine; if 
they are black the essential parts of the berries 
are entirely destroyed, and tlie beverage pre- 
pared from these does not deserve the name of 
coffee. 

"The berries of coffee, once roasted, lo-^e 
every hour somewhat of their aroma, in con- 
sequence of the influence of the oxygen of the 
air, which, owing to the porosity of the roasted 
berries, can easily penetrate. This pernicious 
change may best be avoided by strewing over 
the berries, when the roasting is completed, and 
while the ves.sel in which it has been done is 
still hot, some powdered white or brown sugar 
( half an ounce to one pound of coffee' is suffi- 
cient). The sugar melts immediately, and by 
well shaking or turning the roaster quickly, it 
spreads over all the berries, and gives each one 
a fine glaze, impervious to the atmosphere. 
They have then a shining appearance, as though 
covered with a varnish, and they in conse- 
quence lose their smell entirely, which, how- 
ever, returns in a high degree as soon as they 
are ground. 

After this operation, they are to be shaken 
out rapidly from the roaster and spread on a 
cold plate of iron, so that they may cool as soon 
as possible. If the hot berries are allowed to re- 
main heaped together, they begin to sweat, and 
when the quantity is large, the heating process, 
by the influence of air, incre.ises to such a de- 
gree that at la.st they take fire spontaneously. 
The roasted and glazed berries should be kept 



673 



KiTciir.N AND dining-room: 



in a dry place, because the covering of sugar 
attracts moisture. 

"If tlie raw berries are boilei) in water, from 
twenty-three to twenty-four per cent, of soluble 
matter is extracted. On being roasted till they 
assume a pale chestnut color, they lose fifteen to 
sixteen per cent., and the extract obtained from 
these by means of boiling water is twenty to 
twenty-one per cent, of the weight of the un- 
roasted berries. The loss in weight of the ex- 
tract is much larger when the roasting process 
is carried on till the color of the berries is dark- 
brown or black. At the same time that the 
berries lose in weight by roasting ihey gain in 
volume by swelling; one hundred volume of 
green berries give, after roa.sting, a volume of 
one hundred and fifty to one hundred and six- 
ty ; or two pint measures of unroa.sted berries 
give three pints when roasted. 

"The usual methods of preparing coffee, are, 
first, hy filtration; second, by infmion; third, by 
boiling. 

" Filtration gives often, but not always, a good 
cup of cofTee. When the pouring of boiling 
water over the ground colFee is done .slowly, 
the drops in passing come in contact with too 
much air, whose oxygen works a change in the 
aromatic particles, and often destroys them en- 
tirely. The extraction, moreover, is incom- 
plete. Instead of twenty to twenty-one per 
cent, the water dissolve.s only eleven to fifteen 
per cent., and seven to ten per cent, is lost. 

" Infusion is accomplished by making the wa- 
ter boil, and then putting in the ground eofl'ee; 
the vessel being immediately taken off the fire 
and allowed to stand quietly for about ten min- 
utes. The coflee is ready for use when the pow- 
der swimming on the surface falls to the bottom 
on slightly stirring it. This method gives a 
very aromatic coffee, but one containing little 
extract. 

^'Boiling, as is the custom in the East, yields 
excellent coffee. The powder is put on the fire 
in cold water, which is allowed merely to boil 
up a few seconds. The fine particles of coflee 
are drunk with the beverage. If boiled long, 
the aromatic parts are volatilized, and the cof- 
fee is then rich in extract, but poor in aroma. 

"As the best method, I adopt the following, 
which is a union of the second and the third: 

" The usual quantities both of coffee and 
water are to be retained; a tin measure con- 
taining half an ounce of green berries, when 
filled with roa.sted ones, is generally sufficient for 
two sntiall cups of coffee of moderate strength, 
or onj, so called, large breakfast cup (one pouna 



of green berries, equal to sixteen ounces, yield- 
ing after roasting twenty-fonr tin measures [of 
one-half ounce] Cor forty-eight small cups of 
coflee I. 

"With three-fourths of the coffee to be em- 
ployed, after being ground, the water is made to 
boil for ten or fifteen minutes. The one-quar- 
ter of the coffee which has been kept back is 
then flung in, and the vessel immediately with- 
drawn from the fire, covered over, and allowed 
to stand for five or six minutes. In order that 
the powder on the surface may fall to the bot- 
tom, it is stirred round ; the deposit takes place, 
and the coffee poured off is ready for use. In 
order to separate the dregs more completely, the 
coffee may be passed through a clean cloth; but 
generally this i.< not neces.sary, and often preju- 
dicial to the pure flavor of the beverage. 

" The first boiling gives the strength, the sec- 
ond addition the flavor. The water does not 
dissolve of the aromatic substances more than 
the fourth part contained in the roasted coflee. 

"The beverage when re.ady ought to be of a 
brown-black color; untranspareut it always is, 
somewhat like chocolate thinned wiih water; 
and this want of clearness in coflee so prepared 
does not come from the fine grounds, but from 
a peculiar fat resembling butter, about twelve 
per cent, of which the berries contain, and 
which, if overroasted, is partly destroyed. 

" In the other methods of making coffee, 
more than the half of the valuable parts of the 
berries remains in the 'grounds,' and is lost." 

Coflee may be too bitter, says Count Rum- 
ford, but it is impossible tlt^jt it ever should 
be too fragrant. The very smell of it is revi- 
ving, and has often been found to be useful to 
sick persons, and to those who are afflicted with 
the headache. In short, everything proves that 
the volatile, aromatic matter, whatever it may 
be, that gives flavor to coffee, is what is most 
valuable in it, and should be preserved with 
the greatest care, and that in estimating the 
strength or richness of that beverage, its fra- 
grance should be much more attended to, than 
either its bitterness or astringeney. 

It is not generally known that coffee which 
has been beaten is better than that which has 
been ground. Such, however, is the fact, and, 
in his brief article on the subject, Savarin 
gives what he considers the reason for the dif- 
ference. As he remarks, a mere decoction of 
green coffee is a most insipid drink, but carboni- 
zation develops the aroma, and an oil whicri is 
the peculiarity of the coffee we drink. He 
agrees with other writers, that the Turks excel 



TABLE-DISHES. 



679 



in this. They employ no mill.'s, but beat the I Brazilian Coffee. — For each cup tlie size of 
berry with wooden pestles in mortars. Wlien our tea-cups, to be made, the Brazilians mea.'- 



long used these pestles become precious, and 
bring great prices. He determined, by actual 
e-xperiment, which of the two methods was the 
best. He burned carefully a pound of good 
Sloclia and separated it into two equal portions 
Tiie one was pa.ssed through the mill, the other 
beaten, after the Turkish fashion, in a mortar 
He made coffee of each. Taking equal weights 
of each, and pouring on an equal weight of 
boiling water, he treated them both precisely 
alike. He tasted the coffee himself, and caused 
other competent judges to do so. The unani- 
mous opinion was, that coffee beaten in a mor- 
tar was far better than that ground in a mill. 

The be.st coffee is the Mocha, the ne.xt is the 
Java, and closely approximating is the Jamaica 
and Berbice. Prime Rio is a very good arti- 
cle; Lagnyra is probably the mildest of all. 
A mixture of Java and Mocha makes a rich 
drink — to four table-spoonsful of Java, half a 
spoonful of Mocha for a quart. 

French Coffee. — Mrs. Stowe thus most appe- 
tizingly describes the French mode of making 
coffee. In the first place, then, the French 
coffee is coffee, and not chiccory, or rye, or 
beans, or peas. In the second place it is freslily 
roasted, whenever made — roasted with care and 
eveiuiess in a little revolving cylinder, which 
makes part of the furniture of every kitchen. 



ure a table-spoonful of ground coffee, parched 
to the color of a ripe chestnut. This is placed 
in a gauze bag, within the coffee-pot, and boil- 
ing water is poured upon it. There are no 
"grounds" in the decoction; and it is so 
strong that it leaves a brown stain upon the 
white china cup. The Brazilians never put 
milk in their coffee, as they think that milk 
injures the properties of the decoction, and it 
is never drank until the close of the meal. 
Usually it is never brought to the table until 
everything else is removed. 

Professor Blot on Coffee. — Grind your coffee 
finer than it is generally sold at the store.". 
Have the coffee fine because you can better ex- 
tract the strength. Tlie reason why coffee is 
muddy is that it is boiled. By boiling coffee 
you lo.se the best part. When you boil coffee 
you extract the volatile oil that makes it so 
very bitter. As to quantity, use as much as to 
make it to your taste; begin with two ounces 
to a quart of water, reduce it if too strong, and 
iiicrease it if too weak. It is better when three 
or four kinds of coffee are used; one gives the 
body, the other the taste ; and the tliird the 
color, etc. 

Cold Coffee. — Coffee kept from meal to meal, 
with the intention of renewing for use, sliould 
not stand in tin. Let it be poured into an 



and which keeps in the aroma of the berry, earthen dish, and the coffee-pot be washed and 
It is never overdone, so as to destroy the coffee dried each time of using. There are few 
flavor, which is, in nine cases out of ten, the things that will take a flavor more readilv 



fault of the coff.-e we meet with. Then it is 
ground and placed in a coffee-pot with a filter, 
through which it percolates in clear drop.s, the 
coffee-pot standing on a heated stove to main- 
tain the temperature. The nose of the coffee- 
pot is stopped up, to prevent the escape of the 
aroma during this process. The extract thus 
obtained is a perfectly clear, dark fluid, known 
as cafe noir, or black coffee. It is black only 
becau.se of its strength, being in fact almost the 
very essential oil of coffee. A table-spoonful 
of this in boiled milk would make what is or- 
dinarily called a strong cup of coffee. The 
boiled milk is prepared with no less care. It 
must be fresh and new, not merely warmed, or 
even brought to a boiling point, but slowly sim- 
mered until it attains a thick, creamy rich- 
ness. The coffee mixed with this, and sweet- 
ened with that sparkling beet-root sugar which 
ornaments a French table, is the celebrated 
cafe-au-lait, the name of which has gone round 
the world. 



than coflee. 

Eye Coffee, etc. — Take a peck of rye and cover 
it with water, let it steep or boil until the grain 
swells or commences to burst, then drain and 
dry it. Roast to a deep brown color, and pre- 
pare as other coffee, allowing twice the time 
for boiling. Serve with boiled milk. 

Barley, peas, and sweet corn may be pre- 
pared and used in the same manner. One-third 
real coffee may be added to the ground lye, 
corn, etc., quite advantageously. 

Sweet Potato, Carrot, anil Chickory Coffee. — Cut 
up sweet potatoes fine enough to dry conven- 
iently, and when dried, grind in a coffee-mill ; 
dry them by the fire or stove, or by the sun; 
grind and use, mixed with coffee in such pro- 
portions as you like; some omit half of the 
coffee, some more. 

Prepare carrots and chickory in the same 
manner. All tliese vegetable substitutes for 
coffee have the double merit of being cheap 
and wholesome, except perhaps, chiccory — 



680 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



some writeis comnicniliii};- it, wliile, according 
to some medical aiitliorities, its liabilual use is 
anything but conducive to lieahli, producing 
Iieart-burn, loss of appetite, nervous derange- 
ments, alternate constipation and diarrhea, etc. 

Chocolate, — Use four table-spoonsl'ul of best 
grated chocolate fur one quart of water; mix 
free from lumps with little water, and boil fif- 
teen minutes. Then add one quart of rich 
milk; bring it to a boil, grating in nutmeg, 
and sweeten to the taste, adding cream as pour- 
ed out at the table. 

German Chocolate. — Four large table-spoons- 
ful of the best grated chocohue, adding gradu- 
ally two quarts of rich milk, the whites of four 
and yolks of two eggs, beaten light but not 
separated; add a gill of cold milk, and beat 
well ; add gradually a coffee-cup of the choco- 
late to the milk and egg while hot, beatin; 
constantly. Take the chocolate fi-oiu the fire, 
keep it hot, but not boiling, and add the egg 
and milk gradually; stir constantly to prevent 
curdling; flavor with nutmeg, vanilla, or cin- 
namon, to suit the taste; and sugar, if desired — 
the Germans use none. The egg is to be added 
just before serving in chocolate bowl.s. A very 
delicious drink. 

Pies and Tarts.— .\n excellent article 
of pie crust is thus made : Pour on the bread- 
board one pint best flour, and divide it into 
two parts. Mix with cold water one-half the 
flour into a soft dough, and work or beat with 
your rolling-pin until it blisters, occasionally 
drawing up some of the dry flour to prevent 
the dough adhering to the board. Then roll 
as thin as possible, and at intervals of iibout 
two inches, place lumps of butter the size of 
a hickory-nut. Fold the dough up thus: Turn 
the outer edge toward you, and then the one 
nearest you to meet the first; fold one of the 
ends toward your left, and the other over it, 
and roll out thin again. Repeat this operation 
four time.s, and if the directions are closely 
observed, you will have " magic pastry," for 
the more it is rolled the more flaky it will be- 
come. You should bake in a quick oven, and 
if the pastry is placed in the pie plates, and 
allowed to sit in a cool place an hour before 
putting in the fruit or mixture, it will be im- 
proved. Lard may be used if you can not 
obtain butter — -a half pound of the latter i.s 
sufficient, but lees lard. 

Anotlia\ — An excellent pie crust may be 
made by taking about a quart of bread sponge 
in the morning before you bake, add tliereto 



one be-aten egg, nearly a tea-cupful of melted 
butter and some flour; knead a little and set in 
a warm place to rise. When light it may be 
kneaded over, and does not need to be very 
stiff; then roll out like any pie crust. A little 
butter spread on the upper crust, that folded 
down and rolled again, makes it flaky. If the 
pies are made of uncooked apples, the crust 
will be much lighter to stand a half hour or so 
after being made, before putting in the oven. 
Less butter will do very well. 

Pie Crust Without Lard. — Take good rich but- 
termilk, soda, and a little salt, and mix just as 
soft as can he mixed and hold together ; have 
plenty of flour on the molding-board and roll- 
ing-pin ; roll very thin ; then make and bake 
as other pies, or rather in a slower oven, and 
when the pie is taken from the oven, do not 
cover it up. This is not so while and flaky, 
but in this way a dyspeptic can indulge in the 
luxury of a piece of pie. 

Apple Pie — Line your plate with paste, slice 
your apples very thin into the plate, sprinkle 
on as much sugar as you would think the appln 
required (apples vary so in sweetness you can 
not be governed by any rule), a little rose 
water, and nutmeg to taste; cover with the 
upper paste, make a small incision in the mid- 
dle of the upper crust, and bake. Many people 
think these the nicest kind of apple pie. 

Dried Apple Pie. — Soak the apples two or 
three days in just enough cold water to cover 
them; slice them as if they were green appleS, 
or beat them into a fine pulp, adding two or 
three spoonsful of water to each pie, or some 
domestic wine instead, with lemon, cloves, or 
cinnamon to suit. 

Apple Custard Pie. — Take four apples, pare 
and stew them soft; to this add the yolks of 
two eggs ; sweeten and flavor with lemon — the 
grated rind or extract. Prepare the crust the 
same as for custard; while baking, prepare the 
frosting — white of two eggs and six spoonsful 
of sugar. As soon as taken out of the oven, 
spread the frosting on top, and set it back into 
the oven; let it stand till a light brown. 

Imitation Apple Pie. — Use raw pumpkin in- 
stead of green apples; slice thin; add equal 
parts of vinegar and water, thicken with wheat 
flour, season to suit the taste, and bake thor- 
oughly. It requires more salt and longer bak- 
ing than apple pie, but when done it is in no 
respect inferior. 

Cheese Cake Pie. — Two cakes of cottage cheese, 
four eggs, a piece of butter about the size of a 
large egg, the rind and juice of one leiuon, one 



PIES AND TARTS. 



681 



nutmeg; Suharto your taste; aiUi lemon enougli 
to make it like puiLipkiii pies. 

Cocoa-yiU Pie. — Take one and a lialf cups of 
sugar, one and a half cnps of milk, three eggs, 
one table-spoonful of butler, the rind of one 
lemon, and one cocoa-nut finely grated. 

Cracker Pie. — Spread two crackers made fine 
over your pie crust on the plate, over which 
spread evenly about two-thirds of a cup of 
sugar; dissolve a tea-spoonful of tartaric acid 
in a tea-cupful of cold water, putting in a small 
tea-spoonful of the extract or essence of lemon, 
then pour all the wetting over the pie, and put 
on the top crust. 

Cranberry Pie. — A correspondent of the Coun- 
try Gentleman says the waj' of making open- 
topped, like a custard or squash pie, is not so 
good as to cover like an apple pie. The ber- 
ries should not be stewed, as some do, before 
baking, but slit each berry with a knife. This 
will preserve the freshness of the fruit, wliich 
is quite an important thing. A cofiee-cupful 
of berries and an equal quantity of white sugar, 
will make a medium-sized pie. Those who 
like a sweet pie should have more sugar, also 
more berries if desired. Bake as usual. A 
little flour sifted over the fruit gives it a thicker 
consistence. One thing should not be forgot- 
ten — add a small tea-cupful of water. The 
recipe is: One coffee-cuplul of slit berries, the 
same quantity of white sugar, half the quan- 
tity of water, with a little flour added or not. 

Cream Pie. — Mix together one egg, a cnpful 
of sugar, butter the size of an egg, three cups- 
ful of flour, one tea-spoonful of cream of tartar, 
half a tea-,spoouful of soda, and a cupful of 
sweet milk. Pour this on tin plates, and bake 
light brown. When cold split tliem open, and 
put in the custard made as follows: Take two 
eggs, one cupful of sugar, half a cup of flour, 
a pint of milk; flavor with lemon. Beat the 
eggs, sugar, and flour together ; boil the milk, 
and while boiling stir in the mi.xture, letting it 
cook a few seconds. The above quantity will 
make three common-sized pies. If you wish 
it extra, make a frosting of the whites of the 
eggs and three table-spoonsful of sugar. Spread 
this evenly over the pies, and set again in the 
oven, and brown slightly. 

Custard Pie. — Beat four eggs without sepa- 
rating, and add the foam, as fast as it rises, to 
a quart of rich, new milk, sweeten to taste, add 
a salt-spoon of salt, and fill the plates after the 
bottom crust has baked; and bake until the 
custard is solid, and served cold. Nutmeg, 



vanilla, bitter almond, or lemon, may be used 
as flavor, if desired. 

Lemon Custard Pie. — Grate the rind of a 
lemon, and after squeezing it until you liave all 
the juice, wash the pulp in a tea-cupful of clear 
water; then add the water to the juice, with the 
grated rind, and one tea-cupful of sugar; put 
over the fire, and let it boil haril. When a 
little cool, add one egg well beaten, and a table- 
spoonful of flour, or rolled crackers. Bake 
with an under crust. One lemon makes one 
good pie. 

Graham Pie. — Pies are generally condemned 
in all systems of dietetics, pretending to be 
physiological ; while plain puddings are as 
generally commended, or at least allowed; but 
pies can be so made as to be really more health- 
ful than the plainest puddings. The great ob- 
jection to pastry, as usually fouml, is its bad 
preparation. Unbolted flour, milk, and sugar, 
with a little sweet cream, are in themselves 
unobjectionable; and they can be put together 
in the form of pastry, as well as eaten unmixed. 
The crust should be made of Graham flour, or 
equal parts of Graliam flour and farina, and 
shortened with sweet milk and a little fresh 
cream. For the contents, it only requires some 
kind of fresh or good dried fruit — blackberries, 
whortleberries, afjples, pears, peaches, etc. — 
and sufficient sugar or molasses to make them 
palatable. 

Indian Florendines. — One quart of milk, three 
eggs, one ounce of butter, two table-spoonsful 
of brandy, sugar to the taste, as much Indian 
meal as will make the milk as thick as pap. 
When the milk boils, stir in the Indian meal 
till it is thickened about like pap, then add the 
butter. Set it o9' to cool. When cold, stir in 
the eggs, which must have been well beaten, 
then the sugar and brandy. They are very 
good without brandy. Make a paste, cover 
your pie-plates, pour in the above mixture, and 
bake in a moderate oven. 

Lemon Pie. — Grate the yellow part of the 
peel of one large lemon, and add it with the 
juice to two-thirds of a cup of sugar; nii.t 
smoothly one and one-half table-spoonsful of 
flour in three-quarters of a tea-cupful of water; 
stir all together, and add the well-beaten yolks 
of two eggs; bake with onlj- an under crust, 
to a nice golden brown color; when done, pour 
over the tops the whites of two eggs beaten to 
a stiS" froth, with two table-spoonsful of pow- 
dered white sugar; set in the oven for a few 
minutes to harden. 



682 



THE KITCHKN AND DININ(J-ROnM : 



Ilich Mince Pie. — Five pounds of beef, four 
pounds of suet, five pounds of raisins, five 
pounds of sugar, half a pound of citron, eiglit 
crackers pouuded fine, two lemons cliopped 
fine, rind and all, two dozen apples chopped, 
three pints of cider, one quart of molasses, one 
quart of wine, one quart of brandy, one quince 
boiled and clioi)ped, water the quince is boiled 
in, one gill of rose water, two table-spoonsful 
of salt, eight tea-spoonsful of cloves, thirteen 
tea-spoonsful of cinnamon, four tea-spoonsful 
of mace, nutmegs grated on the pies before 
baking; also spread butter and sugar on; mix 
molasses, crackers, cider, and spice together; 
then mix them with the rest of the ingredients; 
mix sugar with wine. If you like them richer 
add fruil, sugar, and spice. 

P/am Mi)ice Pie. — Neat's tongue and feet 
make the best mince pies. The sliank is good. 
Boil tlie meat till very tender, lake it up, clean 
it from the bones and gristle, chop it fine, mix 
it with an equal weight of tart apples cliopped 
fine. If the meat is lean, put in a little butter 
or snot. Moisten the whole with cider, new, if 
you have good; sweeten it to the taste with 
sugar and a little molasses — seasoning with 
salt, cinnamon, cloves, and mace. Make the 
pies on flat plates, with holes in the upper crust, 
aud bake from thirty to forly-five minutes. 

Cracker Mince Pie. — Take three large crack- 
ers, one cup of vinegar, one cnp of molasses, 
two cups of sugar, a piece of butter the size of 
of an egg, raisins and spice to your taste. This 
will make three pies. 

Egg Mince Pies. — Boil six eggs hard, shred 
them small ; shred double the quantity of suet; 
then put currants, washed and picked, one 
pound, or more, if the eggs were large ; the 
peel of one lemon shred very fine, and the 
juice; six spoonsfuls of sweet wine; mace, nut- 
meg, sugar, a very little salt; orange, lemon, 
and citron, candied. Make a light paste for 
them. 

Lemon Mince Pies. — Squeeze a large lemon, 
boil the ontside till tender enough to beat to a 
mash ; add to it three large apples, chopped, 
and four ounces of suet, half a pound of cur- 
rants, four ounces of sugar ; put the juice of 
the lemon and candied fruit as for other pies. 

Peach Pie, — Fill the pasted pie-plate with 
peeled and halved peaches; add a piece of but- 
ter the size of a walnut, a little sugar — be cau- 
tious of using too much sugar — and dust over a 
little flour. Cover with paste, and bake in a 
moderate oven. Serve with cream, if you have 
it; but it is good enough without. 



Pie-Plant Pies. — Strip the pie-plant, or rhu- 
barb, cut it into small pieces, and let it stand in 
cold water, enough to cover it, about an hour. 
Then drain off tlie water, and put the rimbarb 
into a .stew-pan, with a table-spoonfnl of water, 
as almost sufficient water adheres to the plant 
to stew it in. Stew until tender, and strain it 
through a colander to remove the stringy part, 
which is a work of patience. Sweeten it to 
taste, put it back into the stesv-pan and let it 
scald up with the sugar. Set it away to cool. 
Make a pie crust, line your plate.s, fill and 
inake into tarts, with .strips across instead of an 
upper crust, and bake. 

I'ine-Apple Pie. — Pare and grate large pine- 
apples, and to every tea-cupl'ul of grated pine- 
apple add half a tea-cupful of fine white sugar; 
turn the iiine-a]iple and sugar into dishes lined 
widi paste, put a strip of the paste around the 
dish, cover the pie with paste, wet and press 
together the edges of the paste, cut a slit in the 
center of the cover, through which the vapor 
may escape. Bake thirty minutes. 

Polalo Pie. — Boil common or sweet potatoes 
until well done. Mash and strain tliem ; to a 
pint of the potatoes add a pint and a half of 
milk, half a tea-cup of sweet cream, or a little 
melted butter, two eggs, and sngar, salt, nut- 
mes, or lemon to the taste. 

Pork Apple Pie. — Spread your crust over a 
large, deep plate; place alternate layers of thin 
slices of salt fat pork and apples, three or four 
layers each, with a little spice, pepper, and 
sugar between, with a top crust, with ventila- 
tion. ■ Bake an hour. 

Pumpkin or Squash Pie. — Stew the pumpkin 
or squash as long as possible, until the juice 
is all dried up; strain through a colander, 
and add milk and cream to a proper consist- 
ency ; sweeten with half sugar and half mo- 
lasses; add a little ginger; eggs are useless; 
flour makes them pasty, and stewing them and 
straining the juice off and throwing it away 
takes off all the sweetest part of the pumpkin. 

Another excellent and plain way is, after the 
pumpkin or squash is stewed, add boiling milk 
until it is one-third thicker than tlie ordinary 
preparation; then thin and sweeten with an 
equal quantity of molasses, and bake an hour 
in a hot oven. 

Raspben-y Pie. — Pick over the raspberries — 
they will not bear washing — put them into a 
deep dish lined with paste, spreadiug sugar in 
the bottom of the dish; cover the raspberrie.'? 
with sugar, dredge them with flour, and bake 
half an hour. 



683 



Bice Ftorendines. — One qn;iit of milk, eiglit 
eggs, sugar to the taste, :i quaitei'of a ponnd of 
butter, one tea-spoonful of cinnamon, one tea- 
spoonful of nutmeg, brandy or rose water to 
the taste, rice flour enougli totliicken the milk. 
Boil tlie milk and stir jn enough rice flour, 
mixed with cold milk, to thicken it about as 
stifT as tliick molasses. Add the butter while 
it is hot. Beat the eggs, stir them in wlien it 
gets cold, and add tlie other ingredients ; bake 
in pie-plates, #ith an under-crust only. 

Rice Pies. — If you like a rice pie, take care 
not to use too mucli rice ; let the solidity coTisist 
in the eggs. 

Strawherry Pie, — Fill your pie-dish, lined 
with crust, with ripe strawberries of medium 
siie; sprinkle on a little flour, and sugar in 
proportion to the acidity of the berries. Cover 
with a thin crust, with a vent-hole. Black- 
berry and whortleberrj' pies are made in the 
same manuer. 

Eaupbei-ry Tart. — Roll out some thin puff 
paste, and lay it in a patty-pan of what size 
you choose, put in raspberries, strew over them 
fine sugar; cover with a thin lid, and then bake. 
Cut it open, and have ready the following mix- 
ture, warm: Haifa pint of cream, the yolks of 
two or three eggs well beaten, and a little su- 
gar; and, when this is added to the tart, return 
it to the oven for five or six minutes. 

Rhubarb Tart. — Cut the stalks in lengths of 
four or five inches, and take off the thin skin. 
If you have a hot hearth, lay them in a dish, 
and put over a thin .syrup of sugar and water, 
cover with another dish, and let it simmer very 
slowly an hour, or do them in a block-tin sauce- 
pan, Under crust. 

Slrawbeiry Tart. — May be made the same as 
raspberry; or, make a syrup of one pound of 
sugar aud a tea-cup of water; add a little white 
of eggs; let it boil, and skim it till only a foam 
arises; then put in a quart of berries free from 
stems and hulls; let thein boil until they look 
clear and the syrup is quite thick. Finish with 
fine puff paste. 

Other fruit tarts, apple, peach, plum, etc., 
are all made so similarly that special directions 
need not be repeated. 

Tomato Pie. — Take ripe tomatoes, skin and 
slice. Sprinkle over a little .salt and let them 
stand a few minutes, pour off the juice and add 
sugar, half a cup of cream, one egg, nutmeg, 
and cover with a rich paste, and bake in a mod- 
erate oven over half an hour. This makes an 
excellent and much approved pie. 

Vinegar Pie. — Mix two cups of vinegar, one 



and a lialf of sugar, two table-spoonsful of 
flour, and a piece of butter the size of a walnut. 
Prepare a paste to receive these ingredients, and 
bake the same as any ordinary pie. 

Puddings, — Pudding Pa-^tc. — Take one 
pound of flour, half a pound of beef or mutton 
suet, chopped ratlier fine; the first is prefera- 
ble; form well with your hand in the center of 
the flour, add the suet, a tea-spoonful of salt; 
moisten all with water, working the flour in by 
degrees, till it forms a stiff paste; work it well 
for two minutes; tlirow a little flour on the slab 
with the paste on it, let it remain five minutes, 
then roll it out any thickne-ss you like. 

Pudding Sauce. — Three-quarters of a cu|) of 
butter, a cup and a half of sugar, one egg, juice 
aud grated rind of a lemon, all beaten well to- 
gether. Just before serving, pour on the beaten 
mixture one pint of boiling w.-iter. A good 
sauce for all sorts of puddings. 

Cream Sauce. — Boil half a pint of cream aud 
turn it upon half a pound of powdered sugar. 
Boil it once more, and flavor with lemon or 
peach — an extract of the latter can be easily 
made by steeping fresh peach leaves. 

Fruit Sauce. — Stew a dozen plums or cherries, 
or a couple of peeled and cored apples. Boil 
a pint of cream, or good milk, and pour it over 
a pound of powdered sugar; add the fruit, and 
if you choose, flavor. 

Wine Sauce- — Into a gill of thick melted but- 
ter put a table-spoonful of powdered sugar, a 
quarter of a nutmeg grated, a tea-spoonful of 
lemon syrup, three glas.ses of good wine (of 
mixed kinds if you have more than one) ; stir 
well together, and serve quite hot. 

Cheap Sauce.';. — Stir a spoonful of butter into 
a pint of fresh milk, sweeten and flavor ; cook 
until it thickens and tastes done. Or, melt a 
piece of butter as large as an egg into a pint 
of good hot custard. Flavor with brandy and 
nutmeg. 

Apple Pudding. — Boil six fair-sized apples 
well, take out the cores, put with them a half a 
pint of milk thickened with three eggs, a little 
lemon peel, and sugar to the taste; put puff 
paste round your dish, bake it in a slow oven ; 
rate sugar over it, and serve it hot. 
Apple Tapioca Pudding. — Soak a tea-cup of 
tapioca in a quart of warm water, adding a tea- 
spoonful of salt, and keep in a warm place. 
Pare and slice eight large tart juicy apples; 
butter well the pudding dish, place the tapioca, 
apple, and sugar in alternate layers until the 
dish is filled, having the tapioca on top, on 



6S4 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



which place bils of biider, adding, if the dish 
will allow, a little more warm water. This 
must ill all cases be eaten w;irm with cold sauce. 
It is highly nutritious, and commends itself 
particularly to the sick. 

Dried Apple Pudding. — Buil dried apples 
nearly done; then, after saving a tea-cup of 
the juice for a sauce, chop them, and mi.x them 
with soaked bread, and boil in a bag. Make a 
sauce of melted butter, sugar, and flour, with 
enough of the apple juice to give it the flavor 
of wine, and spice with nutmeg. 

Arrowroot Pudiling. — Mix a table-spoonful 
of arrowroot in two of cold mill<, pour it into a 
pint of boiling milk, in wliich dissolve a tea- 
cup of white sugar; stir it occasionally, and 
add a little mace, or other kind of spice, and 
four eggs. Bake it half an hour in a dish lined 
with paste. If it is preferred to look clear, 
substitute water instead of milk, and add one 
more egg. 

Bean Pudding or Pie. — Wash clean one quart 
of white beans; then pour boiling water over, 
letting them remain till morning; then put on 
in cold water — this method destroys much of 
the strong taste of the beans ; let them boil 
slouilj/ but steadily; when perfectly tender and 
mealy, take out and drain; then mash with a 
spoon through a sieve. When you have thus 
obtained one and a half pints of the [inlverized 
beans, add half a pint of sweet cream or milk^ 
four eggs, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, a 
piece of butter the size of a hen's egg, and one 
nutmeg. Season to taste, with lemon or vanilla, 
the latter is the better nentralizer of the taste 
of the beans. These pniporlions will make one 
large pudding, or three pies, provided the plates 
are not too deep 

Berry Pudding. — Collee-cup of sweet milk, 
one-third cup of molasses, one egg, a little salt, 
a little saleratus, three and a half tea-cups of 
flour. Beat all with a spoon. Flour three 
pints of berries, and stir in with a knife. Steam 
three hours. Sauce. 

Black Pudding. — Half a pint of molasses, 
half a pint of water, two tea-spoonsful of sal- 
eratus, one tea-cup of raisins rolled in flour, or 
a lea-cup of plums, cherries, or currants, dried 
with sugar. Put into a mold, crock, or pail 
large enough to leave one-half for swelling. If 
boiled in an open crock, tie a thick cloth over 
the top. Boil steadily three hours. 

Bread Pudding. — An economical one when 
eggs are dear. Cut some bread and butter very 
thin, place it in a pie-dish as lightly as possi- 
ble, till three-parts full; break into a basin one 



egg, add two tea-spoonsful of flour, three of 
brown sugar; iuix all well together, add to it by 
degrees a pint of milk, a little salt; pour over 
the bread ; bake in an oven; it will take about 
half an hour; this will make a nice-sized pud- 
ding for or five persons. 

Brotvn Bread Pudding. — Half a pound of stale 
brown bread grated, half a pound of currants, 
half a pound of shred suet, sugar, and nutmeg; 
mix with four eggs, and two spoonsful of cream 
or milk ; boil in a cloth or basin, that exactly 
holds it, three or four hours. Sauce. 

Cocoa-ICut Pudding. — Break the cocoa-nut 
and save the milk ; peel off the brown skin, and 
grate the cocoa-nut very line. Take the same 
weight of cocoa-nut, fine white sugar and but- 
ter; rub the butter and sugar to a cream and 
add five eggs well beaten, one cup of cream, 
the milk of the cocoa-nut, two table-spoonsful of 
farina, corn starch or rice flour, and a little 
grated lemon. Line a dish with rich paste, put 
in the pudding and bake one hour. Cover the 
rim with paper if necessary. 

Chncolale Pudding. — Scrape up one pound of 
the best chocolate, and di.ssolve it in a tea-cnp- 
ful of boiling water; then mix with si.x tea- 
cupsful of fresh milk ; let it come to a boil. It 
then is ready for the table. If you will add 
eight well beaten eggs to the above preparation, 
with sugar, and bake it in cups, you will have 
a nice chocolate pudding. 

Com Starch Pudding. — One quart of sweet 
milk brought to a boil, add a little salt, two 
eggs well beaten, three heaping table-spoonsful 
of corn starch, with the addition of a little 
sweet milk. Stir well. It will cook in four or 
five minutes. Serve with sweetened cream. 

Cracker Pudding. — One quart of milk, three 
crackers, six eggs, a small piece of butter; spice 
and raisins to taste. 

Cranberry Pudding. — A pint of cranberries 
stirred into a quart of rather stifl!', good batter, 
makes a nice pudding, eaten with sweet sauce. 

Cranberry Boll. — Stew a quart of cranberries 
in just water enough to keep them from burn- 
ing; make it very sweet, strain it through a 
colander, and set it away to cool. When quite 
cool make a paste as for apple pudding, spread 
the cranberries about an inch thick, roll it up 
in a floured cloth and tie it close at the ends; 
boil it two hours, and serve with sweet sauce. 
Sweet apples, or any other kind of fruit may 
be served in the same way. 

Cream Pudding. — One pint of cream, seven 
eggs, and half a pound of flour, a little salt. 
Stir the cream and flour together, and add the 



PUDDINGS. 



6S3 



eggs aftei' tliey are well beaten. Bake half an 
liour, and eat willi sauce. 

Cuslard Pudding. — One quart of milk, eiglit 
eggs, half a pound of sugar; season with lemon 
or peach, pour it into a pudding dish wet with 
cream, set the pudding into a pan half full 
of water, and put them into the oven to bake 
for three quarters of an hour. If preferred 
line the baking dish with delicate cream paste. 
Less egg will make a good custard. 

Apple Dumplthgs. — Pare and scoop out the 
core of six large baking apples, put part of a 
clove and a little grated lemon peel inside of 
each, and enclose them in pieces of pufF paste ; 
boil them in nets for the purpose, or bits of 
linen for an hour. Before serving, cut off a 
small bit from the top of each, and put in a 
tea-spoonful of sugar and a bit of fresh butter; 
replace the bit of paste, and strew over tliera 
pounded loaf sugar. In the absence of apples 
ripe tomatoes are sometimes used. 

Pie-Plant Dumplings. — Strip the plant and 
cut it into pieces three or four inches long ; 
make a plain pie crust, and roll enough of the 
pieces in the crust to make a dumpling about 
as large as an apple would make it. When 
you have as many dumplings as you think will 
suffice for your family, drop them into a pot of 
boiling water, and boil them about half an 
hour, when they are ready for the table. For 
a'sauce to serve with Ihoni, u?e a cup of but- 
ter, a cup of molasses, ami a cup and a half 
of sugar, boiled together. If boiled long 
enough it will be thick and rich without any- 
thing else added, but if in a liuny and can not 
wait for much boiling, Ihirlien it with a tea- 
spoonful of flour mixed with sweet cream 
stirred into it. 

Rice-Apple Dumplings. — Put your rice in a 
stew-pan, and pour on each cup of rice one gill 
of milk; stand it near the fire where it will 
keep hot but not boil. As soon as it has ab- 
sorbed all the milk, pare your apples, take out 
the cores, and put the rice around them instead 
of paste. Boil them until the apples are soft. 
They should be tied in dumpling clotlis. 

Slra wherry Dumplings. — Crust to be made the 
same as for short-cake; roll half an inch thick; 
put about a gill of strawberries for each dump- 
ling. Bake, steam, or boil half an hour. 

German Pudding. — One cup of milk, one cup 
of sugar, two eggs, one tea-sponnful of sod.a, 
two of cream of tartar, three table-spoon*ful of 
melted butter, flour to make it about as thick 
as cup-cake; bake about three-quarters of an 
hour; eat with melted sauge. 



Graham Pudding.— Sl\r Oraliniii flinir i;ni(l- 
ually into boiling water with a liitlc sail, and 
make about as thick as hasty pudding, or niu.-li, 
and free from lumps. Eat with tolerably rioli 
milk and sugar, and with the addition of can- 
ned peaches or other preserved fruits. If there 
be any of the pudding left over, it may be cut 
in .slices and fried in lard or dripping, and is 
very good. 

Gi'een Cora Pudding. — Take four dozen e.ars 
of sweet green corn, says the author of My Mar- 
ried Life at Hillside, score the kernels length- 
wise of the cob, and cut them from it. Scrape 
ofT what remains on the cob with a knife. 
Pound the corn cut off in a mortar. Add a 
pint and a half or one quart of milk, according 
to the youngness and juiciness of the corn. 
Add four eggs well beaten, a half tea-cup each 
of flour and butter, a table-spoonful of sugar, 
and salt sufficient to season it. Bake in a well- 
greased eartlien dish, in a hot oven, two hours. 
Place it on the table browned and smoking 
hot, eat it with plenty of fresh butter, and be 
thankful. 

Baked Indian Pudding. — Scald a quart of 
milk. Wet a tea-cup of Indian meal and 
three table-spoonsful of wheat flour in oo'ld 
milk; stir it into the boiling milk; then add a 
tea-cup of sugar or good syrup, a little chopped 
.suet, a tea-spoonful of cinnamon, and a lialf 
tea-spoonful of salt. Pour the batter into a 
two-quart dish and fill up with cold milk. 
Mix, and bake slowly four or five hours. Skim- 
milk makes the best pudding. 

Boiled or Steamed Indian Pudding. — In one 
quart of boiling milk, stirenougli meal to make 
a sliS" batter; add one cup of chopped suet, 
one egg, half a cup of syruii, a little salt, one 
cup of raisins, currants, or any kind of dried 
berries; boil in a bag two hours. Serve with 
wine sauce or cream. 

Kentucky Ginger Pudding. — Three cups of 
mol.asses, one cup of butter, two tea-spoonsful 
of saleratus, four eggs, four and a half cups of 
flour, ginger and nutmeg to suit. Steam or 
bake. To be eaten with any kind of nice 
sauce, and is good hot or cold. 

Lemon Pudding. — Peel of three lemons grated, 
and juice of two, one pound of sifted wliite 
sugar, half a pound of melted butter, a pint of 
cream or milk, eight eggs, a gill of rose water, 
and bake untiLit is done. 

Macaroni Padding. — Simmer an ounce or 
two of macaroni in a pint of milk, and a bit of 
lemon and cinnamon till tender; put it into a 
dish with milk, two or three eggs (but only one 



686 



TOE KITCinCN AND DINING-ROOM: 



white), su<;ar, nutmeg, a spoonful of peauli 
water, and half a glass of raisin wine. B:iUe 
with a paste round the edges. A layer of orar.ge 
marmalade or raspberry jam in a macaroni 
pudding, for change, is a great improvement ; 
in which case omit the almond-water ratafia, 
which you should otherwi.se flavor it with. 

Minute Pudding. — Put a pint and half of 
fresh sweet milk on the fire; mix five large 
fspoonsful of flour with half a pint of milk, a 
little salt and nutmeg. When the milk boils 
stir in the mixed flour and milk. Let the 
whole boil one minute, stirring constantly. 
Take it oflf the fire and let it set till lukewarm, 
then add three beaten eggs; put on the fire and 
stir till it thickens; take oQ" when it boils. To 
be eaten with nice sauce. 

Corn starch or groinid rice, used instead of 
the flour, improve the character of the pudding. 

Mush, or Hasty Pudding. — Wet up the In- 
dian meal or samp in cold water till there are 
no lumps; stir it gradually into salted, boiling 
water, till it is so thick that the pudding-stick 
will stand in it; boil slowly, so as not to scorch, 
stirring often. Two or three hours boiling is 
necessary. Many persons fail in making good 
mush by not boiling it enough — when it is 
merely scalded it lias a raw taste, and its rich 
Btarchy matter is not cooked out and blended 
in the pudding. When done pour into a deep, 
broad dish, and what is not u.sed with milk 
may be cut, when cold, in slices half an inch 
thick, and fried on a griddle with a little lard, 
or baked in the stove oven. 

Wheaten. Grits Mush. — In a pot of boiling 
water place a vessel fitted with a tight cover, 
containing a quart of milk or water, and when 
it is brought to the boiling point stir in slowly 
about five table-spoonsful of the wheaten grits, 
and let it boil an hour and a half or two hours, 
stirring occasionally. By thus boiling it in a 
separate vessel, not in immediate contact with 
the fire, the risk of burning is obviated, with- 
out requiring constant stirring. Soaking the 
grits over night in the proper quantity of milk 
or water, and boiling as above, is considered a 
decided advantage. Serve with wine or other 
sauce, or sugar; dyspeptics, however, will prob- 
ably find molasses the most whole.some condi- 
ment. 

Oat Meal 3Iush. — The Scotch method of pre- 
paring oat meal is to make a"very thin mush, a 
little thicker than gruel, and well salted. The 
water should be salted when the meal is stirred 
in, and the boiling should continue three to 
five minutes- — not more— after the thickness is 



finished. This, eaten with sugar and milk, 
with milk alone, or with syrup, is highly pal- 
atable, and is generally liked by children whose 
tastes are not vitiated by indulgence. 

Graham Mu^sh is made the same as minute 
pudding, only use water instead of milk. The] 
longer it is cooked the better, if for one, two, or 
three hours. 

Pine-Apple Pudding. — Peel the pine-apple, 
taking care to get all the specks out, and grate 
it. Take its weight in eugar, and half its 
weight in butter; rub these to a cream and stir 
them into the upple, then add five eggs and a 
cup of cream. It may be baked with or with 
out the paste crust. 

Plum Pudding. — Pick and stone half a pound 
of Malaga raisins ; wafji and dry the same 
quantity of curr.ants; chop, not too fine, three- 
quarters of a pound of heef suet; put it in a 
convenient basin, with six ounces of sugar, two 
ounces of candied peel sliced, three ounces of 
Hour, three ounces of bread crumbs, a little 
grated nutmeg, four eggs, a gill of water, or 
perhaps a little more, to form a nice consist- 
ence ; butter a mold, put a piece of white paper 
over the top and round the sides, tie it in a 
cloth, boil for four hours in plenty of water; 
when done remove the cloth, turn it out of the 
mold, take the paper ofl" the sides and top, and 
CI ve round with sweet sauce; it may also be 
boiled in a cloth. 

An English Plum Pudding. — Beat eight eggs 
very light, add to them a pound of flour sifted 
and a pound of powdered sugar ; when it looks 
quite light, put in a pound of suet finely shred, 
a pint of milk, a nutmeg grated, and a gill of 
brandy; mix with it a pound of currants, 
washed, picked, and dried, and a pound of 
raisins, stoned and floured. Tie it in a thick 
cloth and boil it steadily eight hours. 

Sorosis Plum Pudding. — One cup of picked 
raisins, one cup of rich milk, one cup of mo- 
lasses, three cups and a half of sifted flour, 
two te.a-spoonsful of cream of tartar, one of 
soda, one of cinnamon, half a spoonful of salt. 
Boil four hours, or steam, until sufBcienlly 
cooked. 

Pork Pudding. — One coflee-cupful of finely- 
chojiped salt pork, two cups of water; i«ld 
enough flour to mold it, roll thin, cut it so as 
to make two rolls ; steam an hour ami a half; 
eat with sauce, same as for apple dumplings. 
If you wish, spread with fruit before rolling up. 

Queen of Puddings. — Into one quart of sweet 
milk put one pint of fine bread crumbs, butter 
the size of an egg, the grated rind of a fresh 



087 



lemon, the •well-beaten yiilks of five eggs; 
sweeten and flavor as for cnstaril ; mix the 
whole well together. While the above is 
baking, beat the whites of the five eggs to a 
stift' froth, and add a tea-cupful of powdered 
sugar; pour it over the hot pudding when 
cooked, return it to the oven, and bake to a 
delicate brown. Some prefer a layer of jelly, 
or canned peaches, or other fruit, over the pud- 
ding, before the frosting is added. Serve with 
cnld cream. This is among the richest pud- 
dings known to the science of cookery, and is 
not only deiicioits, but light and digestible. 

Pace Pudding.—BoW a cupful of rice in a 
small quantity of milk or water, till tender; 
when done it should be almost dry. Then add 
one cup of sugar, one cup of raisins previ- 
ously boiled fifteen minutes, two eggs, and 
tliree pints of milk, with salt and spice to the 
taste. 

Rice Cups. — One quart of milk, three table- 
spoonsful of rice flour, two ounces of butter. 
Put on your milk to boil ; mix the rice flour 
very smooth, with some cold milk. As soon as 
the former begins to boil, stir in the latter, and 
let the whole boil twenty minutes. While the 
milk is warm, add the butter and a little salt. 
Einse your custard cups with cold-water. Half 
fill them witli the mixture; when it becomes 
cold they turn out of the cups and retain their 
forms. They are very ornamental to the table. 
To be eaten with wine sauce or sugar and 
cream, flavored with a little nutmeg. 

B!ch Pudding. — One pint of flour, half a cup 
of sugar, three table-spoonsful of melted butter, 
half a pint of sweet milk, one egg, one tea- 
spoonful of soda, two tea-spoonsful of cream 
of tartar ; stir well together. Place the above 
on a round tin and steam just one hour over a 
lively steam. Serve with the following sauce : 
Hair a cup each of butter, sugar, and vinegar, 
half a pint of hot water; let it just come to a 
boil, remove from the fire, and stir in a well- 
beaten egg immediately. The above quantity 
will make a dessert sufficient for six persons. 

Sago Pudding. — Take three tea-spoonsful of 
sago, and boil it in a pint of milk ; mix three 
well-beaten eggs, sweeten and flavor to the 
taste. Line the dish with a rich paste, and 
bake slowly. 

Squash Pudding. — Boil half a squash, good 
size, and sift through a sieve; add to it two 
table-spoonsful of butter, a cup and a half of 
white sugar, six eggs, a quart of milk, three 
table-spoonsful of rose water, one biscuit pound- 
ed very fine. Cover the bottom of your pud- 



ding-dish with a nice paste, fill with tlies(junsh, 
and bake till done. 

Suet Pudding. — One cup of finely-clifipped 
suet, one of syrup, que of molasses, one of milk, 
sweet or sour, one of raisins or currants, three 
cups of flour, half a cup of butter, one tea- 
spoonful of salt, one tea-spoonl'ul and a half of 
soda, spice and nutmeg. Boil four hours; tie 
up loosely. Wine sauce. 

Sweet Potato Pudding. — Boil one pound of 
sweet potatoes very tender, and press them, 
while hot, through a grater — the finer the 
better. To this add half a dozen eggs, well 
beaten, three-quarters of a pound of fine sugar, 
three-quarters of a pound of butter, some 
grated nutmeg and lemon rind, and a glass of 
old brandy. Put a paste in the dish, and when 
the pudding is done sprinkle the top with 
white sugar, finely pulverized. This is a dish 
fit to grace the table of an epicure. 

Tapioca Pudding. — Soak a tea-cup of tapioca 
in a quart of milk, over night — it will, if needed 
in a hurry, soak in two or three hours — the 
yolks of five eggs, a cup of sugar, a pint of 
cream or boiling milk, butter the size of a 
chestnut, a tea-spoonful of salt; rose water, 
lemon, or nutmeg for flavoring. Leave out 
two table-spoonsful of the sugar to beat with 
the whites of the eggs for a top to the pudding, 
after it has boiled as much as a soft custard. 
Flavor with vanilla. Brown it lightly in the 
oven. Serve cold. 

Another: Put one tea-cup of tapioca to one 
quart of water, one hour, in a shallow dish. 
Then sweeten to taste and flavor with lemon. 
ILave ready six lai'ge sour apples, pared and 
quartered, to be placed over the top of the 
dish, with the round sides up; sprinkle a little 
salt over them; bake until the apples are done; 
or, spread over the tapioca when done and cold 
a layer of tart stewed apples, properly sea- 
soned and flavored. Eat with cream wlien cold. 

Wheaten Grits Baked Pudding. — Boil a quart 
of milk or water, and stir in about five table- 
spoonsful of the grits — the thinner the mixture, 
without causing the mass to settle, the more 
palatable and easy of digestion. After sufii- 
cient boiling, let it stand to cool. While cool- 
ing, beat up well four eggs, with a half pound 
of sugar; then add a quart of milk, and mix 
thoroughly; after which stir these into the 
cooling mass, which should be only lukewarm, 
adding spices or fruit if you wish ; and after 
thorough mixing of the ingredients, put into 
pans and bake. 

Yorkshire Pudding with Roast Beef. — Five 



688 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



table-spoonsful of flour mixed with one of 
salt, one pint of milk, and three well-beaten 
eggs. Butter a square pan and put the batter 
in it; set it in the oven until it rises, and is 
slightly crusted on the top; then place it under 
your beef, masting before tlie fire, or in the 
oven, and baste it as you do your meat. 

Other Relishes. — Pies and puddings 
have been largely treated ; preserves, jams, jel- 
lies, and marmalades have been properly no- 
ticed in tlie chapter on Domestic Economy. A 
few other popular and desirable table desserts 
and relishes remain to be mentioned. 

Baked Apples. — Take sour apples, those of a 
keen acid, and to every square tin filled with 
them, pour a lea-ciip of water and one of sugar. 
Bake tlicm slowly until done. Eat them with 
cream and iho juice which cooks from them. 

Another. — Apples or quinces, peeled and 
cored, with the hole made by coring filled with 
jelly or brown sugar, with thin bits of lemon 
peel, and baked with a little wine and sugar 
around Ihcni, are very nice; with a custard 
poured over and baked, they are termed a bird's 
nest. 

Apple Float. — To one quart of apples, slightly 
slewed and well mashed, put the whites of three 
eggs, well beaten, and four heaping table-spojns- 
ful of loaf sugar ; beat them together for fifteen 
minutes, and eat with rich milk and nutmeg. 

Apple Meringue.— ^tew your fruit well done 
and smooth, sweeten to the taste, and add the 
rind of a lemon grated. Take the whites of 
five eggs, beat them to a stiff froth, put to them 
a tea-cup of powdered sugar, a little rose water, 
the juice of the lemon, or any other seasoning 
you prefer. Put your fruit in a flat dish, and 
with a spoon put the white of the egg on it, 
then set your dish in the oven and brown the 
egg; a few minutes will do it. A spoonful of 
butter stirred in the apples while hot is an 
Improvement. 

Apple Souffle. — Pare, core, and stew until 
tender, six large tart apples, press through a 
sieve, flavor and sweeten to the taste; then add 
while hot, the yolks of six eggs ; beat up the 
whites with a cup of white sugar, and spread it 
over the apples. Eat cold with cream. 

Charlotte Russe. — Make one pint of rich cus- 
tard ; when cold, stir in an ounce of isinglass 
dissolved in a half pint of water and reduced 
to a stifl" jelly ; sweeten with best sugar ; mix a 
glass of wine, the juice of a couple of lemons, 
and a pint of frothed cream together ; stir them 
into the custard when cool. Mold in blanc 



mange mold.s, or cut out some nice .shaped 
sponge cakes into shells, and pour the mi.x- 
ture in. 

Cider or Wine Whey. — Boil a pint of new 
milk, add to it a glass or two of cider, put it 
over the fire until it just boils again, then set it 
aside until the curd settles; pour oft' the clean 
whey; sweeten to the taste. Wine whey is 
made the same as the above, substituting white 
wine for the cider. > 

Ice Cream. — One pint of cream, the yolks of 
six eggs, one-fourth pound of powdered white 
.^ugai — or, if cream can not be had, two pints 
of new milk, and one tea-spoonful of arrow- 
root mixed with the milk— when all are well 
incorporated, heat gently, using caution not to 
get too hot, and cool gradually. When wanted 
for the freezer, flavor with lemon, vanilla, pine- 
apple, or strawberry, to the taste. 

Cranberry Sauce. — This sauce is very simply 
made. . A quart of cranberries are Washed and 
stewed with suflicient water to cover them; 
when they burst, mix with them a pound of 
brown sugar, and stir them well. Before you 
remove them from the fire, all the berries should 
have burst. When cold, they will be jellied, 
and if thrown into a form while warm, will 
tarn out whole. 

Clouted Cream. — Take four quarts of new 
milk fresh from the cow, put it in a pan, and 
let it stand until the next day ; then set it over 
a very slow fire for half an hour, making it 
.nearly hot, then put it away until it is cold. 
Then take ofl" the cream free from the milk, 
beat it smooth with a spoon. Sweeten to the 
taste and serve with preserves, berries, peaclies, 
canned or freshly stewed fruit. 

Or, mix together a gill of fresh milk, a wine- 
gla.ss of rose water, and tour ounces of white 
sugar; then add the yolks of two eggs well 
beaten ; stir all into a quart of good cream, set 
it over hot coals, letting it just come to a boil, 
stirring all the time; take it oft", and when cool 
enough, pour into a glass bowl and set it away 
to cool. 

Cream Fritters. — .\ pretty dish for dessert 
may be made by rolling tliin several layers of 
good cream dough, about the size of a breakfast 
plate, and frying in hot fat; place grated and 
seasoned apple between the several layers, and 
serve hot. 

Lemon Cream. — Take a pint of thick cream 
and put it to the yolks of two eggs well beaten, 
four ounces of fine sugar, and the thin rind of a 
lemon ; boil it up, t<ien stir it till alm'ost cold ; 
put the juice of a lemon in a dish or bowl, and 



OTHER RELISHES. 



GS9 



put the cream upon it, stirring it till quite 
cold. 

Pink Cream. — Take three gills currant o 
striiwherry juice, half a pound of powdered 
white .sugar, a pint and a half of thick cream — 
whisk it till well mixed. Serve it up in a glass 
dish, or freeze it if you like. 

Mafpberry Cream. — Rub a quart of raspber- 
ries through. a sieve to take out the seeds, and 
then mis it well with some cream, and sweeten 
with sugar to yajir taste. Put it in a bowl and 
froth with a syllabub churn ; take off the froth 
as it rises. When you have as much froth as 
you want, put the rest of the cream into a deep 
glass bowl or dish, and put the frothed cream 
on it, as high as it will .stand. 

Strawberry Cream. — Make it in the same w.ay 
as raspberry cream. The coloring may be im- 
proved by using a little of tlie rose coloring 
for ice and jellies. 

Tapioca Cream. — Dissolve two table-spoonsful 
of tapioca in cold water two hours — boil one 
quart of milk — add the tapioca, one cup of su- 
gar, and the yolks of three eggs well beaten 
together. Let it boil until it thickens a little; 
turn it into a dish to serve. When cold, put 
over it an icing made of the whites of the eggs. 

Whipped Cream. — Beat the whites of six eggs 
to a siiS" froth, then stir in six large spoonsful 
of pulverized sugar, and one large spoonful of 
vanljlla. Beat well together; then add one pint 
of thick sweet cream, put on a platter, and beat 
with a large spoon, unless you have a whisk. 
As the froth rises take it off, and put it in a bowl, 
glass, or cover jelly with it. If the weather is 
hot, it will be necessary to cool the cream by 
placing it on ice before attempting to beat it, 
or the frotli will not rise. 

CurruiU Juice, Iced. — Press the juice from ripe 
currants, strain it clear; to eacli pint of juice 
add a pound of loaf sugar and a pint of water, 
and freeze as for ice cream. 

Custard Ice. — Beat the yolks of six eggs very 
light, and add six table-spoonsful of while su- 
gar ; stir these well ; put over the fire one quart 
of new milk with a piece of vanilla bean ; when 
it comes to a boil stir in with care the eggs and 
BUgar; let it remain on the fire about one min- 
tite, stirring all the time to prevent curdling; 
then remove it and add one quart of good cream; 
take out the vanilla bean ; when quite cold put 
it into the freezer and freeze. This is a nice 
dessert. It miiy be flavored with almond or 
any other flavoring, but that must be added 
after boiling, as all essences are liable to curdle 
the milk, unless pounded almonds are used, 
44 



which enriches the milk and is a very delicate 
flnvor; cinnamon sticks flavor the milk pleas- 
antly; they must be boiled in the milk and re- 
moved before freezing. 

Custard. — Allow four eggs to each pifit of 
fresh milk. Reserve part of the whites to 
froth and lay on top. Beat the eggs smooth, 
stir them in the milk — sweeten with the best 
loaf sugar. Set a bucket with the mixture in 
a pot of boiling water. Stir until done and 
remove from the fire instantly. The same mix- 
ture may be baked. A soft custard may be 
made in the same way by doubling the quantity 
of milk, and flavoring with lemon. 

Almond Ciislard. — Blanch and beat a quarter 
of a pound of almonds very fine, and put them 
into a pint of cream, with two teaspoonsful of 
rose water, and sweeten as desired. Add the 
yolks of four well beaten eggs; stir all together 
one way over the fire until it is thick, and then 
pour into cups. 

Apple Custard. — Take sweet apples that will 
cook; pare, cut, and stew them; when well 
done, stir till the pieces are broken, when cool, 
thin with milk to a proper consistency, and 
bake with one crust. Eggs may be prepared 
and added with milk, if desired. Sweetening 
is unnecessary. 

Chocolate Custard. — Dissolve an ounce and a 
half of chocolate in a little water, add a pint 
of vanilla-flavored milk, with five well-beaten 
eggs, and two ounces of sugar. 

Coffee Custard. — Four cups of boiled milk, 
one of very strong decoction of coffee, five yolks 
of eggs, two ounces of sugar; mix well and 
strain. 

Lemon Custard is made by the addition of 
the juice and pulp of a lemon; and vanilla 
custard by the proper addition of that article, 
to the ordinary custard. 

Floating Island. — Tliree pints of sweet milk 
and one of sweet cream, placed in a tin pail 
in a covered kettle of water; prepare the yolks 
of six eggs and the whites of three, with 
three tea-spoonsful of corn starch; rub the 
starch and eggs together, and .add to the milk 
when [t is scalding hot. A tea-cup of sugar 
should also be mixed with the egg. Let it 
boil not more than a minute, constantly stirring, 
which stirring should be continued until nearly 
cold. The remainder of the whites, if a custard 
is desired, may be beaten to a very slifl' froth, 
and after scalding with boiling water, to pre- 
vent separation, placed upon the top, after the 
custard is put into a deep dish. Lemon peel, 
peach, or almond leaves, or a vanilla bean may 



690 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



be scalded in the milk, unless extracts are pre- 
ferred; vanilla gives it tlie ice-cream flavor. 

Lemon Honeycomh. — Sweeten the juice of a 
lemon to taste, and pour it into the dish you 
serve it in; mis the white of an egg that is 
beaten with a pint of rich cream and a little 
sugar; whisk it, and as the froth rises put it on 
the lemon juice. Do it the day before you 
wisli to use it. 

Blanc Mantje. — Dissolve an ounce and a half 
of gelatine in a pint of sweet cream. Sweeten, 
flavor, and boil it. Put a little in a cup on 
some ice and salt, and if it will mold, it is 
done. 

Calves' Feet Mange. — Boil four feet in five 
quarts of water, without any salt. When the 
liquor is reduced to one quart, strain it, and 
mix with one quart of milk, and add several 
sticks of cinnamon or vanilla bean. Boil the 
whole ten minutes and sweeten it to the taste 
with white sugar ; strain it and fill your molds 
with it. 

Chocolate Mange. — Three ounces of French 
isinglass, dissolved in a very little cold water; 
put on a quart of new milk to boil, grate half 
a cake of vanilla chocolate and stir in the milk; 
then let it simmer five minutes; then pour into 
a mold, and when cold and jellyish, turn out 
and serve with cream. 

Orange Ice. — Express the juice of six large 
oranges; strain, and add a quart of cold water, 
make it very sweet ; be.it the whiles of four eggs 
to a stifi" froth, pour the whole into a freezer 
properly prepared, and freeze immediately be- 
fore it is wanted. 

To Bake Peais. — Take half a dozen fine 
pears ; peel, cut them in halves, and take out 
the cores; put them into a pan with half a 
pound of sugar and some water ; set them in a 
moderate oven till tender, then put them on a 
slow fire to stew gently. Add grated lemon 
and more sugar, if necessary. 

To Stew Pears- — Take six large, well ripe 
pears; cut each in two lengthways, peel them 
lightly, put them in a very clean stew-pan, 
cover with three ounces of white sugar pow- 
dered slightly; peel a lemon, cut the rind into 
small strips, press the juice on top of the sugar, 
gently shaking the pan to dissolve the sugar; 
then put it on a slow fire for ten or fifteen 
minutes ; shake it gently once or twice, turn 
each piece with a fork, put it on the fire, and 
let it stew again for ten minutes. When done, 
put them on a dish to cool, then dress them on 
a flat dish ; pour the syrup over and serve. 
They may also be done in a slow oven. 



Raspbei-ry or Strawberry Ice. — Mash a pint of 
frnit with two large spoonsful of fine sugar; 
add a quart of cream, strain through a sieve, 
and freeze. If you have no cream, boil a spoon- 
ful of arrowroot or corn starch in a quart of 
milk and stir in a beaten egg, then add the fruit, 
strain, an<l freeze. 

Snow Balls. — One cup of sugar, two eggs, 
four table-spoonsful of milk, one .tea-spoonful 
of cream of tartar, one of soda, if the milk is 
sour ; spice to your taste ; mix them hard 
enough to roll out, cut with a small cake cutter, 
and fry in hot lard ; then dip them in the white 
of an egg, and roll in powdered loaf sugar till 
while. 

Mliipped Syllabub. — Stir into a quart of good 
cream one pound of crushed sugar, and a pint 
and a half of good wine; put these into a deep 
dish ; squeeze in the juice of three fresh lem- 
ons, whip these half an hour, and as they froth 
lay the fi-oth in a sieve until all is whipped; 
serve in lemonade glasses. Some use but half 
a pint of wine and six ounces of sugar, to a 
quart of cream or rich milk, with half the 
quantity of lemon. 

Tea and Supper Dislies. — Under 

this head we group only a few appropriate 
dishes — muffins, griddle cakes, etc., have al- 
ready been noticed. 

Boiled Flour. — Stuff into a small well-s§wed 
bag as much flour as it will hold,. so that it 
shall be packed almost as hard as a stone. 
Tie securely, put it into a sauce-pan of boiling 
water and boil four hours, filling up the sauce- 
pan with more water as it boils away. Then 
take it up, peel off the skin, crack or break the 
ball of flour into pieces, roll it with a rolling- 
pin on a pasteboard, then sift it, and when it 
is cold, put into dry tins. It may be made as 
arrowroot custard, only it must be boiled. It 
is strengthening and very delicious. 

Junket. — Take one quart of milk, warm from 
the cow, and stir in a tea-spoonfyl of rennet, 
and let it stand till curded, which, if the rennet 
is of proper strength, will be in about fifteen 
minutes; grate over it a little nutmeg, and 
sweeten with maple molasses or honey. It is 
an excellent dish for supper. 

Bice Tea Dishes. — When fruit is scarce, rice 
can be made a very pretty addition to the tea- 
table. Boil in the morning, and turn into but- 
tered tea-cups ; when cold, turn out the contents 
of the several cups on to a platter, make a little 
cavity in the top of each of these bea-utifuUy- 
shaped molds, placing a tea-spoonful of some 



TEA AND SUPPER DISHES. 



G91 



kind of jelly in tlie openings, and, wiili a 
]iilcliei- of sweetened and Uavored cream, you 
will have a fancy as well as nutritions dish. 
If more convenient, turn into a good-sized 
bowl, and you will have the same results with 
less trouble. 

A beautiful dish can be arranged bj- putting 
cold rice on a plate with a layer of jelly, jam, 
grated apple, fresh strawberries, or raspberries 
on the top; tijfn another layer of rice and 
fruit, and so on until you have the mound as 
high as you like, leaving the rice at the top, 
and being careful to trim the edges neatly, to 
show the stripes of fruit. This is delicious 
cold for tea, or baked half an hour for dessert 
with a good dressing. 

Sandwiches for Tea or Evening Parties. — Chop 
some fine cold dressed ham, say about a quarter 
of a pound; put it in a basin with a table-spoon- 
ful of chopped pickles and a tea-spoonful of 
Uiustard, a little pepper or cayenne; put about 
six ounces of butter in a basin, and, with a 
spoi.ii, .stir it quickly till it forms a kind of 
cream, then add the ham and seasoning, mix 
all well, have the sandwich bread cut in thin 
slices; have already cut, lliinly intermixed 
with fat, either cold roast beef, .lamb, mutton, 
poultry, pheasant, grouse, partridge, etc., either 
of which lay evenly and not too thick, on your 
bread, season with a little salt and pepper; 
cover with another piece of bread ; when your 
SMiidwich IS ready cut tastily and serve. You 
m:iy keep them in a cold place, if not wanted, 
as they will keep good under cover for twelve 
hours. Chopped tongue may be introduced 
instead .of ham, in thin slices. 

Apple Toast. — Cut six apples in quarters, 
take the core out, peel and cut them in slices ; 
put in a sauce-pan an ounce of butter, then 
throw over the apples about two ounces of 
while powdered sugar and two table-spoonsful 
of water; put the s.auce-pan on the fire, let it 
slew quickly, toss them up or stir with a spoon; 
a few minutes will do them. When tender, cut 
two or three slices of bread half an inch thick, 
put in a frying-pan two ounces of butter and 
put on the fire; when the butter is melted, put 
in your bread, which fry of a nice yellowish 
color; when nice and crisp take them out, place 
them on a dish, a little sugar over, the apples 
about one inch thick ; serve hot. 

Broiled and Devilled Toast. — Toast a round of 
bread cut a quarter of an inch thick ; mix in a 
plate one ounce of butter, half a tea-spoonful 
of cayenne, one tea-spoonful of mustard, one 
tea -spoonful of catsup; spread it over the toast. 



and serve very hot. Broiled .sausages may be 
served on it. 

Cream Towtt. — A good way to use up crust 
of dried bread, the " heels" of loaves and rem- 
nants, is to steam them in cream or milk', and 
turn a cup of melted butter over them. It 
makes a rich, palatable dish, if care is taken 
not to have them too moist. 

Fruited Toust. — A very nice, light, and quick 
dish for supper, may be done as follows: Cut 
some nice slices of bread half an inch thick, 
dip them in milk which is sweetened, or sprin- 
kle sugar over, then dip it into some batter of 
milk and flour, and fry nicely, or put some 
butter in a tin dish, bread over, and put in an 
oven. When quite hot and nearly hai-d, put 
some fruit over, and serve. 

Ham Toast. — Melt a small piece of butter in 
a stew-pan until it is slightly browned; beat 
up one egg and add to it; put in as much finely- 
minced ham as would cover a round of buttered 
toast, adding as much gravy as will make it 
moist when quite hot. When all the ingredi- 
ents are in, stir them quickly with a fork ; pcjur 
on to the buttered toast, which cut in pieces 
afterward any shape you please; serve hot. 

Toast and Cheese. — Cut a slice of bread half 
an inch thick, pare off the crust, and toast it 
very slightly on one side. Cut a slice of cheese 
a quarter of an inch thick — not so big as the 
bread by half an inch on each side — pare off 
the rind, lay it on the toasted bread, place on 
a flat tin plate and put in the oven for ten min- 
utes or so. Mix a quarter of a tea-spoonful of 
salt and mustard, and a sprinkle of pepper, stir 
into the cheese, and you will have a delicious 
luncheon. 

Welsh E<trebit. — Take a quarter of a pound 
of good fresh cheese — a solid piece the size of 
a large tea-cup — cut it up in small thin slices, 
and put in a frying-pan, with a little over a 
cupful of sweet milk. (.Some add a glass eacli 
of wine and ale.) Have previously beaten an 
egg and stir that in, then add half a salt-spoon 
of dry mustard, two dashes of red pepper, ami 
a small piece of butter, stirring the mixture all 
the time. Have ready rolled three small or two 
large crackers, and gradually stir them in; as 
.soon as this is thoroughly incorporated, turn 
the mixture out into a heated dish and cover it. 

Cooking for tlie IVursery.— A se- 
lection of the more imiiortant articles of diet 
for the nursery — for children and invalids — is 
here presented, Graham bread, cukes, gems. 
toast, etc., have been already given. 



692 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



Children's Diet. — "Tlie intelligent and expe 
rienced mother or nurse chooses for llie child," 
says LlEBiG, " with attention to the laws of 
nature ; she gives him chiefly milk and farina- 
ceous food, always adding fruits to the latter; 
she prefers the flesh of adult animals, which 
are rich in bone earth, to that of young ani- 
mals, and always acconiphnies it with garden 
vegetables; she gives the child especially bones 
to gnaw, and excludes from its diet veal, fish, 
and potatoes ; to the excitable child of weak 
digestive powers, she gives, in its farinaceous 
food, infusion of malt, and uses milk and sugar, 
the respiratory matter prepared by nature her- 
self for the respiratory process, in preference to 
cane sugar, and she allows liiin the unlimited 
use of salt." 

Arrmvroot Pap. — Take a dessert-spoonful of 
arrowroot, and stir carefully into a cup of cold 
milk; then pour it into a pint of boiling milk, 
and stir constantly until cooked ; then remove 
it from the fire, and, while cooling, sweeten to 
the taste. 

Barley Gruel for Infants. — Mix a table-spoon- 
ful of barley Hour with a table-spoonful of 
milk, gradually adding a quart of boiling 
milk; boil it gently for ten minutes; when 
coTd strain through a muslin, and sweeten with 
loaf sugar. It is a very nutritious and cooling 
food for infants. 

Beef Essence. — In low fevers and other forms 
of exhausted vitality, attended with cerebral 
weakness, produced by severe labor or other 
cause, there is no article of food which can re- 
place beef e.'sence; and every housewife sliould 
know lu)W to make it properly. To do so, lake 
a pound of juicy beef (the neck i.s, perhaps, the 
best), cut it very fine, rejecting all fat and 
" gristle," and put it into a wide-mouthed bot- 
tle, such as a pickle bottle. Then put the bot- 
tle, tightly-corked, into a kettle of cold water, 
set it over the fire, and boil an hour. When 
well boiled uncork the bottle, pour its contents 
into a strainer, and drain out the liquid. 

A pinch of salt may be added, if required, to 
render it palatable. No water should be added 
to the meat or essence. Even a tea-spoonful of 
this preparation contains a great deal of nour- 
ishment, and is borne by almost all stomachs. 
Life can be sustained by its use a long time. 

Am>ther mode of preparing an inviiluable 
beef stimulant : Chop up lean "beef, place it in 
a pan, and subject it, for an hour or more, to 
heat, by keeping the pan in a vessel of boiling 
water; the fat, fiber, and essence will distinctly 
separate. Strain the liquid portions from the 



fiber, and remove from it (he fat, by means of 
blotting-paper. A highly aromatic, amber- 
colored liquid, of an agreeable flavor, will re- 
main. This is the required stimulant. Un- 
like common beef tea, its effect is stimulant, 
rather than nutritious — rapidly exerting a stim- 
ulating power over the brain. 

Beef Tea, or Mullnn Broth.— To make beef 
tea, mutton broth, and other meat soups, the 
flesh should be put into cold water, and thi.s 
afterward very slowly warmed, and finally 
boiled. A lean, juicy piece of beef is best, cut 
in thin slices — a pound to a quart of water; 
twenty minutes cooking after it commences to 
boil. Season with salt and mace. A little 
rice or vermicelli may be added, if desired. 

Beef Toast. — Take pieces of cooked beef left 
at table, chop fine; put in a stew-pan or spider 
with a pint of water, and butter, .salt, and pep- 
per ; and let it stew a few minutes. Put slices 
of hot toasted bread into a dish and cover with 
the meat and gravy, then more toast, and so 
on till it is all used up or your dish is full. 
Serve hot. 

Boiled Flour Gruel. — Boil a pound of flour in 
a linen cloth — first frequently dipping it in 
cold water, and dredging the outside with flour 
till a crust is formed around it, which will 
prevent the water from soaking into it while 
boiling. Boil it till it becomes a hard, dry 
mass. Two or three spoonsful of this may be 
grated and prepared in the same manner as 
arrowroot gruel, for which it is an excellent 
substitute. 

Cfiwken Broth. — Take one-half of a carefully- 
dressed chicken, and pour on it one quart of 
cold water; add a little salt and a tea-spoonful 
of rice ; boil very slowly for two hours in a 
tightly-covered vcs.sel ; skim occasionally, and 
season very little. 

Drinks for the Sick — Apple Water. — Koast 
three or four good apples carefully, preserving 
all the juice. Put them in a pitcher, and pour 
on a quart of boiling water. Drink when cold. 

Barley Water. — Wash two table-spoonsful of 
pearl barley, and add a quart of water and a 
litttle salt. Simmer slowly for an hour. Half 
a cup of raisins makes it richer. When cool, 
jmt in lemon juice and sugar. 

Flaxseed Tea — Take of flaxseed, one ounce ; 
white sugar, one and a half ounces; lemon- 
juice, two table-spoonsful ; boiling water, two 
pints. Infuse them in a pitcher some hours, 
and then strain ofT the liquor. An ounce of 
liquorice, shaved, may sometimes be used, in- 
stead of sugar. 



COOKING FOR THE NURSERY. 



693 



Lemon Water. — Put two slices of lemon, 
thinly paied, into a tea-pot, a small bit of tlie 
peel, and a bit of sugar. Pour in a pint of 
boiling water, and cover it close two hours. 

Pectoral Drink.— Take of common barley and 
stoned raisins, each, two ounces; liquorice root, 
half anN ounce; water, two quarts. Boil the 
water first with the barley, then add the raisins, 
and afterward, near the latter end of the boil- 
ing, the liquorice. The decoction then will be 
fully completed, when one quart only will be 
left after straining. 

Tamarind Drink. — Boil two ounces of the 
pulp of tamarinds in a quart of milk — or dis- 
solve that quantity of pulp in a quart of warm 
water. Strain, and use when cold as a refriger- 
ant drink. 

Toast Waler. — Two slices of stale bread, toasted 
a nice brown ; pour over a pint of water and a 
few spoonsful of good vinegar. Add sugar and 
nutmegs if liked. Some omit the vinegar, 
sugar, and nutmegs. 

Indian Meal Gruel. — Boil a pint of water in 
a sauce-pan; mix two spoonsful of Indian meal 
in a little cold water, and stir into the boiling 
water; season it with salt and boil fifteen 
minutes; stir it frequently. Some add a cup 
of milk or a glass of white' wine, a little sugar, 
and a little nutmeg. 

Oat Meal as Food For Children.— If mothers 
would have their children grow up clear-eyed 
and comely", with frames of bone and not of 
cartilage, with transjiarent complexions instead 
of muddy ones, with full and well-rounded 
limbs instead of scrawny ones, then do not al- 
waj's set before them bread of fine flour and 
highly seasoned meats, but give them four or 
five times a week a breakfast of oat meal mush. 
Do you say that they do not like it ? Perhaps 
you do not know how to prepare it properly. 
Tlie Scotch method for preparing oat meal (or 
rather one of the methods) is to make a thin 
mush, a little thicker than gruel, and the boil- 
ing should continue three or five minutes (not 
more) after tlie thickening is finished. This, 
eaten with sugar or milk alone, or with syrup, 
is highly palatable, and is generally liked by 
children whose tastes are not vitiated. 

Oat Meal Gruel. — Put a cup of raisins in a 
quart of water and boil hard for half an hour. 
Mix two table-spoonsful of oat meal with a lit- 
tle cold water and salt, and stir it in with the 
raisins. Let it boil up and skim it well. Sweeten 
with white sugar and add a little nutmeg. This 
ie very nourishing. 

Oat Porridge. — Stir some oat meal and water 



together; let the mixture stand to clear, and 
pour ofil' tlie water. Then put more water to 
the meal, stir it well, and let it stand till next 
day. Strain through a fine sieve, and boil the 
water, adding milk while so doing. The pro- 
portion of water must be small. With toast, 
this is a good preparation for weak persons. 

Orange Whey. — Milk, one pint; the juice of 
an orange, with a portion of the peel. Boll 
the milk, then add the orange and let it stand 
till coagulation takes place. Strain. 

Panada. — Set a pint of water on the stove 
and add a little sugar, nutmeg, and lemon. 
Crumb up some stale white bread, and as soon 
as the water boils stir in the bread ; let it boil 
fast a few minutes. Add a small bit of butter 
if allowable. 

Rice. — Rice is invaluable in sickness; espe- 
cially in cases of indigestion and bowel difficult)-. 
Cooked simply with considerable nutmeg, it 
becomes a powerful astringent. This should 
be borne in mind by those who are dreading 
cholera. 

Bice Jelly. — Boil a quarter of a pound of 
rice flour with half a pound of loaf sugar in a 
quart of water, till the whole becomes one glu- 
tinous mass, then strain ofi' the jelly and let it 
stand to cool. This food is very nourishing 
and beneficial to invalids. 

Bice Milk. — This dish is an excellent one, and 
very simply and quickly made. After washing a 
pint of rice in two different waters, boil it well 
with about half a pound of raisins from which 
the stems have been carefully picked. Pour of}' 
the water and mix a quart of rich milk with 
the rice. Let it boil for about five minutes, 
and after mixing with it four table-spoonsful 
of brown sugar, beat two eggs until they are 
light and pour them into the milk, stirring 
it all the time. After the rice and eggs are 
well mixed together, the)' should boil from 
three to five minutes. If they are not well 
stirred, the eggs will form a custard on the sur- 
face, which is not desirable. 

Ground Bice Milk. — Boil one spoonful of 
good rice, rubbed down smooth, with a jiint 
and a half of milk, a little cinnamon, lemon 
peel, and nutmeg. Sweeten when nearly done. 

Sago Cream. — This is a very grateful article 
of food to the sick, and is thus made : One des- 
sert-spoonful of good sago, to be boiled in pure 
water until it is a jelly. Then add a cup of 
sweet cream, and boil again. Beat up a fresh 
egg quite light, and pour the sago on while 
hot. Sweeten and spice, with sugar and nut- 
meg, to your taste. 



694 



THE KITCUEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



Sago Jelly. — Take of sago, waslied well, one 
large spoonful, and water nearly a pint. Boil 
them gently, stirring often until the mixture is 
smooth and thick ; then add two spoonsful of 
wine, a iittle nutmeg, and sweeten it to the 
taste. A piece of lemon peel added to it when 
boiling, gives it a pleasant taste and flavor, and 
with some patients it agrees better when boiled 
in milk, for debility. 

Smip for Infants. — LiEBio recommends soup 
for infants, which he believes superior to cow's 
milk, in cases where children must be reared 
" by hand," prepared as follows : Half an ounce 
of wbeaten flour and an equal quantity of malt 
flour, seven grains and a quarter of bicarbonate 
of potash, and one ounce of water, to be well 
mixed. Five ounces of cow's milk are then to 
be added, and the whole put on a gentle fire; 
when the mixture begins to thicken it is re- 
moved from the fire, stirred during five min- 
utes, heated and stirred again until it becomes 
fluid, and finally made to boil. After the sep- 
aration of the bran by a sieve, it is ready for 
use. After boiling for a few minutes, it loses 
all taste of the flour. 

Vegetable Soi^p. — Take one turnip, one potato, 
and one onion ; let them be sliced and boiled 
in one quart of water for an hour. Add as 
much salt as is agreeable, and pour the whole 
upon a piece of dry toast. This forms an agree- 
able substitute for animal food, and may be 
given when the latter is inadmissible. 

The Art of Carving. — The dinner- 
table is the test of enlightenment. The savage 
snatches his food and devours it like a tiger ; 
but civilized man, according to the thorough- 
ness of his civilization, cooks it with care, pre- 
pares it with skill, and partakes of it with 
grace and deliberateness. Perhaps it is Emer- 
son who says, " I had rather my next neighbor 
at dinner should be a thief than a boor." 
This may seem to be extreme sensibility; but 
we all feel that the cultivation of table man- 
ners is shockingly neglected in America,' and 
that it is scarcely possible to urge its necessity 
with too much emphasis. And good table 
manners are shown, not only in eating properly, 
but in serving others gracefully. 

We eat far more meat, per capita, in this 
country than in any other; so the simple art 
of carving becomes almost indispensable here. 
Yet, in this department of life, as in many 
others, precipitation is the rule, and, violating 
at once the law of digestion and the law of 



politeness, people forget the proper way in a 
headlong scramble for a dinner. 

One of the most important accomplishments 
for a gentleman to acquire, whether he be the 
head of a family or a bachelor, is the ability to 
carve all meats well — that is, economically and 
elegantly. To learn this is not difilciilt, and it 
saves much needless waste and frequent mor- 
tification. The necessity of promiscuous carv- 
ing is being abolished at some tables, by the 
substitution of the fashion of cutting up the 
meats before bringing them in; but in the 
homes of middle life, skill in the use of a carv- 
ing knife is still a most desirable acquirement. 
Indeed, any gentleman who is a diner-out is 
liable to be summoned to carve, under circum- 
stances which will not permit him to decline; 
and if he be ignorant of the art, he may well 
regard himself as in constant peril. 

He may happen to be on the riglit hand of 
the lady of the house, and at her request very 
politely conveyed, he can not refuse; he rise.s, 
therefore, to his task as though one of the 
labors of Hercules had been suddenly imposed 
on him; he first casts around him a nervous 
glance to ascertain whether any one else is 
carving a fowl, in order to see where they in- 
sert their fork, at what part they commence, and 
how they go on; but it generally happens that 
he is not so fortunate as he desires, and there- 
fore he is left to get through the operation as 
well as he can. He takes up his knife and fork 
desperately; he knows that a wing is good, a 
slice of the breast is a dainty, and that a leg is 
a gentleman's portion, so he .sticks his fork in 
at random, and slashes at the wing, misses the 
joint, and endeavors to cut through the bone — 
it is not an easy task; he mutters something 
about his knife not being sharp, essays a grin 
and a faint jeu de mot at the expen.se of the 
fowl's age, and finding the bone will not sunder 
by fair means, he puts out his strength, gets ofl" 
the wing with a sudden dash which propels the 
mangled member oS" the dish upon the cloth, 
sends the body of the fowl quite to the edge of 
the dish, and with the jerk splashes a quantity 
of gravy over the rich dinner-dress of the lady 
.seated next to him, much to her chagrin at the 
injury to her robe, and her contempt for the 
barbarous ignorance he has displayed. He has 
to make a thousand apologies for his stupidity, 
which only serve to make his deficiency more 
apparent; he becomes heated, suffused with 
blushes and perspiration — continues hacking 
and mangling the fowl until he has disjointed 



THE ART OF CARVING. 



695 



tlie wings and legs, and then, alas! the body 
presents itself to him as a terra incognita; what 
to do with it, he is at a complete loss to im- 
agine — bnt it must be carved — he has strength 
of wrist, and he cr;ushes through it at the haz- 
ard of repeating the mishaps he commenced 
witli. His task over, he sits down confused and 
uncomfortable, to find his elTorts have caused 
the rejection of any portion of the fowl he has 
wrenched asunder by those wlio have witnessed 
his bungling attempt; he is disgusted with the 
fowl, himself, carving, and everything else — ■ 
loses all enjoyment for his dinner, and during 
the remainder of the evening can not recover 
his equilibrium. 

A blunderer will not wholly save liis com- 
posure by attempting to conceal his awkward- 
ness with humor; like the carver who, having 
flouted a fowl in a lady's lap, said, coolly, 
" Jladain, may I trouble you to pass that 
chicken?" 

He will possibly too have the very question- 
able satislaction of witnessing an accomplished 
carver dissect a fowl ; he perceives with a species 
of wonder that he retains his seat, plants his 
fork in the bird, removes tlie wings and legs as, 
if by magic, then follows merry-thought and 
neck bones, then the breast — away come the 
two sides-men, and the bird is dissected ; all 
this too is accomplished without effort and with 
an elegance of manner as surprising as capti- 
vating; the pieces carved look quite tempting, 
while there is no perceptible difference in the 
temperature of the carver; he is as cool and 
collected as ever, and assists the portions he 
has carved with as much grace as he displayed 
in carving the fowl. The truth is, he is ac- 
quainted with the anatomy of the bird; he has 
felt the necessity of acquiring the art, and has 
taken advantage of every opportunity which 
has enabled him to perfect himself in the re- 
quisite knowledge to attain the position at 
which he has arrived. 

Manual skill, r.ather than muscular strength, 
is the secret of the art. A delicate lady can 
carve as successfully as a strong man, if she 
knows how. All displays of exertion are in 
very bad taste. A carver's seat should be a 
little higher than other chairs, and he should 
remember that his place is in it. It is now 
considered impolite to carve standing. The 
carver should be seated so near the dish as not 
to require efllbrt in reaching; and should wield, 
with the greatest fiteility, a keen blade. 

Carving knives should "be put in edge" be- 
fore the dinner commences, for nothing irritates 



a good carver, or perplexes a bad one, mora 
than a knife whicli i-efuses to perform its office; 
and there is nothing more annoying to the 
company than too see the carving knife dan- 
cing to and fro over the steel, while the dinner 
is getting cold, and their appetites are being 
exhausted by delay. 

It is best for the carver to supply the plates, 
and let the waiter hand them around, instead of 
putting the question to each guest as to which 
part he prefers, and then striving to serve 
him with it, to the prejudice of others present. 
Indeed, this asking for individual preferences 
s not now practiced. Ladies should be a.s- 
isted before gentlemen. Waiters should pre- 
sent dishes on the left hand; so that the diner 
may assist himself with his right. 

FisA is served with a fish-slice, or the new 
fish-knife and fork, and requires very little 
carving, care being required, however, not to 
break the flakes, which, from their size add 
much to the beauty of cod and salmon. Serve 
part of the roe, milt, or liver, to each person. 
The heads of cod and salmon, and sounds of 
cod, are likewise considered delicacies. 

Poultry. — To enrve poultry well requires skill, 
personal ease, and grace, and a knowledge of 
its an.atomy, so as to obtain the largest quan- 
tity of meat. To carve, a turkey without with- 
drawing the fork, stick the fork firmly across 




the breast-bone, so as to have the turkey at per- 
fect command. In this way it is easy to com- 
plete the entire carving without extracting the 
fork till done. Begin by cutting slices from 
each side of the breast, in the direction of the 
lines from A to B in the engraving. These 
should be piled neatly aside. Next (or some 
will say first) cut off the legs, passing the knife 
between them and the body, then making a 
gash to the joint of the hip, turn the leg off, 
and it will part readily. Separate the drum- 
sticks. Here an instrument termed a disjointer 
will be found serviceable. The wings and con- 
tiguous portions are then removed by "a twist 
of the wrist"— aiul these are always a delicacy. 
Then pass the knife straight down through the 
breast to the bone and turn off toward the 
neck ; this will uncover the stuffing, and enable 
you to take away the shoulder-bones, by loos- 
ening from the back, and to remove the neck. 



696 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM: 



Lay the turkey on his ude, and cut down the 
ribs, separating the back frum the breast. Now, 
for the first time, remove the fork, hiy the back 
up, rest the knife across the center, and break 
the joint by bending up the lower end with the 
fork. Then you will find it easy to divide the 
lower half twice lengthwise, and the dis.section is 
accomplished. The stuSing, of trufiles or what- 
ever it is, can be found under the apron, at C. 

The leg, or drum-stick as it is called, is too 
tough and stringy to put on any guest's plate; 
but a good cut can be taken from the outside, 
and the bone be retained on the dish. The 
breast is most preferred ; so that it is ill-bred 
for any person to ask for that part exclusively, 
and is regarded as discourteous to omit putting 
some of it on each plate. 

The boiled turkey is carved .like the roast 
turkey, except that it requires a little more 
skill in withdrawing the legs fi-om the body 
and separating them. 

To carve a roast fowl is a nice operation — it 
requires both observation and practice. Insert 
the knife between the legs and the side, pre.ss 
back the leg with the blade of the knife, and 
the joint will disclose itself; if young, it will 
thereupon separate; in any case, a little judi- 
cious management will remove it. Proceed as 
with roast turkey. 

But in the case of "spring chickens" it is 
better to cut tlie breast-bone lengthwise into 
three pieces. If you attempt to cut slices from 
the breast of small, young chickens, they are 
but shreds; no one is well served, and the 
(skeleton is left on the dish; whereas, if you 
separate the whole breast into three, bones and 
all ; then, with the two wings and the collar- 
bones, you have six handsome pieces of the 
white meat ; make as many of the dark part, 
and put a piece of each kind on every plate; 
then you will have made the most of it, and 
have but the neck left on the dish. 

Boiled fowl, geese, and ducks are similarly 
disposed of; the hand that can carve a fowl 
and turkey well, will find no embarrassment 
with either of the winged domestics. 

Small Game. — To carve a partridge, separate 
the legs, and then divide the bird into three 

^ _-^- . _ parts, leaving each leg and 

wing together. The breast 
is then divided from the 
back, and helped whole, 
the latter being assisted 
with any of the other parts. 
When the party consists 
entirely of gentlemea, the bird is divided into 




two by cutting right througn from the vent to 
the neck. 

The pheasant is carved nearly like a fowl ; 
the breast is first in general estimation, then 
the wings, and after these the merry-thought; 
lovers of game prefer a leg. 

Snipe, woodcock, and pigeon are cut in half, 
down the breast and back, and one-half helped 
at a time. 

Grouse and plover are carved according to 
directions given for partridges. 

Quails, larks, and all small birds are served 
whole. 

Roast Pig. — The cook should send a roast 
pig to table as displayed here, garnished witli 




head and ears ; carve the joints in the direction 
shown by the lines in the diagram, then divide 
the ribs. Serve . with plenty of .sauce ; should 
one of the joints be too much, it may be sepa- 
rated; bread sauce and stuffing should accom- 
pany it. An ear and the jaw are favorite parts 
with many people. 

Calf's Head. — There is much more meat to 
be obtained from a calf's head by carving it 




one w.ay than another. Carve from A to B, 
cutting quite down to the bone. At the fle-shy 
part of the neck end you will find the throat 
sweetbread, which you can help a slice of with 
the other part; you will remove the eye with 
the point of the knife and divide it in half, 
helping those to it who profess a preference 
for it; there are some tasty, gelatinous pieces 
around it which are palatable. Remove the 
jaw-bone, and then you will meet with some 
fine-flavored lean; the palate, which is under 
the head, is, by some, thought a dainty, and 
should be proffered when carving. 

Cod's Head and Shoulders. — Carry the trowel 



THE ART OF CARVING. 



697 



from A to B, and then along the line to C ; help 

slices accompanied by some of the sound, 

which is to be found lining the back, and 

A 




which you niny obtain by passing the trowel 
under tlie backbone at C; serve also a piece of 
liver. Many choice parts lie in this dish, and 
by inquiry you will soon ascertain t!ie parts 
preferred. The jaw-bone, from its gelatinous 
nature, is considered by some a dainty, and the 
head generally, including eyes and palate, is a 
favorite with many. 

Round of Beef. — Cut off and lay aside a thick 
slice from the entire surface, then help. There 
are two kinds of fat attached to this joint, and 




as tastes differ, it is necessary to learn which is 
preferred ; the solid fat will be found at C, and 
must be cut horizontally: the softer, which re- 
sembles marrow, at the back of the bone, below 
D. Carve a fillet of veal similarly. 




A, midway between the knuckle and the other 
end. Thence, cut thin slices each way, as deep 
as B. The outside being seldom very fat, some 



^^^^m^^ 



Sirloin of Beef. — The under part should be 
first served and carved as indicated in the en- 
gravin<r, across the bone. In carving the upper 
jiart, the same directions should be followed as 
for the ribs, carving either side, or in the center, 
from A to B, and helping the fat from D. 

Leg of Mutton. — The choicest part lies near 




Lkq of Mutton. 
favorite pieces may be sliced off the broad end 
at C. The knuckle is tender, but the other 
parts more juicy. Some good slices may be cut 
lengthwise, from the broad end of the back of 
the leg. The cramp-bone is nmch thought of 
by some to get it, cut down to the bone at D, 
and in the curve line to E. 

Shoidder of Mutton. — This is a joint which 
some epicures despise, but which is a favorite 
part with pthers. There are certainly some 
succulent titbits in the shoulder, and in serving 




it, the tastes of those at table should be con- 
sulted. It should be served and eaten very 
hot. It is sent to table lying on the dish as 
shown in the engraving. Commence curving 
from A to B, taking out moderately thin slices 
in the shape of a wedge; some nice pieces may 
then be helped from the blade-bone, from C to 
B, cutting on both sides of the bone. Cut the 
fat from D, carving it in thin slices. Some of 
the most delicate parts, however, lie on the 
under pai-t of the shoulder; take off thin pieces 
horizontally from B to C, and from A; some 
tender slices are to be met with at D, but they 
must be cut through as indicated. 

Quarter of Lamb. — Lay the knife flat, and cut 
off the shoulder. The proper point for incision 
will be indicated by the position of the shoulder. 
A little lemon juice may be squeezed over the 
divided part, and a little cayenne pepper, .and 
the shoulder transferred to another dish, for 
the opposite end of the table. Next, separate 
the brisket, or short bones, by cutting length 



698 



THE KITCHEN AND DINING-ROOM : 



wise along tlie breast. Then serve from either 
part as dcsireil. 

Loin of MuUm. — If small, this should be 
carved in chops, beginning with the outer 
chop — if large, carve slices the whole length. 
A neat way is to run the knife along the chin- 
bone, and under the meat along the ribs; it 
may then be cut in slices ; by this proce.ss fat 
and lean are served togeiher. Your knife 
should be sharp, and it should be done cleverly. 

Ham. — There are three ways of carving a 
Lara; 1, carve from A to B, cutting thin .slices — 
cut slantingly to give an edge-like appearance; 




or, 2, cut at D, in tlie same direction as from A 
to B, then carve from D to C, in thin slices, as 
indicated in the diagram; or, 8, cut a smooth, 
round hole, as at E, taking thin, circular pieces. 



Spare-Rib of Pork is carved by separating 
the chops, which should previously have been 
jointed. Cut as far as the .joint, then return 
the knife to the point of the bones, and press 
over to disclose the joint, which may then be 
relieved with the point of the knife. If a 
whole rib is too much, a slice of meat may be 
taken from between two ribs. 

A Tonr/ue. — The best slices are midway be-! 
tween the root and tip of the tongue. On this 
account, to avoid partiality, it is becoming the 
custom with some to slice the tongue very thin 
from root to tip, and roll up each slice for a 
plate. But it is still the more general practice 
to cut the tongue through, or nearly through, 
slicing thin, and adding from the fat and ker- 
nels to those who desire. 

Eels. — Cut into pieces through the bone; the 
middle slices are the most savory bits. 

Soup. — Pour but one ladleful into each plate. 

In helping any one to gravy, or to melted 
butter, do not pour it over their meat, fowl, or 
fish, but put it to one side, on a vacant part of 
the plate, that they may use jnsl as much of it 
as they like. In filling a plate, never heap one 
thing on another. 



FAMILY HEALTH: 

Causes of Sickness and Conditions of Eecovery — Preventives and 
Medicines. 



Heaven never granted a richer boon llian 
health ; and without it, all other blessings are 
comparatively valneless. Yet it is often lightly 
esteemed and carelessly thrown away, and never 
fully appreciated until it is gone. We have 
seen the mistress of a splendid mansion, sur- 
rounded by every luxury which wealth could 
command, lying upon her couch, pale and mis- 
erable, fretful and unhappy. Within her reach 
were the most delicate viands and exquisite 
fruits, yet she could partake of none. Health 
was no longer hers. She had parted with it for 
the sake of gratifying her vanity, by wearing 
thin shoes to display the beauty of her foot, and 
now, when consumption was preying upon her, 
she repented her folly, but it was too late; and 
though she would willingly give all that she 
po.ssessed, the priceless treasure could not be 
recalled. 

The thin, ghastly-looking gentleman, who 
reclines in his luxurious easy chair, with his 
gouty foot upon a pillow, sighs and groans in 
anguish, and thinks of the many weary nights 
of pain, when the bed of down and the silken 
covering could bring him no repose. How he 
envies the plow-boy, who whistles on the green 
fields, whose step is elastic, and whose heart is 
light and gay at his toil, while his sleep is 
sound and refreshing! 

What is wealth to the invalid but a bitter 
mockery which can yield no happiness? 

Take, for example, says Miss Sedgwick, a 
young girl bred delicately in town, shut up in 
a nursery in her childhood — in a boarding- 
school through her youth, never accustomed 
either to air or exercise, two things that the 
law of God makes essential to health. She 
marries; her strength is inadequate to the de 
man<ls upon it. Her beauty fades early. She 
languishes through the hard oflice of giving 
birth to children, suckling, and watching over 
them, and dies early; and her acquaintance, 



lamenting, exclaim: "What a strange Provi- 
dence, that a mother should be taken in the 
midst of life from her children I" Was it 
Providence? No! Providence had assigned 
her three score and ten ; a term long enough 
to rear her children ; but she did not obey the 
laws on which life depends, and of course she 
lost it. A father, too, is cut off in the midst 
of his days. He is a useful and distinguished 
citizen, and eminent in his profession. A gen- 
eral buzz raises on every side, of, "What a 
striking Providence!" This man has been in ■ 
the habit of studying half the night, of passing 
his days in his office and in the courts, of eat- 
ing luxurious dinners, and drinking various 
wines. He has every day violated the laws on 
which health depends. Did Providence cut 
him off? The evil rarely ends here. The dis- 
eases of a father are often transmitted ; and a 
feeble mother rarely leaves behind her vigorous 
children. 

"Wliat a Providence!" exclaims the world, 
"cut off in the midst of happiness and hope!" 
Alas! did she not cut the thread of life herself? 
A girl in the country, exposed to our changeful 
climate, gets a new bonnet, instead of getting a 
flannel garment. A rheumatism is the conse- 
quence. Should the girl sit down tranquilly 
with the idea that Providence has sent the 
rheumatism upon'her, or should she charge it 
on her vanity, and avoid the folly*in the future! 
Look, my young friends, at the mass of diseases 
that are incurred by intemperance in eating or in 
drinking, or in study, or in business, by neglect 
of exercise, tight lacing, etc., and all is quietly 
imputed to Providence ! Is there not iiupieiy 
as well as ignorance in this ? 

In our civilized, sedentary life, he who would 
have good health must fight for it. Many peo- 
ple have the insolence to become parents who 
have no right to aspire to that dignity. Civil- 
'ized man has learned the trick of heading off 
(699-) 



roo 



FAMILY health: 



some of the diseases that used to sweep over 
whole regions of the earth, and lay low the 
weakliest tenth of the population. Conse- 
quently, while the average duration of human 
life has heen increased, the average tone of 
human health has been lowered. Fewer die, 
and fewer are quite well. Very many of us 
breathe vitiated air, and keep nine-tenths of 
the body quiescent for twenty-two or twenty- 
three hours out of every twenty-four. Im- 
mense numbers cherish gloomy, depressing 
opinions, and convert the day set apart for rest 
and recreation into one which aggravates .some 
of tlie worst tendencies of the week, and coun- 
teracts none of them. Plalfthe population of 
the United States violate the law of nature 
every time they take sustenance; and many 
children go crammed with indigestion, to sit 
six hours in hot, ill-ventilated, or unventilated 
school rooms. Except in a few large towns, 
the bread and meat are almost universally in- 
ferior or bad; and the only viands that are 
palatable are those which ought not to be eaten 
at all. At most family tables, after a course of 
meat which has the curious property of being 
both soft and tough, a wild prolusion of in- 
genious puddings, pies, and cakes, and other 
abominable trash, beguiles the young, disgusts 
the mature, and injures all. From bodies thus 
imperfectly nourished, we demand excessive 
exertions of all kinds. 

Beauty has its foundation in physical well- 
being. Health has its laws, which must be 
understood and obeyed; and these laws are 
clearly indicated in our physical and mental 
constitutions. They demand : 

1. Proper food and drink, in such quantities 
as tlie system is capable of readily assimilating. 

2. Air and sunlight in abundance. 

3. Sufficient exercise, rest, and sleep. 

4. An agreeable temperature. 

5. Perfect cleanliness. 

Rules for tlie Preservation of 

Healtll. — In order to secure good health, 
first study to acquire a composure of mind and 
bodv. Avoid agitation or hurry of one or the 
other, especially just before and after meals, 
and while the process of digestion is going on. 
To this end, govern your temper, endeavor to 
look at the bright side of things, keep. down, as 
much as possible, the unruly passions; discard 
envy, hatred, and malice, and lay your head 
upon your pillow in charity with all mankind. 
Let not your wants obtrun your means. What- 
ever difficulties you have to encounter, be not 



perplexed, but only think what it is right to do 
in the sight of Him who seeth all things, and 
bear, without repining, the result. When your 
meals are solitary, let your thoughts be cheer- 
ful; when they are social, which is better; avoid 
disputes, or serious argument, or unpleasant 
topics. "Unquiet meals," says Shakspe.\re, 
"make ill digestion;" and the contrary is pro- 
duced by easy conversation, a pleasant project, 
welcome news, or a lively companion. Wives 
are recommended not to entertain their hus- 
bands with domestic grievances about children 
or servants at this time, nor to ask for money, 
nor produce unpaid bills, nor propound unsea- 
sonable questions ; and we advise husbands to 
keep the cares and ve-xations of the world to 
themselves, but to be communicative of what- 
ever is comfortable, and cheerful, and amusing. 

"Always keep the head cool, and the feet 
warm." Go to bed early and get up at the peep 
of day. Take no supper, or if any, a very 
slight one. The hour before bed-time should 
be spent in agreeable relaxation, or in such 
exercises only as tend to compose the mind and 
promote inward peace and cheerfulness. 

Never be in a hurry when you eat, but mas- 
ticate your food well, and thoroughly mix it 
with the saliva of the mouth before swallowing, 
which is one-half the process of digestion. 
.\bove all, never washyourfood down half mas- 
ticated with a pint or more of tea or coffee. 
Too much fluid on the stomach dilutes the gas- 
tricjuice, prevents its direct and immediate ac- 
tion on the food, and, consequently, retards tlie 
process of digestion till the fluids have hfen 
absorbed. Drink very moderately with your 
meal.s, and notJiing for two and a half or three 
hours afterward. Avoid too much greasy and 
fatty substances. The too common practice of 
eating fat pork is the cause of more scrofula 
than all other causes combined. Fresh bread 
and hot biscuits are decidedly injurious, and 
unfit to be eaten. Eat regularly and never be- 
tween meals. 

The quantity of food should be proportioned 
to the amount of exercise a person undergoes. 
Sedentary people should be rather abstemious; 
their food should be nutritious, ea.sy of diges- 
tion, and moderate in quantity. 

Refrain from both luental and bodily exertion 
for a short time after the princi|)al meal. If 
immediate e.xertion be required, only a slight 
repast should be taken instead of the usual 
meal. Never eat a full meal when the body is 
heated or much fatigued with exercise. Wait 
till you are somewhat refreshed by a short 



RULES FOR THE TRESERVATION OF HEALTH — BATHING. 



roi 



interval of repose. If faint, a little soup may 
be safely taken nieauvvliile. Practice occasional 
abstinence. Wlienever the system is enfeebled 
or (lisiirdered, dimin-isli the quantity of food, 
and allow more time for exercise. In cases of 
slight indisposition, a partial or a total fast will 
often be found the best restorative. 

Be very sparing in the use of alcholic stimu- 
lants. Tliey may sometimes be employed in 
cases of debililjf or extraordinary labor; but, 
undiT any circumstances, if freely or frequently 
indulyei! in, they will must certainly impair 
your health, and shorten your life. 

Practice habitual cheerfulness and composure 
of mind, arising from peiice of conscience, con- 
slant reliance on the goodness of GoD, and the 
exercise of kindly feelings toward men. Peace 
of mind is a.s essential to healtli .is it is to hap- 
piness. 

Exercise strict control over the appetites and 
pas.sions, with a fixed abhorrence of all excess 
and all unlawful gratifications whatsoever- He 
that would enjoy good hoaltli must be "tem- 
perate in all tilings," and habitually exercise 
the most rigid .self-government; for every sort 
of vicious indulgence is highly injurious to 
healtli; first, direc//i/, in its immediate cfTects 
on the body ; and next, indhecthj, in the per- 
petual dissatisfaction and anxiety of mind which 
it invariably occasions. 

Whatever may be your occupation, take plenty 
of daily exercise in the open air. If you can 
not work in the garden, saw and split wood, or 
do something else useful ; walk and run briskly, 
or ride on horseback. Don't say that you have 
not lime, for, in the long run, you will find it 
the best " put in " of anything which you have 
done. 

Always have your house, especially the sleep- 
ing apartment, well ventilated, be it warm or 
cold weather. ' 

Never sit in a room on a crdd or damp day 
without a fire, if you are in any degree chilly 
and uncomfortable. But few causes are more 
productive of disease than this practice, which is 
almost universal. People generally take their 
stoves down too early in the Spring, and neglect 
putting them up till late in the Fall; .some, in 
fact, till dire necessity actually drives them to it. 
This is more particularly the rase in hotels and 
boarding-houses, and is not only a great incon- 
venience, but an actual injustice to guests and 
boarders. Better to save the "almighty dol- 
lar" by robbing them of one-half their meals, 
than to deprive them of the comforts of a com- 
fortable room on a cold chlllv dav. 



Avoid contracting colds as much as possible; 
and when taken, endeavor to break them up as 
soon as you can. If you have been caught in 
a rain-storm, and your clothes have become 
drenched through, never sit down or remain 
idle one minute after you get where you can 
exchange them for dry ones. As soon as you 
discover that your pores are closed, from hav- 
ing allowed any part of your body to become 
chilled, keep yourself comfortably warm, within 
doors, till the difficulty has been removed. 
Drink plentifully of warm ginger, pennyroyal, 
or sage tea; evacuate the bowels by enemas if 
necessary, and live upon warm broths and 
grnels. Vapor baths are excellent in removing 
colds. Attend to these conditions promptly and 
no permanent injury will ensue ; but if neg- . 
lected, pulmonary dise.ases, which will ultimate 
in consumption, will often be the result, to say 
nothing of the dangers of pneumonia, conges- 
tions, etc. 

Avoid sleeping on feather beds, and under 
too much clothing, as it retains the perspir.a- 
tion and noxious exhalations from the body, 
and prevents a free circulation of the air. 
Woolen blankets are preferable lo cotton com- 
forts. 

Never indulge in the filthy, disgusting, and 
enervating practice (now a general vice among 
all so-called civilized nations) of smoking and 
chewing tobacco, as no other cause is more pro- 
lific of deleterious effects upon both mind and 
body. If you have become so thoroughly wedded 
to the "weed" that j-ou can not give it up 
yourself, for the sake of posterity, don't permit 
your darling boy to imitate your bad example, 
so long as he remains under your guardian- 
ship ; and when he arrives at man's estate, the 
chances are, if he be possessed of a reasonable 
share of common sense, that he will not then 
take it up. Mothers, see to it that your boys 
do not acquire this disgusting and deleterious 
habit before you are aware of it. 

Bathing'. — Keep the body clean by fre- 
quent ablutions. Never go more than one 
week in cold weather, and not more than one 
or two days in warm weather, without washing 
your person all over. Regulate the tempera- 
ture of the water by that of the weather, and 
the constitution and vitality of the system. If 
the constitution be feeble, with but little vitality 
in the system, never, especially in Winter, use 
water with the temperature much below the 
heat of the body — that is 96° Fahrenheit ; then 
wipe yourself perfectly dry, and rub briskly 



ro2 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



with tlie hand, or a dry toweh Persons of 
strong, robust constitutions, use coUl water, as 
the superabundance of animal heat will be 
BUfEcieiit to get tip a reaction, and carry off the 
excessive cold. Were the above rules univer- 
eally and strictly observed, nine-tenths of the 
"ills "and "ails" to which human flesh is heir 
would disappear from the face of our beautiful 
earth. 

Every person who toils daily at any kind of 
labor, requiring great physical or mental exer- 
tion, should be extremely careful to practice a 
regular system of ablution. Sometimes a per- 
son may be so completely exhausted as to ren- 
der this anything but an inviting performance; 
yet by its prolonged omission a great deal of 
refreshment which the hours of repo.se are de- 
signed to impart is lost. To be cleanly is a 
strict religions duty, and is absolutely essential 
to sound and refreshing slumber; hence the 
labor of keeping one's person clean is amply 
repaid by tlie elasticity which follows nightly 
ablutions before retiring. Heed this advice, 
and you will sleep soundly; disregard it — go 
frequently to bed unwashed, and you will rise 
in the morning unrefreshed, with feelings of 
lassitude which the exertions of the day will 
hardly be able to remove. 

The third lay erof the true skin, says Dr. Heb- 
BAED, is full of blood-vessels, that, if all were 
rolled into a mass, would be larger than the 
heart itself, and so full of nerves, that all put 
together would make a mass larger than the 
brain. Therefore the vast importance of this 
organ, and hence the philosophy of external 
applications, as steam, water, the human hand, 
etc. Through all this network run perspira- 
tory tubes, of which there are over seven hun- 
dred tliousand, or twenty-eight miles of pores, 
through which pass five lOut of every seven 
pounds of .all the impurities of the blood. If 
these are closed, these impurities remain in the 
blood, and break out in the shape of pimples, 
humors, etc., on the skin, or fasten upon the 
glands, the lungs, and other internal organs. 
Hence the necessity of bathing. All people 
ought to bathe both for health and cleanliness. 
Tbere is no occasion for giving children cream 
of tartar or brimstone to physic out the blood, 
if they are kept clean. On the prominent parts 
of the face, in the flexions of the joints, in the 
arm-pits, etc., are little oil wells called sebacioits 
follicles, which secrete from the blood an oil 
with which to lubricate those parts. If this is 
not washed off it will become rancid, concrete, 
and foul. 



Directions for Bathing.— "Dr. Fitzgerald, of 
England, gives the following judicious direc- 
tions to bathers: 

1. Do not bathe immediately after a full 
meal; the best time for bathing is midway be- 
tween breakfast and dinner. 

2. Do not bathe fasting; if a bath be taken 
early in the morning, a piece of bread and 
butler, or a biscuit, should be eaten from half 
an hour to an hour beforehand, witb a cup of 
milk. 

3. The most common error is the fear of en- 
tering the water while the body is too hot; it 
is far better to plunge boldly in while warm 
than to wait to cool, as at no time is a pereon 
so ill calculated to bear the shock of cold water 
as when cooled by the evaporation of the per 
spiration. Do not, however, take violent exer 
cise before bathing, so as to induce perspiration 
but enter the water with the body in a mod 
erate glow. 

4. Do not remain long in the water; from 
two to five minutes is sufficient for an invalid 
When the water is very cold, one or two rapid 
plunges only should he taken, and then the 
body should be briskly rubbed with a towel. 
A cold bath is never very beneficial, unless the 
whole surface is in a glow on leaving the water. 

5. Do not bathe more than once a day. 

6. Do not walk into the water, but plunge«n 
head foremost; If this is not feasible, thor- 
oughly wet the head and face first. 

7. On leaving the water, wrap a dry towel 
round the head ; this serves not only to dry the 
hair, but prevents headache. 

8. Cramp is not nearly so common a cause 
of fatal accidents as apoplexy, epilepsy, etc., 
which are frequently induced by neglect of the 
above rules. Should cramp come on, endeavor 
to kick out the limb vigorously, regardless of 
the })ain. Should it persist, paddle quietly 
with one hand if in water beyond your depth, 
or float on the back, rubbing the ailecled leg 
with the other hand. Do not lo.se presence of 
mind; remember, no human body will sink 
while air remains in the lungs; frantic sirug- J^ 
gles exhaust the strength, and allow water to 
enter the mouth and lungs. Throw the head 
well back till the chin points upward, and re- 
main quiescent ; the legs then come to the sur- 
face, and the body will float for an indefinite 
time. 

Tlie Air we Breatlie.— The earth is 
surrounded by an atmosphere from fifty to one 
hundred miles in heiiirlit. At the enrth's sur- 



THE AIR WE BREATHE. 



703 



face the temperature is generally above the 
freezing point, else the whole-earth would be 
covered with an eternal mantle of ice. In the 
latitude of New York, at about four or five 
miles above the surface of the ground, there is 
a perpetual icj- arch of atmosphere, where the 
air is in the temperature of eternal frost. The 
mountain peaks which penetrate this stratum 
are covered with perpetual snow. This arch is 
highest under the equator, where it is between 
fifteen and sixteen thousand feet; and mount- 
ains of that height are capped with snow. 
The height of this arch constantly diminishes 
as we approach the poles from the equator, 
until it meets the earth, a few degrees this side 
of each pole, where tlrere is constant snow and 
ice. In latitude 50° north, the distance from 
the earth to this perpetual region of snow is 
about six thousand feet ; in latitude 55° north, 
it is about five thousand feet; in latitude 80° 
north, it is scarcely five hundred feet ; in lati- 
tude 85° north, it is hardly one hundred 
feet; while at the poles water must have re- 
mained solidified or congealed into ice since 
the 'creation. 

Under this state of things we see that the 
atmosphere is more condensed as we pass north 
from the equator, and contains a greater quan- 
tity of the vital principle. So in the temper- 
ate zone, the human family becomes most ath- 
letic and vigorous. People who move from 
tlie cool, bracing climates of the north to tlie 
tropics are apt soon to fall into feeble health, 
and depreciate, as they approach the equator. 
The people born witliin the tropics are smaller 
and feebler in frame, digest their food imper- 
fectl}' and in smaller quantities ; the lungs, 
heart, and liver are of considerably less weight 
than those of the people who inhabit higher 
latitudes. 

A person of ordinary size consumes about 
thirty cubic inches of oxygen gas in a minute; 
he breathes twenty times in a minute, and 
every time he breathes takes into his lungs fif- 
teen cubic inches of atmospheric air, which 
contain three cubic inches of oxygen gas; .so 
that one-half of that which is inspired disap- 
pears in every act of respiration; this will 
amount to about two thousand cubic inches in 
an hour, and forty-five thousand cubic inches 
in twenly-four hours. Thus one man will con- 
sume in twenty-four hours all the oxygen con- 
tained in a space of three hundred and twelve 
square feet. Whenever an individual shall 
breathe air that is adulterated with impure or 
noxious matters, although he may obtain the 



requisite quantit}- of air in volume, yet the 
laws of nature are violated, and his health must 
suffer; so if the volume of air is rarefied by 
heaj, the quantity of oxygen to supply the 
blood through the lungs will be diminished, 
and the individual will lose his strength and 
become enfeebled. A hot climate destroys the 
physical powers of man, while, on the contra- 
ry, a cold climate, by condensing the atmos- 
phere into a small space, and aflording a greater 
quantity of oxygen in a given number of square 
feel, surprisingly increases the faculties of the 
being called man. 

Expanding the Lungs. — The lungs are like 
a bladder in their construction, and can be 
stretched open to double their ordinary size, 
with perfect immunity from consumption. Step 
out in the purest air you can find ; stand per- 
fectly erect, with li^ad and shoulders back, and 
then fixing the lips as if you were going to 
whistle, draw the air through the lips into the 
lungs. When the chest is about half full, 
gradually raise the arms, keeping them ex- 
tended, with the palms of the hands down, as 
you suck in the air, so as to bring them over 
the head just as the lungs are quite full. Then 
drop the thumbs inward, and after gently for- 
cing the arms backward and the cliest open, 
reverse the process by which you draw your 
breath till the lungs are empty. This process 
should be repeated immediately after bathing, 
and also several times through the day. It is 
impossible to describe to one who has never 
tried it the glorious sense of vigor which fol- 
'lows this exercise. It is one of the best expec- 
torants in the world. We know a gentleman 
the measure of whose chest has increased by 
this means some three or four inches, during 
as many months. 

HespiraUon. — The relation of respiration to 
digestion, to circulation, to nutrition, and to 
elimination is very little understood, even by 
physiologists and physicians. No one would 
ever have consumption if the lungs were kept 
duly expanded by proper breathing. Many 
cases of severe colds are cured at once by respi- 
ratory movements. The worst attacks of diar- 
rhea have been promptly arrested, and even 
the cholera itself has been speedily cured, by 
deep, full, and active respirations. In all ]iu- 
trid and eruptive fevers nothing is more im- 
portant than abundance of pure air. 

Breathing Night Air. — A writer in Good 
Health says: "It was formerly the universal 
belief that the air of night was very injurious. 
But the fact is, that,. except under peculiar cir- 



704 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



ciimstances, it is even more lieiilthfiil than that j growth, and this is followed hy the prndnctior. 
of the day-time. The night air of large cities, ; of niultitndes of animalcules; a decisive proof 
puch as London, when the bustle and com- that it must contain organic matter, otherwise 
motion, which cause it to be loaded with dust it could not nourish organic beings. This was 
particles, is comparatively quelled, and the nu- |the result arrived at by Dr. Smith, in his heau- 
nierous fires which contaminate it with their tiful experiments on the air and water of 



Bmoke are mostly extinguished, is purer than 
that of the day. 

But there is still another reason for at times 
adopting night, even in preference to day, ven- 
tilation. In sultry weather it is a common 
mistake to open the windows instead of keep- 
ing them altogether closed, as is the case in 
very hot climates. But a little reflection will 
show that, since the height of the thermometer 
In the sun always greatly exceeds tliat shown at 
the same lime by another thermometer placed 
in the shade, by opening the windows we admit 
air much heated into our i-ooms. The proper 
time, under such circumstances, for ventilation 
is during the night, wlien the external atmos- 
phere has cooled down. By adopting this plan 
in hot weather, the lemperature of a room may 
always be kept several degrees lower than if 
the opposite course is pursued. 

Health and Hot A!r. — There is not, probably, 
a more healthful method of warming apari- 
ments than by open fires ; but on account of its 
wastefulness of fuel it is very generally aban- 
doned in our country. Close iron stoves and 
hot-air and steam-pipe furnaces, evidently viti- 
ate the air, depriving it of its natural freshness 
and invigorating qualities, probably destroying 
some of its vital but more subtle elements, thus 
sowing the seeds of consumption. One of the 
ingredients of natural air is ozone. The emi- 
nent chemist. Dr. Gkah.4M, of the London 



towns, where he showed how the lungs and 
skin gave out organic matter, which is in it.self 
a deadly poison, producing headache, sickness, 
disease, or epidemic, according to its strength. 
Why, if " a few drops of the liquid niatler, ob- 
tained by the condensation of the air of a foul 
locality, introduced into the vein of a dog, can 
produce death with the usual phenomena of 
typhus fever," what incalculable evil must it 
not produce on those human beings who breathe 
it again and again, rendered fouler and less 
capable of sustaining life with every breath 
drawn? Such contamination of the air, and 
consequent hot-bed of fever and epidemic, it is 
easily within the power of man to remove. 
Ventilation and cleanliness will do all so far 
as the abolition of this evil goes, and ventila- 
tion and cleanliness are not miracles to be 
prayed for, but certain results of common obe- 
dience to the laws of God. 

Winter Rules. — In going into a colder air, 
keep the mouth resolutely closed, so that by 
compelling the air to go circuitously through 
the nose and head, it may become warmed be- 
fore it reaches the lungs, and thus prevent 
those shocks and sudden chills which fre- 
quently end in pleurisy, pneumonia, and other 
forms of disease. Never stand still a moment 
out of doors, especially at street corners, after 
having walked even a short distance. Never 
ride near the open window of a vehicle for a 



University, tells us that this element, which the I single half minute, especially if it has been 
all-wise Creator has placed in the atmosphere [preceded by a walk; valuable lives have thus 
for us to breathe, and which is proved to be been lost, ami good health permanently de- 
absolutely necessary to health, is decomposed stroyed. 
or destroyed at a temperature of 140° Fahren- 



heit. If so,' then we are destroying it by our 
iron-heating surfaces, whether hot-air stoves, 
furnaces, steam-pipes, or even hot-water pipes. 
Air Poison. — People have often said that no 
difference can be detected in the analyzation of 
pure and impure air. This is one of the vidgar 
errors difficult to dislodge from the public 
brain. The fact is that the dense air of a 
crowded room gives a dejiosit which, if al- 
lowed to remain for a few days, forms a solid, 
thick, glutinous mass, having a strong odor of 
animal matter. If examined by the micro- 
Bcope, it seems to undergo a remarkable change. 
First of all it is converted into a vegetable 



EflTeets of Sunshine.^. An open win- 
dow, says Dr. Dio Lewis, with tlie direct rays 
of the sun coming in, is good for children. On 
a hot Summer day to lay the little one down 
near the window, quite nude, and let it lie some 
minutes where the rays of the sun may Avll upon 
the skin, will give it new life. There is a vital 
relation between sunshine and a vigorous hu- 
man being. Seclusion from sunshine is one of 
the greatest misfortunes of civilized life. The 
same cause which makes potato-vines white 
and sickly while grown in dark cellars, ope- 
rates to produce the poor, sickly girls that are 
reared in our parlors. Expose cither to the 



BODILY CARRIAGE. 



705 



direct rays nf the siiii ami tliev begin to sliow 
color, health, and strength. When in London 
FOiiie year.*! ago, I vi.sited an establishment 
wliich had acquired a wide reputation lor the 
cure of those diseases in whicli prostration and 
nervous derangement were prominent .symp- 
toms. I soon found the secret of success in the 
use made of sunshine. The slate roof had been 
removed and a glass one substituted. The up- 
per story was divided into sixteen small rooms, 
each provided with lounges, washing appara- 
tus?, etc. The patients each, on entering his 
little apartment, removed all his clothing, and 
exposed himself to the direct rays of the sun. 
Lying on a lounge, and turning over from time 
to time, each and every part of the body was 
thus exposed to the life-giving rays of the sun. 
Several London physicians candidly confessed 
to me that many cases which .seemed only 
•waiting for the shroud, were galvanized into 
life and health by this process. 

A writer in Harper's Bazar lias the following 
sensible remarks on the health-giving proper- 
ties of the sun's rays : 

Every one is familiar with the proce.is of 
growing celery. A deep trench is dug, in 
which the seed are sown or sprouts set, and 
with the growth of the plant the earth is care- 
fully heaped up until the whole is nearly buried. 
By this means the light is excluded almost 
entirely, and the vegetable becomes the pale 
and tender esculent of our tables. 

Paleness and tenderness are always the result 
of depriving an organized being, whether a 
plant or an animal, of the light of the sun, but 
these qualities, however desirable in a sprig of 
celery, are indications of an artificial and un- 
wholesome condition. The human being soon 
loses in obscurity his color and toughness, and 
with them all brightness of intelligence and 
vigor of body. Children brought up in mines 
and cellars are blanched, dwarfed, .stupid, liable 
to diseases of all kind, and short-lived; and 
grown people, however vigorous they may have 
been previously, will soon, when deprived of 
light, become pale and feeble. 

There can not be a greater mistake than for 
our delicate dames, who pass so much of their 
lives in-doors, to sit or lounge in dark rooms. 
They require all the sun's light they can get. 
I'aients who live in cellars soon contract disease, 
and are afHicted with children born with mal- 
formations. So common are these misfortunes 
that seventeen out of one thousand births will 
present an offspring with a want of a hand, 
arms, legs, or feet, or sight or hearing. 

45 



Weak and sick children are especially bene- 
fited by exposure to the sun's light, and mothers 
would do well to reverse their usual order to 
the nurse, " Keep in the shade." We say, and 
we have science and experience on our side, 
Keep in the sun. 

God made man and woman for tlie sunlight. 
Thousands of women are dying for the want of 
this element. He made them also for the air, 
and therefore women as well as men should be 
in it most of the time. We breathe one eighth 
as much through the skin as by the lungs; 
therefore the clothing should be as porous as 
possible, so as to admit the atmospheric air to 
the skin. Clothing shouhl be wa.shed often, 
and that worn through the day shouhl not be 
used in the night-lime. Sleeping rooms should 
be elevated, and exposed to the sunlight and 
air at least four or five hours in the morning. 
Sun baths and air baths daily are advi.sable. 
Dr. Fbanklin was in the habit of taking an air 
bath when restless at niglits. These are ad- 
vised, instead of narcotics, for sleeide.-s persons. 

Bodily Carriage. — Instead of giving 
all sorts of rules about turning out the toes, and 
straightening up the body, and holding the 
shoulders back, which are of no value to many 
because soon forgotten, or productive of a feel- 
ing of awkwardness and discomfort which pro-, 
cures a willing omission, all that is necessary 
to secure the object is to hold up the head and 
move on, letting the toes and shoulders take 
care of themselves. Walk witli the chin but 
slightly above a horizontal line, or with your 
eye directed to things a little higher than your 
own liead. In this way you walk properly, 
pleasurably, and without any feeling of re- 
straint or awkwardness. If any of you wish to 
be aided in securing this habitual carriage of 
body, accustom yourselves to carry your hands 
behind yon, one hand grasping the opjiosite 
wrist. Englishmen are admired ihe world over 
for their full chests, broad shoulders, sturdy 
frames, and manly bearing. This jjosition of 
body is a favorite with them — in the simple 
promenade in the garden or gallery, in attend- 
ing ladies along a crowded .street, in standing 
on the street, or in public worship. Many per- 
sons spend a large part of their waking exist- 
ence in the sitting position. A single rule, 
well attended to in this connection, would be of 
incalculable Talue to multitudes — use chairs 
with the old-fashioned straight backs, a little 
inclining backward, and sit with the lower por- 
tion of the body close against the back of the 



706 



FAMILY HEALTH I 



cliair nt tlie seat. Any one wlio tries it will 
observe in a moment a grateful support to the 
whole spine; and we see no reason why children 
shonld not he taught from the beginning to 
write, and sew, and knit in a position requiring 
the lower portion of the hody and the shoul- 
ders to touch the back of the chair at the time. 
A very common position in silting, especiallj' 
among men, is with the shoulders against the 
chair back, wiih a space of several inches be- 
tween the chair back and tlie lower portion of 
the .spine, giving the body the shape of the half 
lioop; it is the Instantaneous, instinctive, and 
almost universal position assumed by any con- 
sumptive on sitting down, unless counteracted 
by an elTort of the will; hence parents should 
regard such a position in their children with 
apprehension, and should correct it at once. 

Effects or Diet. — " AH who have abused 
their stomachs," says Dr. MoTT, "will assur- 
edly be brought to an account for it sooner or 
later. lam not sure," he contiinics, "but more 
disease and suffering results from intemper- 
ance in eating than intemperance in drinking. 
Hence, there is as nuich need of a temperance 
eating as a temperance drinking society." 

Next to imperfect ventilation, excessive eat- 
ing makes the most serious inroads upon our 
health. Professor Hitchcock thinks we eat 
too much because we dine upon too great a va- 
riety of di.shes, and suggests as a remedy that 
we should confine ourselves to one course. 
Several eminent men, among whom may be 
mentioned the distinguished Dr. Jamks John- 
SOX, urge that every person should watch him- 
self while eating, and when he discovers that 
the pleasures of the palate begin to lessen, at 
that moment he should stop. An eminent 
American writer, who declares the conviction 
that, of the men, women, and children in the 
United States, ninety-nine in every hundred 
eat too much, fears the evil will never be cor- 
rected until we adopt an expedient employed 
by some of the great philosophers— weighing 
our food. 

Dr. Dio Lewis writes : "I am confident that 
this expedient will meet every want, namel)', 
taking upon one's plate, before one bei/ins to eat, all 
that is to be eaten f 

" No one witli ordinary reason would eat too 
much under this plan. Gourmands may sneer. 
I have only to say that this rule lias been worth 
thousands to me. Its adoption in a family of 
children would remove at once all difficulties 
in the niaiiasement of children's diet. The 



dessert and the appetizing fascinations of a sec- 
ond and third course are thus avoided. While 
not one child in twenty, if allowed to eat with- . 
out restraint, will stop when he has enough, 1 
nineteen children in twenty will observe the 
rule suggested without a struggle." 

Health and longevity are not the only results 
of moderation in diet. Its influence is far from 
being limited to the body ; its effect on the 
mind is still more important. C^SAR, consti- 
tutionally addicted to excess, when resolved on 
some great exploit, was accustomed to diminish 
his diet to an extent trul}' marvelous, and to 
this diminution he ascribed the clearness and 
energy of mind which distinguished him in the 
hour of bailie. When extraordinary mental 
vigor was desired by the First Napoleon, he 
used the same means to attain it. To his 
rarely-equaled moderation in diet, Dr. Frank- 
lin, ascribed his " clearness of ideas" and 
"quickness of perception." "I have lived 
temperately," said Jefferson in his old age, 
"eating little animal food, and that not as an 
aliment, so much as a condiment for the veg- 
etables which constitute ray principal diet." 
When Sir Isaac Newton was composing his 
Treatise on Optics, he confined himself to bread 
and a little sack and water. 

Leibnitz, when preparing some portions of 
his work on a Universal Language, was scarcely 
less rigid in his abstinence. Melanctuon re- 
lates of Luther, that " a little bread and a 
single herring were often his only food for a 
day." Dr. Cheyne, a celebrated physician, 
reduced himself from tiie enormous weight of 
four hundred and forty-eight pounds to one 
hundred and forty pounds, by confining himself 
to a limited quantity of vegetables, milk, and 
water, as his only food and drink ; and the re- 
sult was a restoration of health and mental 
vigor, and amid professional and literary labors, 
uninterrupted health and protracted life. It is 
probable that nobody ever repented having 
eaten too little. 

A potato diet is found to greatly improve the 
quality of the blood. Hence roasted or baked 
potatoes are successfully emploj-ed as a specific 
against the sea scurvy, when other remedies 
have failed. It is singular, however, that 
boiled potatoes do not seem to have the same 
good effect. 

Many peojjie do not eat salt with their food, 
and the fair sex have a notion that this sub- 
stance darkens the complexion. Salt seems 
essential to the health of every human being, 
more especially in moist climates. Without 



DREfS AND DISEASE. 



707 



salt (lie body becomes infested with intestinal 
worms. The case of a lady is mentioned in a 
medical journal, who had a natural antipalh)' 
to salt, and never used it with her food; the 
consequence was, she became dreadfully in- 
fested with these animals. A punishment once 
existed in Holland, by which criminals were 
denied the use of salt ; the same affliction beset 
tliese wretched beings. We think a prejudice 
exists with sowe of giving little or no salt to 
cliildren. Xo practice can be more cruel or 
absurd. 

Very high scientific authority has sanctioned 
the opinion that good cheese, by chemical ac- 
tion in the stomach, materially aids digestion. 

Some advise invalids to drink only cold 
water or milk. There are more invalids who 
can not diink cold water and milk without suf- 
fering and harm than there are who can not 
drink tea nor cofii-e without injury. Many a 
low-toned, weak-stomached person goes on from 
bad to worse, and in daily suffering, from 
drinking cold water or cold milk, which lowers 
the tone of their stomachs and aggravates indi- 
gestion ten-fold. A light, warm drink of tea, 
coffee; or cocoa, will lefresh and stimulate and 
strengthen such a person, and be rea<lily di- 
gested, and encourage the digestion of heavier 
food, while only pain and harm can come from 
the cold and harsher drink.s. 

The dyspeptic is sometimes unwisely ad- 
vised to omit his third meal, and go eighteen 
hours without eating. Xo advice could be 
worse for many, if not most of this class of 
sufferers. Their malady is likely to be in- 
creased fearfully by such long fasting, and 
living in their society made positively unendur- 
able, if not dangerous to life. A weak dyspep- 
tic should neither be taxed by heavy or coarse 
feeding or long fasting. Far more dyspeptics 
would be benefited by eating four meals a day 
than would be by reducing the number to two. 
It is difficult, almost impossible, to give advice 
on such subjects which will apply uniformly 
to all cases; but we protest, in the name of ex- 
perience and common sense, against such char- 
latanry as the above. 

Hall's Journal of Health advises that but a 
single cup of tea or coffee be drank at break- 
fast and supper — that science and fitct unite in 
declaring them to be nutritious as well as stim- 
ulant, and hence they will tend to renew the 
system every day to the end of life, just as 
bread and fruits do. The habitual moderate 
use of tea and coffee at the first and last meals 
of the day, has another high advantage — it is , 



productive of incalculable good in the way of 
averting evils. 

We will drink at our meals, and if we do not 
drink these, we shall drink what is worse — 
cold water, milk, or alcoholic mixtures. The 
regular u.se of the last will lead the young to 
drunkenness; the considerable employment of 
simple milk at meals, by sedentary people — by 
all, except the robust — will either constipate 
or render bilious; while cold water largely 
used, that is to the extent of a glass or two at a 
meal, especially in cold weather, attracts to 
itself ."io much of the heat of the system, in 
raising said water to the temperature of the 
body (about 100°) that the process of digestion 
is arrested; in the meanwhile, giving ri.se to a 
deathly sickness of stomach, to twisting pains, 
to vomitings, purgings, and sometimes even to 
cramps, to fearful contortions and sudden death; 
which things would have been averted liad the 
same amount of liquid, in the shape of simple 
hot water, been used. But any one knowing 
these things, and being prejudiced against the 
use of tea and coffee, would subject himself to 
be most unpleasantly stared at and questioned, 
if not ridiculed, were lie to ask for a cup or 
glass of hot water. But as tea and coffee are 
now universal beverages, are on every table, 
and everybody is expected to take one or the 
other as a matter of course, they are unwit- 
tingly the means of safety and life to multi- 
tudes. Taken in small quantities they prolong 
life, where a glass of cold water would destroy 
it. So that the use of these beverages is nofc 
merely allowable; it is politic; it is a necessit)-. 

Dres-s and Disease.— There is no truth 

more firmly established among medical men 
than that disea.se follows fashion as much as 
bonnets do. When thin shoes are in fashion, 
consumption is the prevailing epidemic with 
females in every fashionable community of the 
country. When low-necked dresses are in the 
ascendant, sore throat and quinsy are the raging 
maladies; when "bustles" and "bishops" make 
their appearance, spinal affections become "the 
ton." The reign of corsets is denoted by col- 
lapsed lungs, dy.spepsia, and a general derange- 
ment of the digestive organs. Indeed, .so in- 
timately are dress and disease connected, that 
a doctor says that all he needs to determine 
what a majority of the women are dying of, is 
to have an inventory of their wardrobe handed 
to him. 

Dr. Green, lettnring on physiology in Xew 
York, stated that an adult man, if unconlined, 



FAMILY health: 



t:ikcs in forty square inches of air in a breath, 
but a great diflerence is found even wlien in his 
ordinary dress — then lie only takes in thirty- 
two inches. If then, in a man in the expan- 
sion of his chest, a coat and vest cause one-fifth 
less, what nuist be the eflect of the lacings and 
l>addings often employed by females. There is 
not a medical man who is not a daily witness 
of the dreadful consequences. 

It is, however, to be gratefnlly observed that 
women are giving more and more attention to 
the laws of life, and that female dress is more 
healtliful and rational now than it has been at 
any other period during tlie century. Women 
wear warmer underclothing than ever before. 
Boots, thick and liigh, have superseded the 
wafer soles. Wasp waists are no longer culti- 
vated except by the very ignorant ; because con- 
sumption is no longer fashionable. Plumpness 
and full waists are now the mode. Cutting 
dresses so as to expose the bust, is also gen- 
erally an oKsolete custom in respectable circles; 
even tlie Pompadour we.irs the nuisk of a lace 
chemisette. A few of the more ambitious, at 
weddings and full-dress parties, still decline to 
cover their nakedness, but the verdict of the 
leadei's is that to dre.«s to the lower edge of 
modesty is as destructive of personal health as 
it is ruinous to social purity. The head-gear 
is an exception to the salutary tendency we 
liave mentioned. The man-milliner of Paris 
still spreads neuralgia to the ends of the earth, 
for lie decrees that the stylish bonnet of the 
■ period shall be limited to a minute band of lace 
.iiid feathers, supported upon the organ of 
vanity. 

It is a lamentable fact that our women of 
fashion have little independence in matters of 
dress. They usually ape Paris, instead of 
adapting their clothing to American taste, 
American morals, American resources, and 
American climatic needs. Strictly speaking, 
there are no leaders of fashion in this country; 
the nearest a few in our commercial centers 
come to it, is in being the foremost to adopt 
every absurdity that may be dictated to them 
by the despotic court mantua-makers of France. 
If the women of this Ecpublic continue to sub- 
ject their own judgments to foreign domination 
withoui a murmur, we can not foresee how soon 
those few healthrul customs of the present, to 
which we have referred, mify be abolished, 
tight lacing, thin sIkjc.s, and decollete dressing 
reappear, and fashion be again fully in league 
with death. 

In England, where the children go half- 



naked, where the servants do tlieir work in the 
morning with their arras naked up to their 
shoulders, and where the women are always 
lightly clothed, pulmonary consumption exists 
in enormous proportion. In London, one- 
fourth of the deaths result from this cause. 

The most healthl'ul clothing for our climate 
the year round, is that made of wool. If worn 
next the skin by all classes, in Summer as well 
as Winter, an incalculable amount of coughs, 
colds, diarrheas, dysenteries and fevers would 
be prevented, as also many sudden and prema- 
ture deaths from croup, diptberia and lung 
diseases. Winter maladies would be prevented 
by the tendency of a woolen garment to keep 
the natural heat about the body more perfectly, 
instead of conveying it away as f:ist as gen- 
erated, as linen and flaxen garments do; as also 
cotton and silk, although these are less cool- 
ing than Irish linen, as any one can prove by 
noticing the difi'erent degrees of coldness on 
the a|>plication of a surface oT six inches square 
of ilannel, cotton and linen to the skin, the 
moment the clothing is removed. The reason 
is, that wool is a bad conductor of heat, and 
linen is a good conductor. 

It is more healthful to wear woolen next the 
skin in Summer, because it absorbs the moisture 
of perspiration so rapidly, as to keep the skin 
measurably dry all the time. It is curious to 
notice that the water is conveyed by a woolen 
garment from the surface of the body to tlie 
outer side of the garment, where the microscope 
shows it condensed in millions of pearly drops; 
while it is in the experience of the observant, 
that if a linen shirt becomes damp by perspira- 
tion, it remains cold and clammy for a long 
time afterward ; and unless removed will cer- 
tainly cause .some bodily ailment. Flannel 
worn during the day should be taken off at 
night, turned wrongside out, exposed to a free 
current of air, and allowed to become thor- 
oughly dry before putting on again. 

In the night-sweats of consumption, or of any 
debilitated condition of the system, a clean, 
dry, woolen flannel night-dress is immeasurably 
more comfortable than cotton or linen, because 
it prevents that sepulchral dampness and chilli- 
ness of feeling, wbich are otherwise inevitable. 

Extra clothing is essential to the aged and 
the young. Place a thermonrtler under the 
arms of an adult person, and it will run up 
to ninety-eight degrees; this is the average the 
world over. Under the arms of children or 
old people it will run up to only ninety degrees, 
or less. Therefore, children and old people 



709 



fSould be diessed warmer tlian tlie niiddle- 
aged. Mothers, not understanding tliis fact, 
dress their littleones insufficiently, and, expos- 
ing them to the cold rioith-easters, are surprised 
and agonized b_v " midnight cries." Diptheria, 
croup, etc., lay their cold hands upon them thus 
exposed, and when these be:uitiful buds are 
iiMiisplanted, to bhioni above, these poor igno- 
rant mothers say, "'The Lord gave, and the Lord 
luilh taken awaji," No, this is the "slaughter 
oC the innocents." The ravages of the cholera 
are a cipher compared to this. 

Sleep. — Sleep is a stern necessity. If men 
will insist in cheating sleep, her "twin sister 
Death " will avenge the insult. All who think 
a great deal, and have to work hard, need all 
the rest they can well get without resorting to 
stupefying means to secure it. Many people so 
laud early rising as would lead one to suppose 
that sleep was one of those lazy, .sluggish, and 
bad practices that the sooner the custom was 
abolished the better. Sleep is as necessary to 
a man as food, and as some do with one-third 
the food that others require, so five hours of 
sleep is sufficient for one, while another requires 
seven or eight hours. Some men can not by 
any possibility sleep more than four or five 
hotirs in twenty-four, and therefore, true to tlie 
inherent selfishness of human nature, they 
abuse all who sleep longer. No one should 
be taunted for sleeping eight hours if he can. 

Children requ'.re more sleep than older per- 
Kons because much of their food is appropriated 
in adding to their growth, and also because of 
their greater activity. Young persons need 
from ten to twelve hours, depending upon the 
constitution and habits of the person. Although 
too much is hurtful, it is less so than too little; 
in the latter case there is rapid exhaustion of 
the vital power, and the person grows old fast. 
Every possible effort should be made to have 
children go to sleep in pleasant humor. Never 
scold or give lectures, or in any way wound a 
child's feelings as it goes to bed. Let all, old 
and young, banish business and every earthly 
care at bed-time, and let sleep come to a mind 
at peace with God and all the world. 

There is no fact, says Dr. Forbes Winslow, 
more clearly established in the physiology of 
man than this, that the brain expends its ener- 
gies and itself during the hours of wakefulness, 
and that these are recuperated during sleep. 
If the recuperation does not equaf the expendi- 
ture, the brain withers — this is insanity. Thus 
it is that, in early English history, persons who 



were condemned to death by being prevented 
from sleeping, always died raving maniacs; thus 
it is also that tlio^e who are starved to death be- 
come insane — the brain is not nourished, and 
they cannot sleep. The practical inferences are 
three: 1. Those who think most, who do most 
brain work, require most sleep. 2. That time 
".saved" from necessary sleep is infallibly de- 
structive to mind, body, and estate. Give your- 
self, your children, your servants — give all tliat 
are under you the fullest amount of sleep they 
will take, by compelling them to go to bed at 
some regular early hour, and to rise in the morn- 
ing the moment they awake; and within a fort- 
night Nature, with almost the regularity of the 
rising sun, will unloose the bonds of sleep the 
moment enough repose has been secured for the 
wants of the system. This is the only safe and 
sufficient rule; and as to the question how 
much sleep any one requires, each must be a 
rule for himself — great Nature will never fail 
to write it out to the observer under the regu- 
lations just given. 

It is generally advised that it is better to 
sleep resting upon the right side. If you sleep 
upon your back, says Hall's Journal nf Heultk, 
especially after a hearty meal, the weight of 
the digestive organs, and that of the food, rest- 
ing on the great vein of the bodj', near the back 
bone, compresses it and arrests the flow of blood 
more or les.s. If the arrest is partial, the sleep 
is disturbed, and there are unpleasant dreams. 
If the meal has been recent or hearty, the ar- 
rest is more decided, and the various sensations, 
such as falling over a precipice, or the pursuit 
of a wild beast, or other impending danger, and 
the desperate effiorts to get rid of it, arouse us, 
that .sends on the stagnating blood, and we 
wake in a fright, or trembling, or perspiration, 
or feeling of exhaustion, according to the de- 
grees of stagnation and the length and strength 
of the effiart made to escape the danger. But 
when we are not able to e.scape the danger, 
when we do fall over the precipice, when the 
tumbling building crushes us, what then? That 
is death/ That is the death of those found life- 
less in their bed in the morning, of whom it is 
said: "They were as well as they ever were the 
day before;" and it is often added, "and aJe 
heartier than common/" 

High pillows tend to check the circulation 
of blood, and superinduce apoplexy and other 
dangerous attacks. 

There is reason to believe, observes Miss 
Nightingale, that not a few of the appar- 
ently unaccountable cases of scrofula among 



710 



FAMILY HEALTH: 



children proceed from the habit of sleeping 
with the head under the bed-clothes, and so in- 
haling air already breathed, which is further 
contaminated by exhalations from the skin. 
Patients are sometimes given to a similar habit; 
and it often happens that the bcd-ulothes are 
so disposed that the patient must necessarily 
breathe air more or less contaminated by ex- 
halations from the skin. Never use anything 
hut light blankets as bed-covering for the sick. 
The heavy, impervious cotton counterpane is 
bad, for the very reason that it keeps in the 
emanations from the sick person, while the 
blanket allows them to pass through. Weak 
patients are invariably distressed by a great 
weight of bed-clothes, which often prevents 
llieir getting any sound sleep whatever. 

Never go to bed with cold or damp feet. 
Never sleep with the head in (he draft of an 
open window. Let more covering be on the 
lower limbs than on the body. Have an extra 
covering within reach in case of a sudden and 
great change of weather during the night. 

Feather beds should be aired once a week — 
and always in the crater of Vesuvius, or some 
otiier fire that will be sure to destroy them, for 
few things are more unhealthy to sleep on, 
especially during hot weather. They exhaust 
instead of invigorate the system. 

The position of the bed is regarded by some 
eminent wi-iters as a matter of importance. A 
medical writer in tlie Dublin Journal of Medi- 
cine, contends for the old notion that people 
.sleep much better with tlieir heads to the 
north. He has tried the experiment in the 
case of sick persons with marked effect, and 
insists that there are known to exist great elec- 
tric currents, always crossing in one direction 
around the earth, and that our nervous systems 
are in some mysterious way connected with this 
electrical agent. Dr. Julius Von Fiscuweil- 
LEJt, a German physician, who died a few 
years since at the advanced age of 109, always 
slept with his head to the north, and the rest 
of his body as nearly as possible in a meridinal 
position; by which, he thought, the iron in his 
body became magnetized, and thus increased 
the energy of the vital principle, and pro- 
hjnged human life. Without attempting to 
decide whether the electric current, or mag- 
netic forces, maintain their equilibrium in the 
human body more perfectly during sleep, when , 
the head is to the north, it can do no harm, I 
and may do good, to have the beds all head to- j 
wa.d the north pole. Many persons contend 



that they can never rest as well with their 
heads in any otter direction. 

Poisonous odors in the sleeping apartments 
have not nnfrequenlly produced the most fatal 
effects. L' Union Medicate is very positive on 
the subject of the deleterious action exercised 
by the perfume of flowers, especially such as 
lilac, jessamine, hyacinth, and tuberose, on per- 
sons who have the imprudence to leave them 
at night in the bed-chamber. The more or 
less fictitious cases of suicide and assassina- 
tion, which have been related under this head, 
should not induce us to doubt the reality of 
the asphyxiating power possessed by strongly- 
smelling flowers. Certain odoriferous frnits 
share the same deleterious property. A grocer 
who slept in a small room, in which the con- 
tents of three chests of oranges had been piled 
up, was found asphyxiated in the morning, and 
was only resuscitated by the mo.st energetic 
treatment. A case of death was recently re- 
ported in New York City, resulting from the 
odor of a large quantity of quinces kept in the 
sleeping room. 

It may be added in this connection, that it is 
questionable if a great mistake is not made in 
keeping fruits and vegetables under our dwell- 
ings. It is supposed, by those who have inves- 
tigated the matter, that a large proportion of 
disea.se in farmers' families is caused by the 
dec.iying vegetation in cellars. The public are 
not aware of the terrible fatality of diseases 
in the country at times — especially typhus and 
typhoid fevers, sc!irlatina, and diptheria. Their 
ill-ventilated rooms, impure cellare, and pig- 
stye and barn-yard proximity, frequently ren- 
der the air they breathe almost as impure as 
that of the filthy streets of the overcrowded 
cities. 

Early Rising. — \r\ almost incalculable amount 
of valuable time can be saved in the aggregate 
of human life by a fixed habit of early rising. 
This, of course, should be the result of an 
eqnally important precedent habit — early re- 
tiring. One of the worst .sham economies of 
time is that filched from necessary sleep. The 
wholesale, but blind commendation of early 
rising is as mischievous in practice as it 13 
errant in theory. Early rising is a crime 
against the noblest part of onr physical nature, 
unless it is preceded by an early retiring. 
Children should not be waked in the morning 
Let nature wake them up — she will not do it 
prematurely; but have a care that they go to 
bed at an early hour ; let it be earlier and eai-lier, 



EFFECTS OF TOBACCO. 



711 



until it is found that they wake up of them 
selves in full time to chess for breakfiust. Bein 
waked up early and allowed to engage instudie 
late and just before retiring, has given uiany a 
beautiful and promising child brain fever, ov 
determined ordinary ailments to the production 
of water on the brain. 

Eflecfsof Tobacco.— Dr. B. W. Eicn- 

AEi>.-.u>.", an eminent J^nglish physiologist and 
chemist, in a paper read before the British As- 
sociation for the Advancement of Science, in 
LS64, staled that immoderate smoking is un- 
questionably very injurious to the animal func- 
tions. The blood is made too fluid; the biliary 
secretion is constantly derai\ged ; there is dry- 
Uess of the tongue and Irequent nausea. On 
the heart the symptoms are very marked. They 
consist of palpitation, a sensation as tliough tlie 
heart were rising upward, a feeling of breatli- 
lessness, and, in bad ca-ses, of severe pain 
throngh the chest, extending through the u))per 
limbs. The action of the heart is intermittc'ni, 
and faintness may be experienced. Ivxtre 
smoking is also very injurious to the (irnans 
sense. In all inveterate, constant smokers, the 
pupils of the eye are dilated, owing to tlie ab- 
sorption of tlie nicotine, and the vision is im- 
paired in .strong liglit; but the symptom which 
most of all affects the vision is the retention of 
images on the retina after the eye is withdrawn 
from them. Thus, if he turns his eyes from a 
window, li£ retains the impression of the win- 
dow, the panes seeming red and the bars dark. 
On the sense of hearing, inveterate smoking 
produces disturbances ; these consist of disquiet, 
deafness, and ringing or whi.stling in the ears. 
The circulation of the brain i.s sometimes also 
disturbed, and giddiness and vertigo are pro- 
duced. Tlie muscles, after extreme smoking, 
lire prostrated. Long smoking affects the mu- 
cous membrane of the mouth, causing "smoker's 
sore throat." Tliere are also some oilier ef- 
fects occasionally produced in the mouth, viz., 
sponginess of the gums and tartar on the teeth. 
On the whole, however, smoking does not injure? 
tlie teeth. These are the worst effects of to- 
bacco; they all point to functional disturbance. 

The question remains whether worse effects 
ever follow from over-indulgence in sniokin;.'. 
The great effect of tobacco is to arrest the func- 
tional processes on which growth and devel- 
opment depend. To the whole body of the 
growing youth, therefore, the act of smoking is 
decidedly deleterious. 

From other authorities and otlier e.xpericnci-s 



th-in Dr. Richardson, we may conclude that 
the habit of using tobacco in any form is more 
or less pernicious and dangerous. Kees' Cy- 
clopedia says a drop or two of the oil of tobacco, 
placed on the tongue of a cat, produces convul- 
sions and death in the space of one minute. 
BocARME, of Belgium, was murdered in two 
minutes and a half by a little nicotine, or alkali 
of tobacco. The late Governor James Sulli- 
van, of Maine, said : "My brother. General 
John Sullivan, of the Revolutionary War, 
used snuff, and snuff lodged him prematurely 
in the grave." Dr. TwiTCHELL expressed the 
opinion that sudden deaths and tobacco, among 
men, were usually found together, and sustained 
his opinion by an array of facts that would 
.seem almost conclusive. Scores of men have 
been found dead in their beds, or fell dead in 
the streets or elsewhere, who had been victims 
to this poison. A college of American phy- 
sicians has said, that no le.ss than twenty thou- 
and in our land annually die by the use of 
tobacco. 

Three young men formed a smoking club, 
and they all died within two years from the 
time they formed it. Their physician was 
asked of what di.sease they died? He truth- 
fully replied: "They were smoked to death." 
A youth of sixteen fell dead with a cigar in his 
mouth in a dram shop. What caused his 
death? The coroner'.s inque.st said : "It was a 
my.sterious act of God." The minister, at the 
funeral, consoled his friends by saying much 
the same thing. Physicians said it was the 
heart disease; but said nothing about its cause. 
A sensible woman, knowing the boy's habits, 
said : " Tobacco killed him ;" and she was right. 
It deranged the action of the li£art; that organ 
consequently ceased to perform its accustomed 
functions, and the victim fell — fell to rise no 
more. 

Tobacco has spoiled and utterly ruined thou- 
sands of hoys, inducing a dangerous precocity, 
developing the passions, softening and weaken- 
ng the bones, deranging the nerves, and gre.itly 
injuring the spinal marrow, the brain, and the 
whole nervous fluid. A boy who early and 
frequently smokes, or in any w.iy uses large 
quantities of tobacco, never is known to make a 
man of much energy of character, and generally 
lacks physical and muscular as well as mental 
energy. We would particularly warn boys 
who want to be anybody in the world, to shun 
tobaccp as they would a deadly poison. 

The superintendents of the Xew York Insane 
Asylum, in a recent report, state : " Our own 



712 



FAMILY health: 



observatton leads us to the belief that this per- 
nicious weed has done more to enervate the 
body and precipitate the mind into the voitex 
of insanity than spirituous liquors. But to- 
bacco, like opium and alcohol, so works into 
the very vitals of the system, into the very fiber 
of body and soul, as to establish for itself an 
abnost resistless sway over the will of its victim. 
There is a terrible strength sometimes in the 
grasp of habit, but this is not habit, or rather, 
it is habit with all that is mighty in it, and 
something superadded that is inexpressibly 
mighlicr. It is such an actual physical cliange 
that nervous energy comes to depend on the 
tobacco instead of its own normal source, and 
the latter, to a large extent, ceases its supply. 
The very being — no matter how exalted, or 
cultivated, or refined the individual — in its 
holiest activities Godward and manward, is 
compelled to lean, almost with its whole 
weiylil, on what it often unutterably loathes. 
One of the most distinguished and demoted 
ministers in the vicinity of Boston once said: 
'I am a slave; I feel it with inexiiressible 
shame; I can not make a prayer in the pulpit 
williout my tobacco.' " 

How a Cinvrjyinan Cared his Tobacco Appetite. 
"I had a deep well of very cold water, and 
whenever the evil appetite craved indulgence, 
I resorted immediately to fresh-drawn water. 
Of this I drank what I desired, and tiien con- 
tinned to hold water in my mouth, tlirowing 
out and taking in .successive mouthfuls, until 
the craving ceased. By a faithful .adherence 
10 ihis practice for about a month, /was cured; 
and from that time to this, have been entirely 
free Irom any appetite for tobacco.'' 

Alcoholic Absliiience.— Dr. J. E. 

Snod6R.\ss, in an able scientific lecture of unu- 
sual originality and interest, delivered in New 
York, took issue with those who hold that al- 
cohol is food. Such a theory is contradicted 
by both alcohol'.s chemical constituents and its 
effects upon the human system. It is a poison, 
and as such indigestible. The drunkard's 
bieath is evidence that alcohol is absorbed into 
the blood through the lungs, and we know that 
this poison quits the body as it enters, un- 
changed. The lecturer held that alcohol lias 
no place in a healthy body. Chemical analysis 
detects a number of mineral substances in the 
body, such as lime, and even pliosphorus in 
the bones, soda in the bile, ammonia in the 
urine, and iron and salt in the blood, whicl: 
are found in the bodies of even infants at birth 



and, therefore, we have nature's warrant for 
introducing these agents, powerful as they are, 
into our systems at certain times and in proper 
quantities, as constituents of our food. But, 
finding no alcohol either in the natural solids 
or in the fluids of the body, by parity of rea- 
soning, we have no right to introduce them 
into our system. If we do so, we should not 
be surprised at tiiose direful results which are 
seen to follow our violation of the hiws of ani- 
mal chemistry and physiology, beginning with 
that staggering gait of the drunkard, which is 
the very reverse of the efTect of the grain or 
fruit from the perverted use of which, with 
the aid of the air and heat, this uiniatural 
agent is derived, in the process of distilling or 
brewing. The lecturer introduced interesting 
statistics of cholera, from his own professional 
observation in part, to show that the water- 
drinkers have vastly the advantage over the 
rum or beer-drinkers. It was, lor instance, as- 
serted that the Sons of Temperance in New 
Orleans, during one of the cholera visitations 
there, ascertained that the ratio of deaths by 
the malady among the members of their frater- 
nity was as only one to five hundred, of the 
total mortality of the city. Dr. Snodgrass 
said that this corresponded with the results of 
his own observation in the city of New York, 
during the cholera visitation of 1866. 

miasms. — Ponds, sluggish streams, and 
swampy soils always generate miusms, and 
these when inhaled produce disease. Heat so 
rarefies miasm as to make it comparatively in- 
nocuous. Hence the coolness of the early 
morning and of sundown throw the miasm to 
the surface by condensing or concentrating it; 
while the heat of the day of the Summer's sun 
so rarefied and lightened it as to .send it upward 
to the clouds ; aiid the great practical truth fol- 
lows, that miasm exerts its most baleful influ- 
ence on human health, as it ascends at sunrise, 
and descends at sunset. Those exposed to these 
influences may exempt themselves almost alto- 
gether from malarious diseases, such as diar- 
rheas, dysenteries, and chills and fevers, by eat- 
ing a hearty and warm meal before entering 
upon the exposure. The philosophy of the 
matter is, that a hot or hearty meal, or at least 
a cup of hot, sirong coffee, with milk, so ex- 
cites the circulation and so invigorates the 
whole frame that it acquires the power of re- 
sisting the disease-engendering influences of the 
miasm. 

Fungous Infiuences. — Fungous growths are 



BRAIN-WORK — EVE-SIOIIT. 



ri3 



not alone confined to tlie vegetable kingdom. 
Professor J. H. Salisbury lias sliovvn that the 
cause of " fever and ague " is no longer in- 
volved in mystery. He lias not only detected, 
figured, and described, with minute accuracy, 
the .specie.s of fungous which produces this dis- 
ease, but has propagated and cultivated the 
plant within doors to an extent suftielent to 
contaminate llie atmosphere of the apartment, 
and induce attac^of fever among its inmates. 
His labors also demonstrate that measles are 
of cryptogamous or fungous growth.* These 
microscopic vegetable growths are probably 
also the predisposing cause of variola and 
small-pox, of the cholera and the rinderpest, 
and of the plague of olden time. Their dwell- 
ing-place is as universal as their growth is sim- 
ple ; the air we breathe contains them, and the 
winds waft their seminal spores from pole to 
pole. They attack the housekeeper's bread 
and cheese, her preserves, her paste, her ink, 
and her linen. Her yeast consists of a living 
organism which is among the lowest of the 
fungi, and there seems to be abundant experi- 
mental proof that the various kinds of fer- 
mentations, acetous, vinous, lactic, etc., are due 
to different kinds of organisms, or different 
generations of the same species, all of which 
are fungi. Their attacks are not confined to 
the .seeming dead forms of matter, but they 
play havoc with our fruits (as the peach, the 
pear, the plum), and altaclc remorselessly the 
foreign gooseberry, and both the foreign and 
the native vine and grape. 

Brain TVorli. — No man after middle 
age, if he hopes to keep his mind clear, should 
think of working his brain after dinner — a .sea- 
son whicli should be given up to enjoyment. 
The immediate result of post prandial labor is 
always inferior to (hat produced by the vigor- 
ous brain of the morning. When mental labor 
has become a habit, however, we know how 
weak are words of warning to make a sufferer 
desist, and when we are reminded of the answer 
made by Sir Walter Scott to his physicians, 
who, in his last illness, foresaw that his brain 
would break down unless he desisted from 
brain work — " As for bidding me not work," 
said he, sadly, "Molly might as well put the 
kettle on the fire, then say, 'Now don't boil.'" 
It must not be supposed, however, that we wish 
to deprecate even severe mental labor; on the 
contrary, a well-organized brain demands exer- 



cise, and, like the blacksmith's arms, flouri.she.s 
on it. We believe that pleasurable brain wcn-k 
can be carried on to an almost limitless extent 
without injury. A poet in the full swing of 
fancy, a philosopher worlung out some scheme 
for the benefit of humanity, refresh rather than 
weaken their brain. It will be found that the 
great majority of those who have gained high 
honors in our universities, have also greatly 
distinguished themselves in after life. It is 
the hard, thankless task-work which tears and 
frets the fine gray matter of the cerebrum. It 
is the strain and anxiety which accompanied 
the working out of the great monetary tran- 
sactions which produces that silent and terrible 
ramoltiseement which gradually saps the mind 
of the strong man, and reduces him to the con- 
dition of an imbecile. 

Eye Si^ht. — Spectacles. — With most per- 
sons there is an epoch in life when the eves 
become slightly flattened. It arises probably 
from a diminished activity of the secreting 
vessels. The consequence is that the globe is 
not kept quit-o as completely distended with 
fluids as in youth and middle age. .There is 
thus an elongated axis of vision. A book is 
held further oft' to be read. Finally, becoming 
more flattened by the same inactivity within, 
the difticulty is met by putting on convex 
glasses. This is the waning vision of age. If, 
however, when that advancing is first realized, 
the individual persists in the attempt to keep 
the book in the old focus of vision — even if he 
reads under perplexing disadvantages, never 
relaxing, but perseveringly proceeding just as 
he did when his eyes were in the meridian of 
their perfection, the slack vessels will at last 
come up to his assistance, and the original focal 
distance will be re-established. 

To Restore the Sight. — The preservation and 
restoration of sight is an important matter, yet 
easily attained by this simple rule. When the 
sight is too close, clcse the eyes, press the finger 
gently outwardly from the no.se across the eyes. 
Short sight is caused by too great roundness of 
the eye, and rubbing or wiping them from their 
inner toward their outer angles flattens them, 
and thus lengthens or extends their angle of 
vision. But as long sight is caused by the too 
great flatness of the eyes, passing the fingers or 
towel from their outward angles inwardly, of 
course, rounds them up, and thus preserves the 
sight. By this simple means, all persons can 
adjust their sight to their liking, so as to read 
without glasses just as well when old as young. 



714 



FAMILT HEALTH : 



i 



The value of this knowledge is second only to 
tliat of sight. John Quincy Adams used to 
jiraclise this mode of maiiiimlating his eyes 
and recommended it to olliers. 

Begin ivith a firm resolution, advises the 
Medical and Surgical Journal, never to use 
glasses of any kind for reading or writing. 
The ancients knew nothing ahout such contri- 
vances; if they had there would have been 
poor eyes in abundance, and occulists to meet 
the emergency. CiCERO never complained of 
imperfect vision at the age of si.xty-three. He 
even wrote his letter by torchlight on the eve 
of being put to death by the waiting soldiers. 
Humboldt died at ninety-two, having never 
been embarrassed with these modern contri- 
vances — lunetts. John Quincy Adam.s, illus- 
trious for scholarship, at a ripe old age saw 
without them. Indeed, it would be a laborious 
enterprise to collect a catalogue of names, in the 
chronicle of literary fame, of men and women 
wlio were independent of glasses. 

Imparlance of Rccrcalion. — The Americans, as 
a people, says Hon. Edwakd Everett, at 
least the professional and mercantile classes, 
have too little considered the importance of 
healthful, generous recreation. They have not 
learned the lesson contained in the very word 
which teaches that the worn-out man is re- 
created, made over again, by the seasoniible 
relaxation of the strained faculties. The old 
world learned this lesson years ago, and found 
thai, as the bow always bent will at last break, 
80 the man, forever on the strain of thought 
and action, will at last go mad or break down. 
Thrown upon a new' continent, eager to do the 
work of twenty centuries in two, the Anglo 
American population has overworked and is 
daily overworking itself. From morning till 
night — from January to December — brain and 
hands, eyes, fingers, the powers of the bod}' 
and the powers of the mind are in spasmodic 
merciless activity. There is no lack of a few 
tasteless and soulless dissipations which are 
called amusements; but noble, athletic sports, 
manly out-door exercises are too little culti- 
vated in town or country. 

Causes of Sudden Death. — Out of sixty-six 
cases of sudden deaths thoroughly investigated 
by medical men, only two were found that died 
from heart disease, nine of apoplexy, while 
there were forty-six ea.ses of congestion of the 
Inngs — that is the lungs were so lull of blood 
that they could not work, there being not room 
enough for a sufficient quantity of air to enter 
to support life. The causes producing conges- 



tion of the lungs are cold leet, tight clothing; 
costive bowels, sitting .still until chilled after 
being warmed with labor or a rapid walk, going 
too suddenly from a close, heated room into 
the cold air, especially after public speaking; 
and sudden depressive news operating on the 
blood. 

Care of Cllildren.— One reason, ob- 
serves Hall's Journal nf Health, why children 
die is because they are not taken care of. From 

the day of birth they are stuffed with food, 
choked with physic, sloshed with water, suf- 
focated in hot rooms, and steamed in bed 
clothes. So much for in-door. When permit- 
ted to breathe a breath of pure air once or 
twice during the cold months, only the no.se is 
permitted to peer into daylight. A little later 
they are sent out with no clothing at all on the 
parts of the body which need the most protec- 
tion. Bare legs, bare arms, bare necks, girted 
middle, with an inverted umbrella to collect 
the air and chill the other parts of the body. 
A stout strong man goes out in a cold day with 
gloves and overcoat, woolen stockings, and 
thick double-soled boots, with cork between, 
and rubbers over. The same day a child of 
three years, an infant in flesh, blood, bone, and 
constitution, goes out with shoes as thin as 
paper, cotton socks, legs uncovered to the knees, 
neck bare — an exposure which would disable 
the nurse, kill the mother outright, and make 
the father an invalid for weeks. In this fool- 
hardy attempt to harden children by an ex- 
posure to the severities of the weather, they not 
unfrequently sicken and die, and tlieir death 
is imputed to a mysterious Providence, when 
in point of fact it is a presumption and a pro- 
fanation. 
Cllildren should never be allowed to go to 

leep with cold feet — which is frequently the 
cause of croup, diptheria, or fatal sore throat. 
Let them go to sleep in pleasant humor, and 
sleep all they feel inclined to. 

Liebig's artificial n)ilk for infants begins to 
be very highly esteemed in Germany, He 
claims that when well made, it is far superior 
to any ordinary substitute for human milk. 
The object aimed at in the formula given by 
Baron LlEBiG is to add to cow's milk lho.se 
matters in which it is deficient. This is acccom- 
plished by adding to ten ounces of milk one 
ounce of wheat flour and boiling to a homoge- 
neous paste. To this is added one ounce of 
malt powder, which has been finely pulverized 
and mixed with two ounces of water and fif- 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



715 



teen grains of bic.u'bonale of potassa. Beiii. 
alluwt-d to stand fur an liour and a half and 
then gently boiled for a few minutes, it is care 
fully strained from all hnsUs, etc. It would 
seem that such a mixture would form a valua- 
ble article of food — more easily digestible than 
many of the ordinary substitutes for milk. 

There is a I'avorite fancy of rendering in- 
fants and farther advanced children hardy and 
sirong, by jjlungiUig them in cold water. This 
will certainly not prevent strong infants from 
growing stronger, but it is likely to kill three 
out of every five. Infants always thrive best 
with moderate warmth and milk-warm bath. 
The same rule applies to tlie clotliing of in- 
fants and children. No child should have so 
slight clothing a.s to make it feel the effects of 
cold ; warm materials, loose and wide clothing, 
and exercise, are indispensable for the health 
of tlie little ones. But above all things, their 
heads should be kept cool and generally un- 
covered. 

Treatment of Diseases.— Under this 

head we have arranged, in alphabetical order, 
a large number of diseases and methods df 
treatment, which seem to be well attested by 
experience. We have multiplied remedies in 
many cases, hoping thereby to make it certain 
that some prescription will be within reach of 
every locality, that will be found adapted to 
the widely-varying conditions and tempera- 
ments of the human system : 

Table of Doses of Medicines Prepared with Great 
Care. 
Antimonial Wine (emetic) table-epooilful. 
Balsaiu Copiiiba — >6 a tea-spoonfil 
Bluu Mass— 5 to 15 grains. 
Ciimplior— "ito 10 grains. 
Calomel— 2 to 10 grains. 
Castor Oil— 1 to 3 table-spoonsful. 
Chalk, Prepared— 10 to 20 grains. 
Ch;lllt, Mercurial— 5 to 20 grains. 
Chloroform— :iO to fiO drops (in syrup.) 
Chlorate Potash-lo to 30 grains. 
Composition Powder— 1 tea-spoonful. 
Croton Oil-1 drop (in pill or liquid.) 
Cream of Tartar— >^ to table-spoonful, 
DoveiB Powder— to 10 grains. 
Dioscorein— I to 4 grains. 
Diaphoretio Powder— 4 to 8 grains. 
Elixir Vitriol—.', to 10 drops. 
Enietir. Powder, (Lob. Coinp.)-l tea-spoonful. 
Ether, Sulphuric— >$ a tea-spoonful. 
Epsom Salts- 1 to 2 table-spoonsful, 
Eriiot, Powder— 10 to 20 grains. 
Essence Peppermint— >j to a tea-spoonful. 
Fluid Extract Buchu-1 to 2 tea-spoonsful. 
Fluid Extract Uva Ursa— .'a to 1 tea-spoonful. 
Gerrnine-2t0 5grain9. 
IIv.Ir8Stine-3to5 grains. 
Hive Syrup— )6 to a tea-spoonful. 
Hoffman's Anodyne— >^ to a tea-spoonful. 



Iodide Potassa— 1 to 5 grains. 

Ipecac, Powder— (emetic) 20 to 30 grains. 

Jalap, Powder — 10 to 30 grains. 

Leptandrin — ^i to 2 grains. 

Laudanum— 10 to 30 drops. 

Ulacrotin— ,'^ to \^ grains. 

Magnesia, Calcined — }i to a table-spoonful. 

Morphine— )ii to M of a grain. 

Number Six — 1 tea-spoonful. 

Oil Peppermint— 1 to 2 drops. 

Opium, Powde-E— I grain. 

Paregoric— 1 to 2 tea-spoonsful. 

Piperine— 1 to 3 grains. 

Podophyllin— ^'i to 2 grains. 

(Juiniue— 1 to 3 grains. 

Rhubarb, Powder— 10 to 20 grains. . 

Soda, Carbonate, 10 to 30 grains. 

Sulphur, Powder— 1 tea-spoonful. 

Sugar of Lcad-I to 2 grains. 

Syrup Siiuilld—1 tea-spoonful. 

Syrup Ipecac— 1 tea-epoonful (for children.) 

Syrup Rhubarb — 1 to 2 table-spoonsful. 

Syrup Khubarb, Spiced— 1 table-spoonful. 

Sanguinarian— >^ to VA grains. 

Spirits Nitre — 1 tea-spoonful. 

Spirits Camphor— >^ a tea-spoonful. 

Spirits Hartshorn — 10 to 1.5 drops. 

Spirits Lavender, Compounded— a tea-spoonfal. 

Spirits Turpentiue— .') to 20 drops. 

Tartar Emetic (emetic)— 1 to 2 grains. 

Tannin-2 to 3 grains. 

Tincture Asafetida — /^ a tea-spoonful. 

Tincture Cayenne— J4 to a tea -spoonful. 

Tincture Iodin«-10 to 20 drops. 

Tincture Iron (Muriate)— 10 to 30 drops. 

Tincture Lobelia— a tea-spoonful. 

Tincture Rhubarb— 2 to 4 tea-spoonsful. 

Tincture Valarian— 1 tea-spoonful. 

Tincture Bark— 2 to 4 tea-spoonsful. 

Tincture tringer — 1 tea-spoonful. 

Tincture Kino— '^ to a tea-spoonful. 

Wine, Colchicum— 10 to 20 drops. 

Wine, Ipecac— >^ to a tea-spoonful. 

White, Vitriol (emetio)-40 grains. 

Ague in the Face. — Apply a poultice made 
of fiour and ginger. Mustard poultice is also 
good, but it is apt to scar the face. Hop.«, 
steeped, and applied hot to the face, will often 
afford relief; or, a liniment composed of equal 
parts of spirits of camphor, laudanum, and 
aqua ammonia, or spirits of hartshorn. 

Asthma. — Two ounces of best honey, and one 
of castor oil, mi.xed ; a tea-spoonful night and 
morning. Or, an ounce and a half of sulphur, 
an ounce each of cream of tartar and pulverized 
senna, half an ounce of pulverized anise-seed, 
all well incorporated; dose — a tea-spoonful in 
a table-spoonful or two of molasses on going to 
bed, and occasionally, if required, during the 
day. Or, an ounce each of angelica, comfrey, 
elecampane, spinknard roots, and hoarhouiid 
tops, bruised, and steeped in a pint of honey ; 
dose — a table-spoonful taken hot, and frequently. 
In the hydropathic treatment, the rubbing wet 
sheet, pack and douche, with the chest-wrapper, 
are the leading processes. 

Baldness. — This is caused by keeping the liead 
too warm. To prevent thin hair and prema- 



ri6 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



ture baldness, first, keep a clean scalp; second, 
never wear the hair on a strain, or against the 
direction of its growth ; third, never applv any- 
thing to it but soap-snds or pnre water; fourth, 
wear loose-fitting, soft hats; fifth, let men and 
children always wear the hair very short, and 
both men and women should brush the hair a 
great deal, using only a coarse comb, which 
should touch the scalp only in the slightest 
manner possible. When the hair is gone, and 
the scalp presents a shiny appearance, it can 
never be lestored ; but where such is not the 
case, the best treatment is to bathe the head in 
cold water, and follow it with a thorough rub- 
bing and manipulation. Cases of cure have 
been eflecled by simply exposing the bare head 
to the sun's rays. A decoction of bo.\ wood 
has been used with success. Boil four large 
handsful of the garden box in three pints of 
water, in a closely covered vessel, for fifteen 
minutes; then let it stand in an earthen vessel 
at least ten hoin-s; then strain, and add an ounce 
and a half of cologne, and wash the head thor- 
oughly every morning with this decoction. 

Bilious Complaints. — Take forty drops of bal- 
sam of Peru on loaf sugar, every day, at the 
middle of the forenoon, as 'long as may be ne- 
cessary. 

BliUcriny from Lye. — Wliere a boy had fallen 
into a kettle of lye, presenting the appearance 
of blistering all over his body, he was washed 
well with vinegar, then greased with sweet 
cream. Not a blister filled, and his recovery 
was speedy. 

Blistering Oil. — Put an}' quantity you may 
wish of Spanish flies in sweet oil; and soak a 
piece of cotton in it the size you may desire to 
blister. Camphor dissolved in sweet oil will 
make a good dressing for the blister. 

Blond — Effusion of. — In cases of bleeding 
from the Inngs or stomach, dry salt swallowed 
in small quantities, will at least arrest tlie flow 
of blood until other remedies for relief can be 
taken. Or, drink frequently an infusion of the 
pulverized or bruised root of crane's bill in 
water; it is a valuable Indian remedy, and acts 
promptly, and such is its worth, that it should 
be cultivated in every garden. Dr. James 
AVarhen's remedy: Put two and a half drams 
of sulphuric acid in a mortar, and slowly add 
one fluid dram of the oil of turpentine, stirring 
it constantly with the pestle; then slowly add 
one fluid dram of alcohol, continuing to stir as 
long as any fumes arise from the mixture, then 
put it in glass, ground-stoppered, bottles. If 
the materials are good, it will appear like dark 



blood; if poor, it will be of a pale dirty red, 
and unfit for use. Dose — forty drops in a tea- 
cup rubbed thoroughly with a tea-spoonful of 
brown sugar, and then stir in water till the cup 
is nearly full, and drink immediately. Eepeat 
hourly for three or four hours, discontinuing 
when no more fresh blood appears. 

For nose bleed, compress the artery furnishing 
the blood ; if from the right nostril, feel with 
the fore-finger along the outer edge of the right 
jaw until you feel the beating of the artery, 
then press hard upon it for from five to ten 
minutes, when the ruptured ve.ssel will proba- 
bly by that time contract, and cease to leak. 
Another rolls up a piece of paper, and places it 
under the upper lip; while another simply puts 
a piece of paper in his mouth, and chews it 
rapidly for a brief season; and yet others check 
the bleeding by simply elevating the arm. A 
piece of ice laid on the wrist will often arrest 
violent bleeding at the nose. 

To check the effusion of blood from a wound, 
use four or five drops of perchloride of iron, or 
half a tea-spoonful when a very large artery is 
.severed. Or, apply finely-pulverized egg-shells 
tothe bleeding wound. Or, take the fine dust , 
of tea and bind it close to the wound; at all 
times accessible and easily obtained. Alter the 
blood has ceased to flow, laudanum may be ad- 
vantageously applied to the wound. Or, if the 
cut be moderate, cover it all over with cobweb, 
or half and half of flour and salt. But if the 
blood comes from a wound in jets or spirts, be 
expeditious, or the person may die in a few 
minute.?, because an artery is severed ; tie a 
handkerchief loosely around near the part, be- 
tween the wound and the heart; put a stick 
between the handkerchief and the skin, twist it 
around until the blood cea.ses to flow, and keep 
it there until the physician comes; if in a posi- 
tion where the handkerchief can not be used, 
press the thumb on the spot near the wound, 
between the wound and heart, increasing the 
pressure so as to stop the flow of blood, and 
;lue up the wound by the conglutination or 
lardening of the cooling blood. 

To stop bleeding after extracting a tooth, use 
spirits of turpentine in the moutli; if nut at 
hand, use salt. 

Blood Purifiers. — See Pills, Physic, etc. 

Boils. — In their first stages, touch them with 
spirits of turpentine every six hours. Proba- 
bly a preferable course is to take some such 
good blood purifier as a tea made of sassafras 
and burdock roots, with some good vegetable 
cathartic, followed by a few doses of sulphur 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



717 



and cream of tartar. The water-cure treat- 
ment of the application of wet linen, frequently 
renewed, and kept at an agieeahle temperature, 
lessens the pain, and is unquestionably excel- 
lent. The pain can also be lessened by livkig 
very abstemiously upon coarse bread and fruits, 
and by bathing and out-door exercise. 

Sronchitis. — The universal symptoms are: 
A feeling of fullness, or binding, or cord-like 
sensation about ^le breast; a most harassing 
cough, li;d)le to come on at any time; a large 
expectoration of a tough, stringy, tenaciou.s, 
sticky, pearly or grayish-like substance, be- 
coming a darkish, greenish, or yellowish color 
as the disease progresses. Croton oil, produc- 
ing a counter-irritation, applied to the surface 
of the throat, one drop daily rubbed over the 
spot affected, causing an eruption on the skin, 
has often resulted in the restoration of the 
voice and health. The following water-cure 
treatment cured a person who had suffered se- 
verely seven montlis, having a bad cough and 
a frequent flow of blood: "In the morning I 
would get up, have a bucket of cold water 
poured over me, then jump into wet sheet and 
p;icU for an hour and a half — then another 
shower and rub off dry. At night a sponge- 
bath, and rub dry, and in four weeks I was 
entirely clear of every vestige of my complaint, 
and liave been stout and healthy ever since." 

Burninfj Clothes. — If your clothing takes fire 
slide the hands down the dress, keeping them 
!is close to the body as possible, at the same 
time sinking to the floor, by bending the knees. 
Tliis has a smothering eflect upon the flames. 
If not thus extinguished, or a great headway is 
gotten, lie down on the floor, roll over — or, 
better, envelope yourself in a carpet, or rug, 
bed-clothes, or any garment at hand, always 
preferring woolen. 

Burns or Scalds. — On the instant of the acci- 
dent, suggests Hall's Journal of Health, plunge 
the part under cold water. This relieves the 
pain in a .second, and allows all hands to be- 
come composed. If the part can not be kejit 
under water, cover it over wiih dry flour, an 
incii deep or more. In both cases pain ceases 
because the air is excluded. In many instances 
nothing more will be needed after the flour; 
simply let it remain until it falls off, when a 
new skin will be found beneath. In severer 
cases, while the part injured is under water, 
simmer a leek or two in an earthen vessel, 
with half their bulk of hog's lard, until the 
leeks are soft ; then strain through a muslin 
rag. This makes a greenish-colored ointment. 



bich, when cool, spread thickly on a linen 
cloth, and apply it to the injured part. If 
there are blisters, let out the water. When the 
part becomes feverish and uneomrortable, re- 
new the ointment, :ind a rapid, painless cure 
ill be the result, if the patient, in the mean- 
while, lives exclusively on fruits, coarse bread, 
and other liglit, loosening food. 

If the scald or burn is not very severe— that 
is, if it is not deeper than the outer skin — an 
ointment made of sulphur, with lard enough 
to make it spread stifily on a linen rag, will be 
effectual. The leek ointment is most needed 
when there is ulceration from neglected burns, 
or when the injury is deeper than the surface. 
As this ointment is very healing and soothing 
in the tmublesome excoriations of children, 
and also in foul, indolent ulcers, and is said to 
be efficacious in modifying, or preventing alto- 
gether, the pitting of small-po.x, it would an- 
swer a good purpose if families were to keep it 
on hand for emergencies — the sulphur-oint- 
ment for moderate cases, ai\d the leek-oint- 
ment in tliose of greater severity or of a deeper 
nature. 

Dry flour is probably the best and most con- 
venient remedy lor burns ever used. Pulver- 
ized charcoal laid on the burn has sometimes 
stopped the pain instantly. White lead and 
linseed oil, rubbed up to the consistency of 
paste, make an excellent ointment for burns. 
The fresh-steeped leaves of green tea spread 
over an Indian meal poultice is excellent, and 
will extract powder when shot into the flesh. 
The whites of eggs have a soothing and cura- 
tive effect, making a quick coating over the 
wound, and thus excluding the air. A paste 
made of snlpluir and seal or other oil, or of 
soot and lard, applied witli a feather; a strong 
solution of Epsom salts ; a poultice of scraped 
potato; a solution of chloride of soda, four 
ounces to a pint of water, applied to the burn 
on lint; or alcohol used as a liniment, are all 
excellent. Eut the burned parts should be ex- 
cluded from the atmospliere. 

Burn Sah-c. — Simmer together till quite 
melted (stirring them well) a piece of Bur- 
gundy pitch the size of a hickory-nut, a piece 
of yellow beeswax of equal size, and a gill of 
sweet oil. When cool, spread .some of the 
salve on a soft linen rag, and fasten it on the 
burn or scald, which, while the salve is pre- 
paring should be kept wet with sweet oil. 
Lime water, procured from the druggist's, and. 
beaten up with sweet oil, is an excellent oint- 
ment for burns. 



718 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



Cancer. — A gentleman of Wisconsin, who 
had a cancer cut out, wliicli reappeared, and 
attained the size of a hickory-nut, liad it cured 
in 1867, by resorting to the remedy of Dr. 
Fell, of London — a remedy used with eminent 
success in that great metropolis. A piece of 
sticking-phister was put over the cancer, with 
a circular piece ciit out of the center, a little 
larger than tlie cancer, and a small circular 
rim of the healthy skin next to it was exposed. 
Tlien a plaster made of chloride of zinc, blood- 
root, and wheat flour, was spread on a piece of 
muslin tlie size of this circular opening, and 
applied to the cancer for twenty-four hours. 
On removing it the cancer was found burned 
into, and resembled in color and hardness an 
old shoe-sole, and the circular rim outside of 
it appeared white and parboiled, as if scalded 
by hot steam. The wound was now dressed, 
and the outside rim soon separated, and the 
cancer came out in a hard lump, and the place 
healed up. The plaster killed the cancer, so 
that it sloughed out, like dead flesh, and has 
not since grown in again. 

Take the common plantain leaves, bruise and 
cook them in sugar; strain this syrup, and 
take a tea-spoonful before each meal. This 
has been used with beneficial efTects in cases 
of cancer. 

An Indian remedy is to make a strong lye 
from red oak bark, and boil it down to a pulpy 
consistency, and apply it as a poultice direct 
to the cancer. In two or three days, or as soon 
as the pain ceases, the cancer can be removed 
entirely, by being very careful, as it will be 
found to have shriveled. The application will 
be very painful, but it has proved successful in 
all cases where faithfully tried. A person in 
Louisiana who had by this means cured a can- 
cer on his face, had no return of it, and was 
still alive and well thirty years afterward. 

Other remedies are: Boil up some poppy 
blo.ssoms, and make a poultice by stirring in 
some meal or bran, or fine bread crumbs, and 
adding some beef's gall when the poultice is 
spread. When poppies are not in blossom, 
opium or laudanum will answer. Or, take a 
gill of gold or red litharge in a quart of vine- 
gar, simmered down one-half; then add an- 
other pint of vinegar, and mix three table- 
spoonsful of this liquid with a pint of soft 
water, and wash the cancer or fever sore, and 
in it frequently saturate the bandage for the 
diseased part. Or, boil Turkey figs in fresh 
new milk; apply the figs, split in two, while 
warm, to the cancer, three times in twenty-four 



hours, washing or cleansing the cancer each 
time with the milk so boiled ; and drink about 
half a pint of the milk twice a day for three 
or four months. The vitality of the cancer, it 
is*contended, may be destroyed by the refriger- 
ating process in two or three months. In any 
of these treatments thorough purification of 
the system, the purest diet, and strict attention 
to the general regimen are necessary. 

To alloy the pain of a severe cancer apply a 
pledget of lint soaked in a solution of citric 
acid, when the cancer is on the surface ; and if 
in the mouth, throat, or stomach lemon or lime 
juice ; or, if in the mouth or throat, a gargle 
composed of four grammes of citric acid in 
three hundred and fifly grammes of water. 

Lobelia, syphilitica, or red lobelia, is very 
highly recommended as a cure for cancer it. 
the breast of females — the decoction of tho 
root to be drank daily, say a wine-glassful threii 
or four times a day ; and apply to the breast o,' 
cancer a poultice made of equal parts of elm 
bark and the powdered root or leaves, mixed 
up with the lobelia decoction, to be kept con- 
stantly applied, and the cancer washed with 
the warm decoction each time the poultice is 
changed. 

Canker and Sore Mouth. — Use a strong decoc- 
tion of bloodroot, sweetened with honey, and, 
after the canker disappears, wash with borax 
water to cool and heal. Or, a frequent wash 
with sage tea, with a little powdered borax 
and honey. Or, the frequent application of the 
tincture of nutgalls, diluted with an equal por- 
tion of cold water ; or a tea made of the galls, and 
when cold wash or rinse the mouth frequently 
with it. Or, equal parts of barberry bark, 
Ohio kerkuma, bloodroot, and sage, sweetened 
with loaf sugar and honey. Or, take sumac 
berries or bark, blackberry root, goldthread, 
each one ounce ; sage, two ounces ; rose leaves, 
half an ounce; water, two pints; boil down to 
one-half, and strain; add honey one pint, and 
a little vinegar or lemon juice, and boil down 
to one pint; add, while hot, alum and borax, 
of each a piece the size of a cranberry. This 
is known to be a sure remedy for nursing sore 
mouths, or thrush. Or, make pulverized In- 
dian turnip, mixed with honey, into a syrup; 
or, use raw barley, nnground, steeped into a 
tea, and taken freely. 

Catarrh. — Chronic catarrh is very prevalent 
in this country, and not often cured. Iidialing 
medications with an inhaler frequently results 
favorably. Finely pulverized saltpeter, mixed 
with two parts of white sugar reduced to flour, 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



719 



eniitfed up the nose a dozen times or more a 
day; or, :i snuff composed of equal parts of 
pulverized bavberrj', bloodroot, and Peruvian 
bark; or a decoction of white-oak bark, will all 
be found excellent. Snuffing salted water up 
the nose, at least on rising in the morning, has 
been found beneficial. Inhaling the vapor of 
a (lecoction of hops, catnip, hoarbound, and 
camomile flowern in vinegar, is recommended. 
A Quaker icorrespondent of the Country 
Gentleman, while doubting a permanent cure, 
except in rare instances, suggests thoroughly 
washing with tepid or cold water the affected 
parts twice or more each day. How to reach 
the diseased spot with water, is the question, 
but happily it is not difficult to answer. A 
small syringe will do, but a siphon is much 
preferable, being more effectual and less likely 
to produce pain. The siphon should be an 
India rubber tube about four feet long, and 
about the size of small gas-pipe. Let one 
end be made heavy in some way, to keep it 
under water. Have the vessel of water some- 
what elevated, on a shelf for instance, and 
having filled the tube, immerse tlie heavy end; 
hold the other end low over a suitable tub or 
basin until a steady flow of water is insured; 
then raisii'.g it until it throws only a very feeble 
jet, apply it to one nostril and insert as far as 
the tube will enter. Continue the application 
until the water flows from the opposite nostril 
and allow it to flow as long as you have patience 
to bear it. 

A solution of permanganate of potassa, which 
any apothecary can furnish, is good to allay the 
offensive odor that often attends the disease. 
A grain of this to two quarts of water at first. 
The strength may afterward be increased. 

Camphor Ice. — A delightful article to bathe 
exposed parts, to prevent chapping and sores 
from cold, is thus made: Take one pound of 
almond oil, one pound of rose water, one ounce 
each of wax and spermaceti, two ounces of cam- 
phor, and one ounce of rosemary. Melt the 
camphor, wax, and spermaceti in the oil by a 
gentle heat, then add the rose water, stirring 
briskly or rubbing in a large mortar, and lastly, 
the perfume. The consistence may be varied 
by increasing or diminishing the proportion of 
wax and spermaceti. 

Colds. Coughs, Consumption. — Colds and con- 
sumption have their origin in going to bed 
with cold feet; standing on the street and chat- 
ting with a friend in a cool evening after a 
warm walk; standing without over-clothing in 
an open hall door, and lingering farewells with 



a friend who has vi.sited you; retaining wet 
garments on your person without exercising, or 
sitting in an open window of a warm room. 

The best way to avoid catching a cold, says 
the Good Health Magazine, although it may 
seem a paradox, is not to be too much afraid 
of cold. Let one's accustomed exercise not be 
interiupted becau.se it is damp, or even rains. 
Let these conditions be met by appropriate 
clothing, and let the feet be well ]>rotected by 
strong shoes. This I'ule must be observed, 
however, when one is out of doors, and the 
body feels cold from the clothes having become 
wet through, it is wrong to remain at re.st. The 
danger of a sudden loss of animal heat is then 
imminent. Evaporation, although produced 
by heat, is very productive of cold, and it is 
greatly promoted by a current of air. It is on 
this principle that wine is often cooled for the 
table in hot climaes. The bottles containing 
it are jdaced in a strong draught of air, while 
they are covered with a woolen material, which 
is kept constantly wetted. In this way wine 
can be obtained almost as cool as by means of 
ice. Now, in the case of a person whose clothes 
are wet and exposed to a gale, the conditions 
are exactly the same; instead of the warm 
wine, tliere is the warm body enclosed in a 
wetted covering. It is to be remembered, tlien, 
that the risk of catching cold from wet clothes 
is always greater in windy weather. 

Cold may be taken, however, from moisture 
retained, as well as by that which is received. 
When perspiration is profuse, it saturates the 
inner clothes, and its chilling efferls are soon 
felt if the body is kept at rest. The best mode 
of avoiding this is to wear clothes of loose 
texture in hot and dry weather, so that the es- 
cape of perspiration may be promoted as much 
as possible. Flannel, which has been adopted 
by cricketers as the most appropriate dress for 
their active game, is admirably adapted for this 
purpose. For the opposite reason, water-proof 
clothing is very objectionable, except when ab- 
solutely required to resist rain. Any one who 
has worn it while taking exercise will remem- 
ber the uncomfortable state of dampness wliicli 
it is sure to induce. * 

Many persons are extremely susceptible of 
cold from getting the feet wet or even damp. 
Fortunately it is in their power to guard against 
both by simple means; cork soles are very val- 
uable preventives so far as concerns the bottom 
of the foot, and stout leather will insure suffi- 
cient protection for the remainder; but woolen 
socks, as being the best non-conductors of heat. 



■20 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



and withal the least liiible to retain pcispii-a- 
tion, are in such cases Inilispensabl-e. 

A valunble lesson may be learned, says the 
author of the Army Surgeon, from tlie fact that 
common colds were almost unknown in our 
army during the late war. Men were exposed 
to cold and wet long continued, so that during 
cold storms of Winter men often weie wet as 
long as the storm continued, and until their 
clothing dried upon them when tlie storm 
ceased. If this proves anytliing, it proves the 
falsity of the complaint that one has been out 
too much and has cauglit cold. The truth is, 
he has been in too much. 

You keep clo.se by a warm fire witli heavy 
clotliiiig on nearly all your time, and the first 
time you meet a blast of cold with all the pores 
of your body relaxed, and your whole .sy.stera 
enervated by heat, you catch cold, and then 
comes ipecac, squills, and cough syrup, all be- 
cause you have kept too near the fire, and then 
j'ou say, I can't go out without catching cold. 
Take a dose of God's own cold air every day, 
and yon will find time, money, and many a 
pain and ache .saved; and if yon will add good 
doses of cold water on the outside, you will 
find that heaven's pure air and earth's pure 
fountain are the best cures and the most certain 
preventives of disease. 

The moment a man is satisfied he has taken 
cold, let him do three things: First, eat noth- 
ing; second, go to bed, cover up in a warm 
room; third, drink as much cold water as he 
can, or as he wants, or as mucli lierb tea as he 
can; and in three eases out of four, he will be 
well in thirty-six hour.s. To neglect a cold 
for forty-eight hours after the cough has com- 
menced, is to place himself beyond cnre, until 
the cold has run its course, of about a fortnight. 
Warmth and abstinence are safe ami certain 
cures, when applied early. Warmih keeps the 
pores of the skin open, and relieves it of the 
surplus which oppresses it, while abstinence 
cuts off the supply of material for phlegm 
which would otherwise be coughed up. 

Consumption. — There is no malady which 
causes so large a mortality as consumption. 
Statistics show that throughout the civilized 
world an average of one death in six may be 
attributed to its agency. It was formerly con- 
sidered an incurable disease, and was often left 
hopeless to run its fatal cour.se unchecked ; but 
modern investigation and science have proved 
that the tubercular deposit, to which all its 
dread results, may be traced, will frequently 
diminish under suitable treatment. This is 



further proved by post mortem examinations, 
where death has occurred from other causes, in 
which the lungs, scarred and puckered, attested 
the healthy closing of two, and even three, 
large tubercular cavities. 

Few are aware how much the prevention, 
and even cure, of this dread disease depends 
upon their own efforts. An eminent Ameri- 
can physician has recently declared, that with 
proper precaution.s, by any one in health, con- 
sumption will be well nigh an impossibility, 
even though hereditary influence may predis- 
pose him to it, and that even those who are 
already under its grasp may have hope of ar- 
resting its ravages. The plain and simple 
principle, which in this case is the essence of an 
all-wise treatment, is to raise the physical sys- 
tem to the highest possible vigor. In company 
with this, one of the best curatives and pre- 
ventives is to expand and .strengthen the lungs 
themselves by deep inspirations of breathing in 
of pure air. These inspirations should be 
made as slowly as possible through a small 
tube, or with the mouth nearly closed, ,and with 
the shoulders thrown back or downward. When 
the lungs or chest are filled, the air should be 
as slowly and gradually breathed out. By con- 
tinual practice it will bo found easy to take long 
inspirations, and the chest itself will become 
permanently expanded, so as to give the lungs 
full play. Where strength has begun to de- 
cline, of course the efTorts must be proportion- 
ably milder. As the air at first enters the 
lower part of the lungs it only fills the apex 
after a long and sustained effort, and hence the 
necessity of making the inspiration as slowly 
as possible. Six times a day is not too much 
for this exercise. 

Indeed, the great advantage of mild climates 
to consumptives is the possibility of passing 
so much of the time out of doors. Much is 
justly said of the pure and bracing air of Min- 
nesota, but those who go there for lung diseases 
hould remember that only as they breathe the 
pure outside air habitually can it prove bene- 
ficial. A lady with tubercular deposits, and 
severe cough, went there some time since, and a 
month spent in the ordinary way brought her no 
improvement. She then joined a camping party 
of ladies and gentlemen, who started in an 
open wagon, and slept in tents at night. Aficr 
three days exposure to this open air slie mani- 
festly improved, and though frequently exposed 
in the evening took no cold. The continuance 
of this mode of life restored her health, and 
so strengthened her constitution that in two 



TREATMENT OP DISEASES. 



r2i 



months slie cnuUl sleep with impunity wliile 
tlie :iir wns blowing freely across her.* Many 
similar, anil even more reniarliable instances 
took place among tlie young men of our army 
in tlie late war, many of wliom enlisted against 
the advice of their friends, and retnrned with 
greatly improved physical constitutions. The 
exercise thus induced is most essential to the 
desired end. 

Ahundnnce of nutritious and wholesome food, 
including fatty articles, is essential in the ar- 
rest of consumption. Most of those who have 
such tendencies reject fat meat, but its place 
may be supplied with butter, milk, or cream. 
Restriction in diet in these cases is highly 
injurious. The dress is also a matter bearing 
strongly on the health of the lungs. Woolen 
fabrics worn next the skin, and warm covering 
for the extremities, are all important. So also 
is the shape of the garment, which should 
allow full play to the muscles. Relief from 
care and anxiety, as far as it can be secured, is 
important. 

It is the common belief, says an able medical 
writer in the Atlantic Monthly, tliat a dry 
atmosphere is the most favorable to the con- 
sumptive. Many medical authors have ad- 
vanced this theory. It is nevertheless an error. 
In the British Isles and in France, outside the 
cities and manufactories, the mortality from 
pulmonary diseases is much less than among 
the agricultural classes of this country. And 
on the shores of this continen't consumption is 
comparatively unknown. , 

Our disadvantage, in this comparison, is at- 
tributable, in considerable part, to the lack of 
humidity in our atmosphere. Without the evi- 
dence of facts we might argue that excessive 
dryness of the air would produce dryness and 
irritability of the air passages. From time 
immemorial, watery vapor has been used as a 
remedy in irritation and inflammation of the 
respiratory organs. 

"A hundred times," he continues, "have my 
consumptive patients e'xpressed surprise that 
the wet weather, in which I have insisted that 
they should go out as usual, has not injured 
tliem — that they even breathe more freely than 
on pleasant days. Of course, I tell them if the 



liut miknnwn to tlie natives living wild iu the fastnesses 
of this d-'Bolati' region, in tents nuide of spruce brunches, 
imperf-'ctly lined with skins, and inure or less exposeil on 
nil sid.'S to tlie external air; altlioush thev are expos-d to 
famine and every species of li;irilship. But when these 
Siime natives eonie down t.' tin' St. Lawrence to t.ako a 
piutin theflsheries, occupv iv.ll Imilt houses, anil being 
well paid, live in comparative luxiiiy, most of them, iu a 
year or two, become consumptive, and die miserably. 

46 



body is well protected, the more moist the air, 
the more grateful to your lungs. There is 
no possible weather which can excuse the con- 
sumptive for keeping in-doors. Give him suf- 
ficient clothing, protect his feet carefully, and 
he luay go out freely in rain, snow, and wind. 

Dr. Hall's advice to consumptives is both 
pertinent and sensible: Eat all you can digest, 
and exercise a great deal in the open air to 
convert what you do eat into pure, healthful 
blood. Do not be afraid of out-door air day or 
night; do not be afraid of sudden changes of 
weather; let no change, hot or cold, keep you 
in-doors. If it is rainy weather, the more need 
for your going out, because you eat as much on 
a rainy day as on a clear day; and if you exer- 
cise less, that much more remains in the system 
of what ought to be thrown off by exercise, 
and some ill result, some consequent symptom 
or ill feeling, is the certain issue. If it is cold 
out of doors, do not muffle your eyes, mouth, 
and nose in furs, veils, woolen comforters, and 
the like. Nature has supplied you with the 
bestmuffler — with the best inhaling regulator — ■ 
that is, two lips. Shut them before you step 
out of a warm room into the cold air, and keep 
them shut until you have walked briskly a few 
rods, and quickened the circulation a little; 
walk fast enough to keep off a feeling of chilli- 
ness, and taking cold will be impossible. What 
are the facts of the case ? Look at railrcad con- 
ductors, going out of hot air into the piercing 
cold of winter, and in again every five and ten 
minutes, and yet they do not take cold oftener 
than others; you will hardly find a consump- 
tive man in a thousand of them. 

It is wonderful how afraid consumptive peo- 
ple are of fresh air, the very thing that would 
cure them — the only obstacle to cure being that 
they do not get enough of it; and yet, what 
infinite pains they take to avoid breathing it, 
especially if it be cold! Yet if people can not 
get a hot climate they will make an artificial 
one, imprison themselves for a whole Winter 
in a warm room, with temperature not varying 
ten degrees in six months. All such people 
die, and yet we follow their footsteps. If I 
were seriously IU of consumption, I would live 
out of doors day and night, except when it was 
raining or midwinter; then I would sleep in 
an unphistered log house. My consumptive 
friend, you want air, not physic; you want pure 
air, not medical air; you want nutrition, such 
as plenty of meat and bread will give, and they 
alone. Physic has no nutrigient; gasping for 
air can not cure you; and stimulants can not 



722 



FAMILY health: 



cure yon. If you want to get well, go in for 
beef and out-door air, and do not be deluded 
into tlie grave by newspaper advertisements 
and unfiiidable certifiers. 

Modes of Treatment. — The general hints and 
suggestions already given are probably of more 
practical value and utility to the consumptive 
than all the recipes we could add. Yet, some 
of the more .simple and successful modes of 
treatment, briefly presented, may be very prop- 
erly mentioned. 

Raw-Meat Cure. — Dr. Foster, of Montpelier, 
France, treats pulmonic affections, and con- 
sumption in general, by a new method, which, 
up to the present time, has the most fortunate 
results. He makes his patients eat the flesh of 
raw mutton and of beef, and drink alcohol, 
weakened with water, in small doses. The 
meat, reduced to pulp, and disengaged from its 
tendons, is administered in balls rolled in sugar, 
or in sugared pulp in coffee- spoons, at the rate 
of one hundred, or tliree hundred grammes a 
day. If the thirst of the consumptive is in- 
ten.se, it is slackened by a drink composed of 
five hundred grammes of cold water with sugar, 
in which One hundred grammes of the pulp are 
dissolved. The alcohol portion is composed of 
alcohol at twenty degrees Baume, increased to 
three times its volume by sugared water. It 
is taken by the spoonful from hour to hour. 
This new medication has succeeded in some 
cases beyond all expectation. Persons afTected 
with serious phthisic, or with phyohenna (the 
blood mingled with pus), have been radically 
cured. Kaw meat has a reconstructive power, 
while alcohol acts directly upon the organs of 
hsemotesis or sanguification — the production of 
blood. 

Arsenic Cure. — The celebrated physician. Dr. 
LONDE, asserted, in the French Academy of 
Medicine, that he had found but one successful 
means of combating the dreadful disease, tuber- 
cular consumption, and that means was the 
smoking of arsenic, and strongly commends the 
remedy. Missionaries and others who have 
long resided in China, agree in stating that 
smoking tobacco, free from arsenic, is not sold in 
that country, and that the arsenic smokers were 
stout fellows, " with lungs like a blacksmith's 
bellows," and cheeks as rosy "as cherubs." 

Iodine Memedy. — ^Inhaling iodine is strongly 
recommended for lung diseases. A medical 
writer in the Philadelphia Ledger cites several 
strong cases in which this simple remedy has 
been tried with success. It is stated in the 
Xew York Sun, that one of its subscribers who 



had been afflicted with consumption and its 
attendant evils, mixed one part of chloride of 
iodine with six parts of water, and kept it in 
his bed-room, in a partly covered dish, for a 
fortnight, during which time his health so sen- 
sibly improved that he could not refrain from 
giving publicity to the fact. 

Iron and Calisaya Remedy. — The late Rev. 
Jeremiah Day, President of Yale College, 
was compelled, from pulmonary difliculty, at 
the age of seventeen, to leave college, but rally- 
ing, he re-entered, and graduated. In 1801, 
when chosen a Professor in Yale, he was pios- 
trated with an alarming hemorrhage of the 
lungs, went a while to Bermuda, but returned 
home to die. But meeting with Dr. Sheldon, 
of Litchfield, the latter expressed his belief 
that he could help him ; when Mr. Day placed 
him.self under the doctor's care, was treated 
with iron and calisaya bark, with a careful 
regimen of wholeseme food. He at length 
recovered, and never after exhibited any pul- 
monary symptoms, and lived to the great age 
of ninety-five years. After his death it was 
found that his lungs were entirely free from 
tubercles, but in the apex of each lung was dis- 
covered a dense, corrugated circular cicatrix, 
an inch and a ha|f or more in diameter; also a 
third circular cicatrix, of the same diameter, on 
the left side of the left lung — the scarred evi- 
dences of a disease of twelve years' duration 
that had been completely cured. 

Potassa Remedy. — Liquor polassa, twenty or 
thirty minims, three times a day for an adult, 
in some bland fluid, is a new treatment for 
tuberculous phthisis, or consumption, which 
has proved beneficial. 

Arseniate of Soda Remedy. — A recent success- 
ful French treatment, in cases where a cough, 
accompanied with blood-stained expectorations, 
had been going on for a year, is to administer 
daily six milligrammes of arseniate of soda for 
twenty days consecutively ; and then give cod- 
iver oil alone for the next sixteen days, and 
so on alternately from three to seven months, 
the patient taking at the same time infusions 
of quassia and wine of Jesuit's bark. 

Water-Cure Treatment. — Incipient cases of tu- 
bercular consumption are often treated success- 
fully by the wet-sheet pack, with the half bath 
on alternate mornings, the spray bath in the 
afternoon, and the sitz bath toward night, fol- 
lowed by manipulation of the chest and ab- 
domen — with several occasional vapor baths. 
For long-continued chronic expectoration, with 
tightness, soreness*, and pain about the lungs, 



TREATMEMT OF DISEASES. 



723 



take a daily spnnge bath, one or two hip baths, 
and the chest-wrapper, using only a very ab- 
fleniiims vegetable diet. 

Other Remedies. — A seatoii or issue is fre- 
quently beneficial. Add an ounce of subcar- 
bonale of pntasli to a pound of tar, and place 
this in a vessel over a spirit lamp, and boil 
slowly so as to prevent burning; and when 
cool enough to do so, inhale the vapor fre- 
quently. • 

One or two ounces of gum ammoniacum, pre- 
pared in a pint of good vinegar, well sweetened 
with hnnov, is an excellent medicine fur con- 
sumptives. 

Boil an ounce and a half of Iceland moss 
slowly in a quart of sweet milk fifteen minutes, 
and drink a tea-cupful three or four times a 
day. If milk disagrees with the stomach, use 
water instead, adding two drams of liquorice 
root ten minutes before it is done. 

Take four parts of pulverized crawIey root, 
and one part each of jmlverized skunk cabbage 
root, wild turnip, and elecampane root, mixed 
with molasses; take a large tea-spoonful three 
or four times a dav. If a coughing spell 
threatens to come on, take a little pulverized 
leaf of lobelia on the point of a penknife, and 
drop it in a spoonful of water, and drink it, 
and you will soon be able to raise without 
coughing or straining. If fever conies on, 
drink half a tea-cup of strong nannybiish tea, 
three or four times a day. For pain in the 
side, drink half a tea-cup of strong boneset or 
thoroughwort tea on rising in the morning, in- 
termitting it a few days, and then renewing it 
again. A glass of lime water may be occa- 
sionally used. For costiveness, take two tea- 
spoonsfuls of whole mustard .seed twice a day. 

After the cough and pain in the side have 
disappeared, use beer made as follows: Pour 
six pails of boiling hot water into half a bushel 
of barley malt; let it stand six hours, then 
drain it off, adding to the liquid half a bushel 
of white-pine bark, a pound each of well- 
hruised spikenard root, root and top of black- 
snake root, comfrey, Iceland moss, liquorice, 
and white-oak bark; boil down one-half, strain 
it into a new keg or clean jug, add a pound of 
honey and yeast; after fomenting, bottle, and 
use a gill at a time, three or four times a day, 
gradually increasing the quantity. 

Olid in the Head. — Here is the remedy of 
Dr. Palion, of France, for a cold in the head 
Inhale hartshorn. If the sense of smell is 
completely obliterated, the bottle should be 



kept under the nose until the pungency of 
the volatile alkali is felt. The bottle is then 
removed, but only to be re-applied after a min- 
ute; the second application, however, should 
not be long, that the patient may bear it. This 
easy operation being repeated seven or eight 
times in the course of five minutes, but always 
very rapidly, except the last time, the nostrils 
become free, the sense of smell is restored, and 
the secretion of the irritating mucus is stopped, 
This remedy is said to be peculiarly advan- 
tageous to singers. 

Another French remedy ia, inhaling the 
tincture of iodine, a phial of which is to be held 
in the hand and placed under the nose. The 
warmth of the hand enclosing the phial causes 
the vaporization of the tincture. The inhala- 
tions are to be made every three minutes, and 
soon all symptoms of the malady will cease. 

Congestion of the Lungs. — A napkin wrung 
out of hot brine, and laid over the chest, 
changing it as soon as cool, will give great 
relief. 

Remedies for Colds and Coughs. ■ — At night, 
thoroughly soak the feet in as warm water as 
may be borne; then put bountiful drafts on the 
feet, by this means keeping them as warm as 
possible. 

Water-gruel, with three or four onions, sim- 
mered in it, with a lump of butter, pepper, and 
salt, eaten just before going to bed, is said to 
be a cure for a hoarse cold. A syrup made of 
horseradish root and sugar is excellent for 
a cold. 

Take into the stomach, before retiring for 
the night, a piece of raw onion, after chewing. 
In an uncooked state, this esculent is very 
heating, and tends to collect the waters from 
the lungs and throat, causing immediate relief 
to the patient. 

A syrup made of onions has cured many a 
child of a severe cold, and saved many a one 
from an attack of croup or lung fever. To 
prepare the syrup, slice an onion in a tin basin, 
pour upon it half a tea-cupful of molasses, or, 
what is better, honey; add a bit of butter as 
large as a small chestnut. Set the dish in the 
oven, and simmer slowly for an hour. Leave 
one of the oven doors open, so that it will not 
be too hot. 

One large spoonful of flaxseed, five cents 
worth of liquorice, and four ounces of raisins. 
Boil these in two quarts of rain or soft water, 
till reduced nearly one-half. Add five cents 
worth of hoarhound or barley candy, or half a 



724 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



tca-cnpful of brown sugar, and a little vinegar 
or lemon juice. Drink a cupful at bed-tiiue, 
and take a little whenever the cough is bad. 

Boil half a pint of milk, a small bit of but- 
ter, and a tea-spoonful of black pepper. Drink 
it hot on going to bed, and repeat, if needed, 
three or four nights. 

Take two ounces each of brandy or alcohol 
and gum arabic, and one ounce each of honey 
and the tinctures of lobelia, bloodroot, and 
liquorice. Dissolve the gum, liquorice, and 
honey in a gill and a lialf of water, and add 
to the others, mixing them well. Take a tea- 
spoonful at a time, three times a day. A gen- 
tleman of Cincinnati who was cured by this 
syrup of a bud cough, presented his benefactor 
with fifty dollars. 

To two quarts of rum, add half a pint of 
molasses, one gill of tar, and warm and melt 
together. Take from one to one and a half 
table-spoonsful at a time, three times a day. 

Two ounces of golden seal or Ohio kerkuma, 
or yellow poccoon, or tumeric root — known by 
all these various names — pulverized and put 
into a pint of whisky ; after standing for a 
week, take a tea-spoonful at a time three times 
a day. 

Make a strong decoction of while-oak bark, 
and drink three times a day about half a tea- 
cup of it ; immediately after eat a piece of salt- 
peter the size of a kernel of corn, following it 
with a piece of resin the size of a hazle-nut. At 
the same time bathe the stomach three times a 
day with the oak decoction, until the pain and 
fever disappear. Decided benefits will be seen 
and felt in a few days, even in eases of consump- 
tion. Speaking of a case coming within his 
knowledge, the late .Judge Draper, of Toledo, 
Ohio, said : "The improvement made in a short 
time was truly astonishing — greater than any- 
thing I ever saw or heard of." 

To a pint of best brandy or alcohol add half 
an ounce of oil of anise, and one ounce each of 
balsam of tulu and liquorice ball, or extract of 
the ball, made fine ; when well mixed, lake a 
tea-spoonful at a time, if the cough is bad, six 
or eight times a day. 

Beat well together in a mortar a quarter of 
an ounce each of fresh squills, gum ammonia, 
and powdered cardamom-seeds; if too hard add 
a little of any kind of syrup, then make into 
common-sized pills, four (w five of which may 
be taken two or three times a day, as the pa- 
tient can bear them. 

Four ounces each of lemon juice, strained 
honey, and syrup of poppies, simmered together 



over a slow fire. Take a table-spoonful at a 
time when the cough is troublesome. In con- 
nection with this medicine, use bitter drinks to 
promote tlie digestion, such as Peruvian bark, 
gentian root, camomile flowers, and hoarhound, 
infused in water or wine and used freely; diet 
light, using sweet milk and buttermilk plenti- 
fully with frequent horseback and other exer- 
cise. This treatment has resulted favorably in 
many almost hopeless cases. 

Take equal quantities of turpentine and bees- 
wax, burn them slowly in an earthen or iron 
dish, placing a tin funnel over the dish, the 
large part down, so as to inhale through the 
tube into the lungs the evaporated matter three 
times a day for three days, then intermitting 
three days and then resuming the operation • 
again until a cure is efTected. Immediately 
after each application take some good cough 
drops and also whenever the patient coughs. 
This is an Indian remedy. 

Two pounds each of good raisins and strained 
houey in a gallon of good brandy, taken in 
moderate quantity several times a day, has 
proved of much benefit; and even a good arti- 
cle of whisky alone has been frequently known 
to effect a cure. 

Take ten drops of Venice turpentine on 
sugar three times a day, and gradually increase 
the quantity to twenty drops, which continue 
till better, and then gradually decrease. This 
is excellent for weak or sprained lungs, cough, 
and h.as been recommended for liver complaint. 

Take one ounce each of thoroughwort or 
boueset, slippery elm, liquorice stick, and flax- 
seed ; siminer together in one quart of water 
until the full strength of all the ingredients is 
extracted; strain carefully, and add one pint 
of good houey or syrup and half a pound of 
good loaf sugar, and simmer them all well 
together. Bottle tight ; good for asthma, colds, 
and coughs; a table-spoonful for a dose. 

Boil one quart of good cider vinegar down to 
a pint, then add one pound of loaf sugar, two 
ounces of liqnoricc ball or stick, two large 
lemons sliced up, all slowly boiled or simmered * 
together half an hour; when cold add half an 
ounce of laudanum. Take a table-spoonful at 
a time three or four times a day; and if the 
cough is troublesome in the night, take a tea- 
spoonful at a time as required during the night. i 

Pulverized Indian turnip, mixed with honey 
or syrup, is a good remedy for coughs. 

A common and most efiective remedy for 
colds, is a mixture of butter, vinegar, and mo- 
lasses, stewed together and taken hot. A case 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



725 



of settleil cough, soreness, and bleeding of the 
lungs coming under our observation, was cured 
by heating together equal parts of butter and 
brown sugar, and eating as much of it as could 
be taken hot on going to bed, and repeating it 
a few times. 

Four ounces each of sunflower-seed, wild 
cherry bark, and buds of the balm of Gllead ; 
and one ounce each of hoarhound herb, slip- 
pery-elm bark, and blacksnake root, in four 
quarts of water, simmer to one-half; then strain, 
and add one pound of loaf sugar, and a pint of 
best brandy. Take half a wine-glass three or 
four times a day. 

Take a pound and a half each of spikenard 
root, hoarhound tops, elecampane root and 
comfrey root, and boil them into a strong de- 
coction of eight quarts, and then add twelve 
pounds of white sugar, six pounds of honey ; 
clarify with the white of eggs, and add one 
quart of good brandy. Then let it stand lor 
twenly-four hours, and bottle it for use. A 
wine-glassful three times a day, is a dose. It is 
very useful in chronic catarrhs and colds, dry 
coughs, and pulmonary diseases generally. 

To thirty drops of laudanum add twenly-five 
drops of ipecac wine, and mix with a dessert- 
spoonful each of vinegar and honey, for a dose. 

Take an ounce of the s\'rup of white poppies, 
half an ounce each of paregoric elixir and 
tincture of squills, and a quarter of an ounce 
of tincture of tolu, and mix. Dose — a tea- 
spoonful in barley water when the cough is 
troublesome. 

Thomson's Cough Syrup. — Take of poplar bark 
and beth root, each one pound, water nine 
quarts; boil gently in a covered vessel fifteen 
or twenty minutes; strain through a coarse 
clotli ; add seven pounds loaf sugar, and simmer 
until the scum ceases to rise. When the syrup 
is nearly cold add one pint of tincture of lobelia 
and r)ne gallon of pure French brandy. Dose — 
a table-spoonful three or four times a day. 

A Water-Cure Cough Recipe. — Place a glass 
or cup t>{ pure soft water within reach, and when- 
ever inclined to cough, or feel an irritation or 
tickling in the throat, take a swallow or sip, 
with a determination not to cough. Continue 
this perseveringly, and the most vexatious 
cough will be removed speedily. 

Mesin Aroma for Cough. — A small piece of 
resin dipped in water placed in a vessel on a 
stove (not an open fire-place), will add a pecu- 
liar property to the atmosphere of the room, 
which will give great relief to persons troubled 
with a cough. The heat of the stove is suffi- 



cient to throw off the aroma of the resin, and 
ives the same relief that is afforded by the 
combustion, because the evaporation is more 
durable. The same resin may be used for 
weeks. 

Cough from a Recent Cold — Equal parts of 
Jamaica rum, honey, and linseed oil. To be 
shaken when used. 

A Dry Cough. — Dissolve half an ounce of 
powdered gum arable in warm water; squeeze 
in the juice of a lemon, and add one dram of 
.syrup of squills, and two of paregoric. Keep 
well corked, shake well, and take a tea-spoonful 
whenever the cough is troublesome. Or, equal 
quantities of pulverized sage and loaf sugar, 
well mixed, taking a tea-spoonful whenever a 
disposition is felt to cough. Or, use a little dry 
salt as a gargle. 

To Cure Hoarseness. — Take the whites of two 
eggs and beat them with two te.vspoonsful of 
white sugar; grate in a little nutmeg; then add 
a pint of lukewarm water. Stir well and drink 
ften. Reiieat the prescription, if necessary, 
and it will cure tlie most obstinate c:tse of hoarse- 
ness in a short time. Chewing horseradish is 
also good. Strong elecampane tea is regarded 
as efficacious. 

Troches for Coughs and Colds. — Four ounces 
each of sugar and powdered extract of liquorice, 
one ounce of powdered cubebs, and a quarter 
of an ounce of sal-ammoniac, with gum arable 
and water sufficient to form into troches. 

Expectorant Candy. — Take one dram each of 
bruised ipecac and squills; one ounce each of 
elecampane and comfrey bruised ; boil the whole 
in two quarts of water until reduced to one-half, 
then form into candy with sugar. 

Over-Drinking Cold Water. — A napkin, satu- 
rated with boiling water, spread upon the stom- 
ach of one apparently dying from the effects of 
drinking cold water in hot weather, affords 
almost instant relief. 

Cholera Precautions. — Among the precautions 
recommended by the British Government, are 
the following: 

"Sources of water supply should be Well ex- 
amined. Those which are in any way tainted 
by animal or vegetable refuse; above all, those 
into which there is any leakage or filtration 
from sewers, drains, cesspools, or foul ditches, 
ought no longer to be drank from. Especially 
where the disease is cholera, diarrhea, or ty- 
phoid fever, it is essential that no foul water 
be drank. 

" The washing and lime whiting of uncleanly 
premises, especially of such as are densely 



V26 



TAMILV HEALTH : 



occupied, sliould be pressed with all practicable 
dispatch. 

" Ovei crowding sboukl be prevented. Espe- 
cially where disease has begun, the sick room 
should, as far a-s possible, be free from persons 
who are not of use or comfort to the patient. 

"Ample ventilation should be enforced. It 
should be seen that window frames are made to 
open, and that windows are sufficiently opened. 
Especially wliere any kind of infective fever 
lias begun, it is essential, both for patients and 
for persons who are about them, that the sick 
room and the sick hou.se be constantly well 
traversed by streams of fresh air. 

"The cleanliest domestic habits should be 
enjoined. Eefnse matters which have to be 
cast away should never be let linger within 
doors; and things which have to be disinfected 
or cleansed sliould always be disinfected or 
cleansed without delay. 

"Special precautions of cleanline.ss and dis- 
infection are -necessary with regard to infective 
matters discharged from the bodies of the sick. 
Among discharges which it is proper to treat 
as infective are those which come in cases of 
small-pox, from the affected skin; in cases of 
cholera and typhoid fever, from the intestinal 
canal; in cases of diphtheria, from the nose 
and throat; likewise, in cases of any eruptive 
or other epidemic fever, the general exhala- 
tions of the sick. The caution which is neces- 
sary with regard to such matters must, of 
course, extend to whatever is imbued with 
them, so that bedding, clothing, towels, and 
other articles which have been in use by tlie 
sick do not become sources of mischief, either 
in the house to which they belong, or in houses 
to wliich they are conveyed. Moreover, in 
typhoid fever and cholera, the evacuations 
should be regarded as capable of communi- 
cating an infectious quality to any night-soil 
with which they are mingled in privies, drains, 
or cesspools, and this danger is best guarded 
against by disinfecting them before they are 
thrown away; above all, they must never be 
cast where they can run or soak into sources of 
drinking water." 

Cholera never attacks the body, says Hall's 
Journal of Health, except in its time of weak- 
ness ; hence, as from the fast of the pretioui? 
twelve or more hours, the body is weakened, 
breakfast should be taken before going outside 
the door in cholera times, as it gives a power 
of resistance against the poisonous qualities of 
an infected' night air, and for the same reason, 
when the body is weal; and tired by the labors 



of the day, it should not only be kept from the 
night air, but should be fortified by a warm 
and early supper. 

Exposure to the hot sun of a Summer mid- 
day should be avoided, nor should any laborer 
occupation be continued until exhaustion. The 
time to stop work is when the feeling of tired-* 
ness first begins to force itself upon the atten- 
tion. 

Eat only plain nourishing food, such as meat, 
bread, rice, the starches, with milk, eggs, or- 
anges, and lemons. As fruit and vegetables 
in cities are sure to be more or less stale before 
they can be used, it is better to discard them 
altogether. Do not overload the stomach. 

Personal cleanliness is imperative, and needs 
scarcely to be insisted on. But all these things 
are useless against uncleaneil houses and yards. 
Each householder should make it a matter of 
conscience to keep his dwelling and place of 
business scrupulously clean from cellar to attic, 
and from the middle of the street to the rear of 
his lot. 

Do not let the mind be perplexed by ques- 
tions as to the contagiousness, or portability, or 
the infectious nature of the cholera, or as to the 
value of a quarantine, for none of these things 
will, of themselves, prevent an attack of cholera 
in any case; but bear in mind always, that 
perfect and infallible exemption will be the 
result of personal and domiciliary cleanliness, 
of a plain and regular mode of living, and of a 
composed, confident, and fearless mind. 

Cholera Symplotns. — Cholera has two stages — 
a premonitory or mild stage, and a stage of 
collapse, which is fatal. The premonitory .stage 
is ushered in by a mild, painless diarrhea, 
which generally continues for hours, sometimes 
for days, before the stage of collapse sets in. 
In this premonitory stage the disease is readily 
and promptly curable by .simple remedies, com- 
bined with rest in the recumbent position. All 
that is necessary, therefore, to prevent a fatal 
attack of cholera, is that the patient shall lie 
down, keep warm and quiet, and take such rem- 
edies as will relieve the diarrhea. 

Cholera is invariably preceded by lassitude, 
great languor, debility, and diarrhea; in tliis 
stage it can be controlled and checked. But at 
the very first approach of the diarrhea, the 
patient should assume the horizontal posture, 
and retain it, with his hips higher than the 
shoulders, and under no circumstances assume 
the perpendicular, even for a moment. Abso- 
lute, positive rest is needed, the body being 
kept in warm condition by every artificial means 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



727 



that can be used to that end. If the patient, 
when taken, is away from home, let him le- 
luaiii there; if down stairs, let him stay there, 
or L'e carried up — not walk up under any plea. 
Maintaining tlie horizontal position for forty- 
eight hours, in the majority of instances, the 
disease will pass over. On recovery, he need 
make no very great changes in his mode of 
life, e.xeept, if he has bud habits, he should re- 
form them ; eu^nd drink rationally, attend to 
his business as usual, be " temperate in all 
things," and not over-do himself. 

A few of the more reliable remedies will now 
be mentioned. A bag of broken ice applied 
along a narrow strip — not more than four or 
five inches broad, in the adult — down the very 
center of the back ; continued along the whole 
spine until the cramps are subdued, and then 
along the lower half of the spine until vomiting 
and purging cease, has been practiced with 
much success. Dr. Aeonson, of Marseilles, 
Ikus had remarkable success in his mode of 
treatment — contending that the cholera pro- 
duces a superabundance of oxalic acid in the 
system-; to prevent which, he administers alka- 
line salt.s, such as bic.crbonate of soda, which 
decomposes the o.xalic acid. 

Dr. A. De Grand, of France, after the ex- 
perience of fourteen cholera epidemics, thus 
advises the public: The general rule in time of 
epidemics should be to pay the strictest atten- 
tion to the patient's bowels. If tlie evacua- 
tions be formed of aqueous matter, similar in 
appearance to very clear cuje. au lait, to rice 
water, to dishwater, or to tea stirred with a 
few drops of milk, then, whatever be the con- 
dition of the patient, although be may be s'uf- 
fering neither from pain nor weakness, he has 
the cholera. The progress of the disea.se has 
then to be arrested by the use of peppermint, 
of which the patient must drink half a cupful 
every quarter of an hour ; it is to be taken 
quite hot, sweetened, and with the addition of 
two table-spoonsful of rum or old cognac, to- 
gether with twenty drops of tincture of cinna- 
mon. Perspiration is then produced, and tbe 
infusion is continued till the motions are 
checked. Three hours generally suffice for 
this. If the medicine thus administered pro- 
mote signs of intoxication, this is to be re- 
garded as a favorable sign of recovery ; if it 
cau.se vomitings, then it is to be discontinued, 
and a small gla.ss of old cognac is to be substi- 
tuted in its place, which is to be taken every 
quarter of an hour. AVhen the disease* has 
reached its crisis, it is generally necessary to 



confine the treatment mainly to alcoholized aro- 
matics, energetic frictions, injections not too 
strongly etherized, rubbing of the limbs, and to 
use every suitable means for increasing the cir- 
culation, and exciting the nervous system. 

Asiatic Remedies. — " To stop cholera-diar- 
rhea," says the Kev. Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, 
American missionary at Consiantinople, "ad- 
minister a mixture composed of equal parts of 
laudanum, spirits of camphor and tincture of 
rhubarb. It is effective in doses of thirty or 
forty drops, though in urgent cases the amount 
may be doubled. I have had but few cases in 
which it failed, and then I gave laudanum and 
starch injections. During the prevalence of 
cholera never fear to push medicine boldly 
imtil the diarrhea is controlled ; then be care- 
ful. Decrease the amount of the mixture, giv- 
ing twenty-five, twenty, fifteen, ten, and five 
drops, at intervals of four hours' distance, and 
the patient will soon be well. For injections I 
use forty drops of laudanum, in a small quan- 
tity of starch (say four table-spoonsful) and 
add ten drops each time. I once used a tea- 
spoonful the sixth repetition, and the patient 
recovered. Laboring people here endure enor- 
mous doses. I have used the above mixture 
twenty-six years, and have found nothing else 
so effective. The camphor and rhubarb seems 
to be an antidote to the excessive amount of 
laudanum. A young American procured an 
ounce of it, and being attacked took one-half 
of it at a dose, and six or eight hotirs after- 
ward took. the remainder, ami recovered. 

For vomiting, or vomiting and diarrhea, our 
reliance is a mixture of equal parts of lauda- 
num, tincture of capsicum, tincture of ginger, 
and tincture of cardamom seed. For the latter 
tincture of camphor may he substituted. Our 
tinctures are not very strong, and we have 
given from one-half to a whole tea-spoonful for 
a dose. If strong, the first is the maximum 
quantity. With this we use mustard poultices 
freely, applying them to the .stomach and how- 
els. They aid to arrest the vomiting. 

In this disease the thirst is often uncontrolla- 
ble, but if the patient drink water he will die. 
Wash the mouth often, drink a little camo- 
mile tea and a little gum water, just to moisten 
the mouth and the throat often, and in most 
cases the suHering will greatly moderate in 
twenty-four hours. 

Some severe cases take on the typhoid condi- 
tion. We use nothing but camomile tea, with 
a little sweet spirits of niter, or couch-grass 
tea, arrowroot, with a little brandy, etc. 



728 



FAMILY HEALTH: 



Innoculating the piitieiit willi qnasshi — ma- 
king a small incision in tlie arm, and rubbing 
the quassia liquid into it — even when sinking 
rapidly, has restored thousands in Asia. Clo- 
rydine is extensively used before collapse lias 
taken place — quassia after. For the discovery 
of the quassia specific, the government of India 
granted Dr. Honinbuboher a pension of £120 
per annum. 

Hon. John P. Brown, who for many years 
represented our government at Constantinople, 
says the cholera can be carried from one place 
to another by an individual whose garments 
are infected, or who has the disease in his per- 
son. If a person attacked be secluded and the 
infectiousness of his discharges be destroyed by 
lime, the extension of the disease will be 
arrested.. 

\ mixture of equal portions of laudanum, 
camphor, and rhubarb, with perhaps a little 
peppermint, is highly efBcaeious in the first 
stages of the attack. Of this, twenty or thirty 
drops should be given in a little brandy, wine, 
or water, and repeated after each evacuation, 
according to the circumstances and strength of 
the patient. He should lie down, and his ex- 
tremities be kept warm by friction with flannel, 
dipped in camphorated spirits. Mustard plas- 
ters may be applied to the abdomen with ad- 
vantage, if necessary. Bisnmth and quinine 
are found useful ; indeed almost anything that 
warmed the interior of the stomach, such as 
the essence of ginger, hot brandy, etc., fre- 
quently, sufficed to check the disease in its 
first stages. 

Dr. P. B. Kandolph, the distinguished 
American author and traveler, while in Europe 
and Egypt, in 1861-'62, had many cases of gen- 
uine Asiatic cholera come under his observa- 
tion, and has known the following treatment 
tried with unvarying success: 

Best French brandy, one pint; cayenne pep- 
per, one quarter of an ounce; sweet spirits of 
niter, one ounce; fluid extract of Cannabis In- 
dica, half an ounce. Keep in tight, glass- 
corked bottles. 

When the patient is attacked, put him to bed 
instantly; give one table-spoonful of the mix- 
ture in a gill of sweetened warm water every 
half hour till tlie symptoms cease, which will 
be the case when the patient perspires freely. 
Then let him be towel-bathed in warm water, 
four quarts, in which a little soda-ash has been 
dissolved. If the disease has reached the sec- 
ond or cramp stage, increase the dose and 
Bhorten the intervals one-half. Pound some 



ice, roll it in a towel, and lay it along the spi- 
nal column, or backbone ; or, what is infinitely 
belter, lay a roll of cotton, steeped in chloro- 
form, along the spine, instantly covering it with 
oiled silk, to prevent the least evaporation. In 
three minutes, if this be properly done, the 
patient will experience very peculiar, and, per- 
haps, unpleasant sensations. Let this be kept 
on ten minutes, and unless the symptoms 
abate, repeat it, both on the back and across 
the abdomen. 

Dr. HEBRiNG,of Philadelphia, says thesurest 
preventive is sulphur. Put half a tea-sporfnful 
of flour of sulphur into each of your stockings, 
and go about your business; never go out with 
an empty stomach, eat no fresh bre.id nor sour 
food. This is not only a preventive in cholera, 
but also in many other epidemic diseases. Not 
one of many thousands who have followed this 
advice has been attacked by cholera. 

Dr. Velpeau, an eminent French surgeon, 
says the cholera has its origin in some poison 
introduced into the organism. The means of 
arresting the malady at its outset are very sim- 
ple. " My advice is this : Pour from three to 
four drops of laudanum on a lump of sugar 
and swallow it. Repeat in two hours after- 
ward, and so on, until the colic and vomiting 
pass away. Take also very small injections of 
starch, poppy flowers, with six, seven, eight or 
ten drops of laudanum. This treatment will 
almost always suffice to stop the diarrhea, and 
will be a guaranty against the malady." 

The following remedy has been used with 
success : Laudanum, two ounces ; spirits of cam- 
phor, two ounces ; tincture of capsicum, half 
an 'ounce; tincture of ginger, one ounce; Hoff- 
man's anodyne, two ounces. If the anodyne 
can not readily be obtained, substitute sulphuric 
acid. Mi.\ thoroughly, and shake well every 
time it is used. Give or take from ten to 
twenty-five drops, according to age, condition, 
and violence of the attack. Repeat every 
twenty minutes till relief is obtained. In a 
desperate case, take a table-spoonful at once. 
Take it in an equal quantity of water, and lie 
on the back quietly till it has full opportunity 
to work. Carry a small phial in the pocket 
when cholera prevails, with a few lumps of 
white sugar upon which to drop it, to be used 
in sudden emergencies. 

We give the following long-tried and excel- 
lent remedy : Mix equal parts of the tincture 
of opium (laudaiuim), tincture of rhubarb, tinct- 
ure of capsicum (red pepper) double strength, 
tincture of camphor, .spirits sweet niter, essence 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



729 



peppermint, double strengtli. Then shake all 
llie ingredients together, corI< tlie bottle, and 
have it ready lor instant use. It will keep for 
years. Dose — for an adult, from five to thirty 
drops, according to constitution and severity of 
symptoms, every fifteen minutes. For children 
give projiortiunally smaller doses, say two, four, 
six, eight or ten drops, as the case may seem 
to require, in a little sweetened water. 

A pill compo^d of four parts of sulphur 
and one of charcoal — one taken every two or 
three hours has produced the most successful 
results — in some cases of the worst stages of 
collapse. A decoction of prickly ash berries 
has proved of the liighest importance in cholera 
cases in Western hospitals. 

Another excellent cholera medicine: To one 
quart of best alcohol, eighty or ninety per cent, 
above proof, add one ounce gum. myrrh, one 
ounce cloves, one ounce gum guaiacum, and one 
ounce capsicum (better known as African cay- 
enne); all to be pulverized. To be well shaken 
up two or three times a day for a week or more, 
if time will permit; if wanted quickly, then 
shake it frequently a few hours. Then to be 
poured off and strained, and returned to a clean i 
bottle; when add one ounce gum camphor,' 
quarter of an ounce of oil peppermint, quarter 
of an ounce of oil of cinnamon, and an ounce 1 
and a half of laudanum. All to be well shaken 
to cut the oil.s and gum. From half a tea- 
ppoonful to two tea-spoonsful, aicording to cir- 
cumstances, lor a dose, revinced and sweetened. 
Take also this preparation mixed with a fourth 
or third as much of spirits of turpentine, and 
rub the wrists, ankles and upper part of the 
feet. Place bottles of hot water around the 
body, which, with the external application, is 
to produce perspiration. 

This preparation is also excellent for all 
cases of bowel complaint, pain in the stomach, 
or external pains and for headache. 

Pain. Killer for Chulera, Buwel Complaints, 
etc. — Pulverize one ounce each of gum guaiacum, 
gum myrrh, and African cayenne pepper, and 
cloves; and put thetu into one quart best alco- 
hol, eighty or ninety per cent, above proof, and 
shaken up two or three times a day for a week 
or more, if time will permit ; if wanted sooner, 
shake it frequently for a few hours; then pour 
off and strain, cleansing the bottle or jug, and 
returning the liquid. Add one and a half 
ounces huidanum, one ounce gum camphor, and 
a fourth of an ounce each of oil of peppermint 
and cinn;imon; shake well to cut the oils and 
gum. From one-half to two tea-spoonsful a 



dose, reduced and sweetened. For cholera 
cases, tidce some of the pain killer and add a 
fourth or third as much spirits of turpentine, 
and with this thoroughly rub the wrists, ankles 
and upper part of the feet ; and put bottles of 
hot water around the body — these to produce 
perspiration. 

We can, of our personal knowledge, vouch 
for this as an invaluable preparation, not only 
for cholera and bowel complaint.^, but also for 
pain in the stomach, external pains, and fits. 
For headache, wet a paper or cloth, and bind 
it on the head. 

Choking. — Infants often become choked by 
getting things or food in the throat. When it 
occurs, the child should be placed in the lap, 
face down, while it is gently struck a few times 
on the back and shoulders, if this does not re- 
move it put the forefinger into the mouth and 
extract it. 

Colic. — 1. Cases which would, in all human 
probability, have proved fatal in an hour or 
two, have been speedily cured by this treat- 
ment : Put alcohol in a spirit lamp, or in a tin 
pan with a cover in which are several punc- 
tured holes, and wicks inserted, and the patient 
placed in a chair, covered to his chin with a 
blanket, and the burning alcohol placed near 
the feet, giving him, meanwhile, some warm 
drink or stimulant to promote peispiration, and 
when he shows decided signs of fainting, place 
him in bed and cover carefully. 

2. Place the patient's feet in warm water as 
soon as po.ssible after taken with this painful 
and dangeious disease. Apply stimulating lini- 
ment to the surface. If no liniment is at hand, 
in its stead apply flannel cloths wrung out of 
hot water, or where some sweating herb has 
been boiled, and give the patient one table- 
spoonful of sweet oil, once in ten minutes, until 
relief is found. It seldom requires more than 
the third dose. 

3. Dried and powdered Indian turnip, given 
in tea-spoonful doses, is a valuable remedy. 

4. The water-cure treatment of one or two 
full injections of warm or tepid water will gen- 
erally suffice, but in severe cases, many gallons 
of water are given at the mouth to cause vomit- 
ing, and the bowels to clean them of their con- 
tents. ALso cold sitting baths with a good deal 
of rubbing of the bowels with the wet hand. 
Cold and warm baths may be used alternately 
with advantage. Keep the feet warm. 

To Arrest the Fatal Effects of Chloroform.— An 
eminent surgeon of France relates two cases in 
which the inhalation of chloroform proved 



730 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



nearly falsi, he, however, succeeded in reviv- 
ing his patients, after all ordinary means had 
failed, by placing his mouth upon theirs and 
forcihly inflating the lungs by rapid aspirations 
and expirations. A medical practitioner in 
Paris states that in two instances of approach- 
ing dissolution by the inhalation of chloroforni, 
he recalled life by thrusting two fingers deep into 
the throat, down to the larynx and a;sophagns, 
a sudden movement of expiration followed, and 
recovery took place. 

For Chlorosis or Green Sickness- — For this dis- 
ease of the young girl, give one and a half 
grains of sulphuret of iron, morning and night, 
in water. Bathe the feet at night in warm water, 
the patient drinking some warm tea, as sage, 
pennyroyal, etc. 

Congestion of the Brain. — The water-cure 
treatment is probably as good and convenient 
as any. Use such baths, frictions, and manipu- 
lations, as will call the blood and nervous influ- 
ence from the congested parts to the skin, 
muscles and integumentary tissues. Friction, 
stroking and percussion of the spine are among 
the most useful movements. They should be 
commenced very gently and be applied more 
vigorously as the tenderness disappears. 

Convulsions nf Children. — When fits ijrise from 
teething, or any other cause, the feet should be 
immediately bathed in warm lye water, and an 
anodyne administered, such as syrup of poppy, 
or paregoric. Garlic should be bruised and 
applied to the stomach, and if there is heat i'n 
the head, it may be bathed with spirits, cold 
water, or vinegar. Repeat these remedies as 
often as the fits occur ; use warm baths in pro- 
longed cases. 

Corns, Warts, and Wens. — Binding half a 
cranberry, the cut side down, upon a corn, and 
renewing each night, will soon extract it. 

Bread, soaked in vinegar, applied at night, 
bandaged with a piece of oil-cloth, will remove 
the corn after two or three applications. 

One tea-spoonful of tar, one of coarse brown 
BUgar, and one of saltpeter; the whole to be 
warmed together. Spread it on kid, leather the 
size of the corns, and in two days they will be 
drawn out. 

Take a lemon, cut a piece of it ofl", then nick 
it so as to let in the toe with the corn, the pulp 
next to the corn, tie this on at night so th.it it 
can not move, and you will find the next morn- 
ing that, with a blunt knife, the corn can hi 
taken away to a great extent. Two or three 
applications of this will cfTect a cure. 

The strongest acetic acid, applied night and 



morning with a camel's hairbrush. In one week 
tlie corn will disappear — soft or hard corns. 

Put one or two table-spoonsful of soda in a 
foot-tub of hot water, soak the feet half an 
hour, and repeat for two or three successive 
nights, when the alkali having dissolved the 
indurated cuticle, the corn falls out, and the 
cavity soon fills. 

Pare the corns ofl" with a sharp knife and 
bathe them with spirits of turpentine, and bind 
on a linen cloth saturated with the same, re- 
newing it frequently, and in a few days the corn 
will come out. 

The celebrated three minute salve for re- 
moving corns or warts: One pound caustic 
potassa, four drams belladona, two ounces per- 
oxide manganese, made into a salve. 

For corns or warts, thicken the yolk of an 
egg with fine salt — if a little bruised rue leaves 
be added, the better; apply as a poultice for 
two or three successive nights, when the aflected 
part becomes white, and will soon come out. 
Or, mix in half an ounce of alcohol, one dram 
each of nitric acid, muriatic acid, oil of rose- 
mary, tincture of iron, and chloroform, and 
apply once a day. 

If nitrate of silver, popularly called lunar 
caustic, be moistened and rubbed on a wart a 
few times, and a silk thread tied closely around 
the base of the wart, it will soon disappear. 
Five or six nightly applications of a poultice 
of scraped carrot and salt, or rubbing on sprigs 
of purslain, or saturating the warts some twenty 
limes successively with spirits of turpentine, 
or dipping a clean pen in aquafortis and touch- 
ing the warts daily a few limes, or touching 
them gently with sulphuric acid, or a strong 
solution of sal-ammoniac in water, or with blue 
stone, will cause them to disappear. 

Vei'y strong salt and water, when frequently 
applied, has been known to cure wens. 

Cosliveness. — Every person ought to accustom 
himself to a regular time for evacuating the 
bowels. Total abstinence from eating, on fail- 
ure of the action of the bowels at the proper 
time, is a good practice, drinking freely of cold 
water or hot teas, with free exercise in the open 
air. It is recommended to inflate the lungs 
fully, forcing the abdomen out as far as possi- 
ble, hold the breath, and percuss the abdomen 
with the palms of the hands. Repeat from five 
to ten times. In their season, the eating of 
peaches early in the morning, or taking a table- 
spoonful of white unground mustard morning 
or night, or eating figs or berries, are all re- 
garded as very beneficial. Swallowing a raw 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



731 



egg every morning in a little sour wine, fol- 
lowed, if necessiiry, by a tumbler of cold water, 
an hour before breakfast, for several weeks, bas 
often resulted favorably. A decoction of tlie 
flowers of the common alder is an excellent 
remedy. 

A pill may be' made fcjr liabitual costiveness, 
of ten grains of the e.ttracl of May apple, or 
mandrake, and three grains of calomel, to be 
taken in the majning, awhile before breakfast. 

A conserve of hollyhock is a mild stimulant 
and tonic, and useful in cases of feeble di- 
gestion. 

Cmwps. — When a person is attacked with 
cramp, get some hot water, quietly and expedi- 
tiously (for noise and exclamations of grief and 
alarm still further disturb the nervous equilib- 
rium) put tlie sufferer in the water as com- 
pletely as possible, and thus beat is imparted 
to the blood, which sends it coursing along the 
veins, and the pain is gone. While the water 
is in preparati«)n, wib the cramped part very 
briskly with the hand or a woolen flannel. 

Or, a cold application to the bottom of the 
bare feet, such as iron, water, rock, earth, or 
ice, when it can be had — the colder the better. 
It will relieve in five minutes. If in the upper 
part of the body, or arms, then apply the rem- 
edy to the bands also. 

Croup. — Croup is an inflammation of the 
inner surface of the windpipe. Apply iced- 
water with linen cloths, or almost hot water 
with woolen flannel, or two folds large enough 
to cover the whole throat and upper part of the 
chest. Put these in a pail of water as hot as 
the band can bear, and keep it thus hot by add- 
ing water from a boiling tea-kettle at hand. 
Let a couple of flannels be in hot water all the 
time, and one on the throat all the time, with a 
dry flannel covering the wet one, so as to keep 
the heat in to some extent; the flannels should 
nut be so wet when put on as to drip, for it is 
important to keep the clothing as dry as possi- 
ble; and keep up the process until the phlegm 
is loose, the child easier, and beginning to fall 
asleep; then gently wrap a dry flannel over the 
wet one which is on, so as to cover it up en- 
tirely, and the child is saved. When it wakes 
up the flannels will be dry. 

Equal parts of camphor, spirits of wine, and 
hartsliorn well mixed and rubbed upon the 
throat, bathing the feet in hot water, is an ex- 
cellent treatment for the croup. A tea-spoon- 
ful of sulphur, in a glass of water, using a tea- 
spoonl'nl of this mixture every hour, has cured 
the croup in two days. 



Croup in its first stages can be immediately 
broken up by repeated applications of poulticeii 
of bruised raw onions to the throat and chest. 
A piece of fresh lard, as large as a butternut, 
rubbed up with sugar, in the same way that 
butter and sugar are prepared for the dressing 
of puddings, divided in three parts, given at 
intervals of twenty minutes, will relieve any 
one of croup not already allowed to progress to 
the fatal point. 

Or, bathe the neck with bear's or goose 
grease, or almost any kind of oil, and pour 
some down the throat. A linen rag soaked in 
sweet oil, butter, or lard, and sprinkled with 
yellow Scotch snuff", is said to have performed 
wonderful cures in cases of croup. It should 
be placed where the distress is the greatest. 

The water-cure treatment is simple and ben- 
eficial. Put the patient into a tub of pump- 
water, and give as thorough a bath as may be, 
with considerable rubbing of the entire body, 
but particularly the breast. This must be re- 
peated whenever the rule of temperature re- 
quires it, no two being genevaUy nearer together 
than forty-five minutes. Once in every two or 
three hours the pack should take the place of 
tlie bath. Goldcloths should be applied to the 
head and breast, and a bottle of warm water to 
the feet, whenever it seems necessary. 

Deafness. — Combine equal parts of musk, 
sulphuric ether, and aqua ammonia, and place 
cotton saturated with it in the ear, renewing it 
each night, and also dropping a few drops of 
it in the ear occasional Ij-. A few drops of al- 
mond oil dropped in the ear at bed-time, thor- 
oughly washed out next morning with soap and 
water, by means of a syringe, and repeated, 
softens impacted wax. Two drops of i>iire 
honey dropped into the ear a few times have 
removed the obstructions and restored the 
hearing. 

General Debility. — A hot salt bath is a pow- 
erful tonic for persons of delicate constitutions, 
who find themselves at the foot of the ladder 
of health every Spring. If time can not be 
afforded for a bath, take a crash tow'el and 
wring it out of strong brine, let it dry, and 
when you get out of bed in the morning, rub 
yourself from top to toe, till the skin is all 
aglow. It will not take more than three min- 
utes of your time, and you will feel the good 
of it all day. 

Delirium Tremens. — Opium and brandy are 
remedies generally used — a three-grain pill, 
with a little brandy orother spirits; afterward 
giving a one-grain pill every hour for three or 



732 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



four hours; or sixty drops of laudanum in the land alum mixed with vinegar; and, in very se- 
place of opium, for the first dose, and twenty vere cases, a throat gargle of bloodroot, golden 
to lliirty drops for the subsequent ones. The seal, and pulverized bayberry. This simple 
extract of byoscianuis, a fine nervine, milder j remedy is highly recommended. Holding a 
than opium, may be combined with opium in piece of gum-camphor the size of a pea in the 



pills of about two grains each, one pill at a 
dose, repeated every two or three hours till 
quiet is restored. Douching, sweating, water- 
drinking, and water-purging, will quickly bring 
tlie patient to his senses, and produce the de- 
sired sleep. 

Dipthevm.— 'Dv. W. A. Scott, of Palmyra, 
Iowa, has contributed the following recipe for 



mouth, or bits of ice, with a gargle of lemon 
juice, has proved higlily successful. 

Another remedy is inlialing the steam from 
a lump of lime about the size of the hand, 
while being slaked ; tlie patients to sit on chairs 
over the lime, a sheet or blanket being thrown 
over them, to confine tlie steam as much as pos- 
sible where the patients will liave tbe full efl"ect 



the cure of the diptheria — in the use of which i of it. The lime is taken into the windpipe, 
Dr. Scott asserts that not a single patient in a i and the membrane which is beingformcd there 
thousand cases lias been lost : Thoroughly swab is destroyed by it, and is forced out of the wind- 
tlie back of the mouth and throat with a wash • pipe. This remedy has been tested in a large 
made thus: Table salt, two drams; black pep- [number of instances, and has worked wonders, 
per, golden seal, nitrate of potash, alum, one] Or, make a strong solution of the sulphate of 
dram each. Mix and jiulverize; put into a | lime, with a plentiful addition of honey, and 
tea-cup, wliicli half fill with boiling water; stir [ use as a gargle several times; or dissolve two 
well, and then fill up with good vinegar. Use drams of sal-ammonia irv a •pint of water, 
every half hour, one, two, and four hours, as sweeten well also with honey, and gargle the 
recovery progresses. The patient may swallow throat three or four times a day with it. These 
a little each time. Apply one ounce each of gargles may be employed alternately. The ex- 
spirits of turpentine, sweet oil, and aqua am- ternal applications to the throat may be volatile 
monia, mi.xcd, to the whole of the throat, and liniment. But when the neck is very hot, it 
to the breast-bone every four hours, keeping ^ should be kept as cool as possible, even when 
flannel to the part. I making these topical applications. 

Tlie following remedy has been very success- 1 The water-cure remedy is to reduce the fever 
ful where used: Make two small bags, that! by a wet-sheet pack; apply wet cloths to the 
reach from ear to ear, and fill them with ashes ' throat, constantly keeping pieces of ice in the 
and salt, dip them in hot water, and wring them mouth. The next day take sitz baths, and a 
out so they will not drip, and apply them to the sponge bath, move the bowels gently, practising 
throat; cover up the whole with a flannel cloth, j rigid abstemiousness. 

and change them as often as they become cool, I For Dropsy. — Take two pills every second or 
until the throat becomes irritated near blister- third night before retiring to rest, made of two 
ing. For children it is necessary to put flannel ' parts calomel, and one of squills, with or with- 
clotlis between the ashes and the throat to pre- out a small quantity of camphor. Make a 
vent blistering. When the ashes have been on composition of four ounces Seneca snakeroot, 
a sufiicient time, take a wet flannel cloth and ' horseradish, four ounces, and quassia half an 
rub it with castile soap until it is covered with jounce; put it into a gallon of water, and re- 
a thick lather; dip it in hot water and apply it I duoe by slow fire to a pint, to which add a pint 
to the throat, and change as they cool; at the; of good whisky. Take a large table-spoonful 
same time use a gargle made of one tea-spoon- of this composition every morning; but on the 
ful of cayenne pepper, one of salt, one of mo- , mornings after taking the pills the composition 
lasses, in a tea-cupful of hot water, and when ' should not be taken until the pills have oper- 
cool add one-fourth as much cider vinegar, and ated, or are about to do so. Take a common 
gargle every fifteen minutes until the patient dose of salts in solution very early the next 
requires sleep. A gargle made of castile soap morning after taking the pills; do not break- 
is good to be used part of the time. fast until the medicine has operated. A tea- 

A poultice may be made of the j'olk of an , spoonful of the composition on lying down will 
egg and fine salt, of paste-like consistency, put improve the breathing, and, therefore, may be 
on the throat, and kept on thirty minutes, un- ' taken at anytime. Emetics should be taken 
less sooner dry, and repeated; and using a occasionally, 
wash or gargle made of equal parts of fine salt! Other drop.sy remedies: Burn corncobs to a 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



733 



coal, and put them in water, with a little vin- 
egar to make it more palatable, ami use it as a 
constant drink as long as necessary. 

Take the root of the dwarf elder in a decoc- 
tion ; it is an excellent diuretic, and more 
pleasant to the taste, and more agreeable to the 
stomach, than most other medicines of the same 
class. A decoction of milkweed is recom- 
mended for the same purpose. 

Take six or ei"ht pods of cowhage, rub off 
the fuz, and put them into three pints of gin or 
whisky; after standing a day or two, take a 
wine-glass before breakfast every morning. 

To Rescue Drowning Persons. — A recent trea- 
tise on llie art of swimming gives these direc- 
tions: If you have any distance to swim to 
reach the drowning person, the wisest plan is lo 
undress, which can be done in a few seconds. 
You have then more freedom of limb, and can 
rush through the water with speed and alacrity. 
And, if tbe drowning person should succeed in 
clutcliing yon, your chances of freeing your- 
self, being naked, are innumerable, compared 
with what they would have been hampered 
with your wet clothing. When you approach 
the drowning, watch diligently for an opportu- 
nity, and seize him by the back of the arm be- 
low the shoulder. You will, in this position, 
be enabled to keep him at arm's length before 
you, and exercise the most perfect control over 
his and your own movements. His face being 
from you, the temptation to grapple with you 
is removed, and you have more facility to make 
to the shore or most convenient place of land- 
ing. Never attempt to seize a drowning per- 
son by the hair of the head. There is great 
danger to be apprehended in so doing, for, as 
the arms are at liberty, you are liable to be 
caught in a death-grip at any moment. 

Men are drowned by raising their arms above 
water, the unbuoyed weight of which depresses 
the head. Other animals have neither notion 
nor ability to act in a similar manner, and 
therefore swim naturally. When a man falls 
into deep water he will rise to the surface, and 
will continue there if he does not elevate his 
hands. If he moves his hands under the water 
in any way he pleases, his head will rise so 
high as to allow him free liberty to breathe; 
and, if he will use his legs as in the act of 
walking (or rather of walking up stairs), his 
shoulders will rise above the water, so that he 
may use the less exertion with his hand.*, or 
apply them to other purposes. These plain 
directions are recommended to the recollec- 
tion of those who have not learned to swim 



in their youth, as they may be found highly 
advantageous in preserving life. 

To Bring the Drowned to Life. — The Humane 
Society of Massachusetts has given the follow- 
ing directions for the resuscitation of drowned 
persons : 

I. Send, with speed, for medical aid, for arti- 
cles of clothing, blankets, etc. 

II. Treat the patient on the spot, in the open 
air, exposing the face and chest freely to the 
breeze, except in too cold weather. 

III. Place the patient gently on the face (lo 
allow any fluids to flow from the mouth). 

IV. Tlien raise the patient to a sitting pos- 
ture, and endeavor to excite respiration — 

1. By snuff, hartshorn, etc., applied to the 
nostrils ; 

2. By irritating the throat by a feather, or 
the finger; 

3. By dashing hot and cold water, alter- 
nately, on the face and chest. If there be no 
success, lose no time, but 

V. Replace the patient on his face, his arms 
under his head, that the tongue may fall for- 
ward, and leave the entrance into the windpipe 
free, and that any fluids may flow out of the 
mouth; then 

1. Turn the body, gradually but completely, 
on the side, and a little more, then* again on 
the face, alternately (to induce inspiration and 
respiration). 

2. When replaced apply pressure along the 
back and ribs, and then remove it (to induce 
further respiration and inspiration), and then 
proceed as before. 

3. Let these measures be repeated gently, de- 
liberately, sixteen times a minute only. Con- 
tinuing these measures, rub all the limbs and 
the trunk upward, with warm hands, making 
Arm pressuie energetically. Eeplace the wet 
clothes by such other covering, etc., as can be 
procured. * 

The distinguished Dr. Valentine Mott 
has given these directions: Immediately after 
the body is removed from the water, press the 
chest suddenly and forcibly downward and 
backward, and instantly discontinue the press- 
ure. Repeat this violent interruption until a 
pair of common bellows can be procured. 
When obtained, introduce the muzzle well 
upon the base of the tongue. Surround the 
mouth with a towel or handkerchief, and close 
it. Direct a bystander to press firmly upon the 
projecting part of the neck (called Adam's ap- 
ple), and use the bellows actively. Then press 
upon the chest to expel the air from the lungs. 



FAMILY IIEALTU: 



least an hour, unless signs of natural breathin 
come on. Wrap the body in blankets, place it 
near a fire, and do everything to preserve the 
natural warmth as well as to impart artificial 
heat if possible. Everything, however, is sec- 
ondary to inflating the lungs. Avoid all fric- 
tions until respiration shall be in some degree 
restored. 

Cautions. — 1. Never rub the body with salt 



to imitate natural breathing. Continue this at | motion. The next thing is, to eat notliing but 

common rice, parched like coffee, and then 
boiled, and taken with a little salt and butter. 
Drink little or no liquid of any kind. Every 
step taken in diarrhea, every spoonful of liquid, 
only aggravates the disease. If locomotion is 
compulsory, the misfortune of the necessity 
may be lessened by having a stout piece of 
woolen flannel bound tightly round the abdo- 
men, so as to be doubled in front and kept well 
or spirits. 2. Never roll the body on casks. I in ils place. 

3. Continue the remedies for twelve hours with- Dr. Paige, of Washington, states, that the 
out ceasing. , following simple remedy, long known in family 

Care of Drunkenness. — The famous prescrip- practice, was tested on a large scale during our 
lion by which thousands in England have been recent civil war, in which, in a single regiment, 
assisted in emancipating themselves from the , baving from eighty to one hundred cases daily 
slavery of appetite and degradation of drunk- , of dysentery, rapid cures occurred in every 
enness is as follows: Sulphate of iron, five ' case ; and, he adds, " in many bundled trials 
grains ; magnesia, ten grains ; jieppermint wa- I have never known it to fail in dysentery and 
ter, eleven drams; spirit of nutmeg, one dram — protracted diarrhea : " 

twice a day. This preparation acts as a In a tea-cup half full of vinegar dissolve aji 
tonic and stimulant, and so partially sup- much salt as it will take up, leaving a littiii 
plies the place of the accustomed liquor, and excess of salt at the bottom of the cup. Pou;." 
prevents that absolute physical and moral pros- boiling water upon the solution till the cup ia 
tration that follows a sudden breaking ofl"from two-third.s or three-quarters full. A .scum will 
the u.se of stimulating drinks. \ rise to the surface, which must be removed, and 

Dumbness Cured. — During our recent civil the solution allowed to cool. A table-spoonful 
war, a soldier, under the e.tcitement of a great three times a day till relieved, is a dose, 
battle, lost his speech. His case baffled the I Another very successful army remedy was 
skill of the experts of the army; but subse- the following : Pulverized rhubarb, one dram; 
quently, imbibing freely of liquor, his power t bicaibonate of soda, one dram; es.sence of pep- 
of utterance returned to him. Profiting by ! permint, two drams; tincture of camphor, one 
this example, Miss Parnelia Barnell, of j dram ; sulphate of morphia, ten grains ; white 
Jacksonborough, Indiana, who, at the age of [sugar, four ounces; boiling water, one pint. 



fifteen, had been taken with a trance, from 
which, after about eleven days, she was restored, 
but with the total loss of her speech, was in- 
duced to try the liquor treatment. Thus, after 
having been dumb for twenty-five years, she 
drank old rye whisky until completely inebri- 
ated. After lying in a cataniose state for two 
hours, she began to soDlr oil', and, to the utter 
astonishment of all present, she began to talk 



Put the first six articles in a bottle ; then 
pour in gradually the boiling water. 

Dose — a tea-spoonful ; to be taken once every 
three to six hours, according to the circum- 
stances. 

Blackberry syrup is an excellent article for 
bowel difliculties, made as follows: To two 
quarts of blackberry juice, add half an ounce 
each of nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice, and 



at first slowly, but afterward with as much ease ! quarter of an ounce of powdered cloves, and 
as if the gift had never departed. The facts! boil them together for a short time. Adda 
in this interesting case were communicated to pint of fourth proof brandy while hot, and 



the Cincinnati Gazette, in 1865, by S. H. Hos- 
HOUR, of Cambridge City, Indiana. 

Dysentei-y, Cholera Morbus, and Bowel Com- 
plaints. — The terrible cholera is nothing more 



sweeten with one pound of loaf sugar. This is 
an excellent remedy for Summer complaint; 
for a dose, from a tea-spoonful to a wine-gla.ss 
All, according to the age of the patient, tliree 
than aggravated diarrhea or dysentery. It is times a day. Or, take a handful each of the 
important that all bowel complaints, esiiecially leaves, the bark and root of blackberry, and 
in the Summer season, should be checked, yet; boil them in a quart of water, simmered down 
not too suddenly. An indispensable step is to a pint ; then add half an ounce e.ach of i 
absolute quietude on a bed; nature herself nutmeg and cinnamon, and quarter of an ounce ' 
always prompts this by disinclining us to loco- of cloves; after the strength is well extracted, 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



735 



strain, and add a pound of sugar, and half a 
pint of good brandy. To a child two or three 
years old, give a tea-spoonlul at a time as often 
as the bowels move ; and two or three times as 
much to an adult. 

An excellent diarrhea cordial: Take three 
ounces blackberry root, one ounce golden seal, 
one ounce gum myrrh, one ounce b.iyberry, 
one ounce evan root, one ounce sumach (leaves 
and berries), one ounce valerian, one ounce 
capsicum, one ounce allspice, one ounce ginger 
root. Put all, in a crude state, together, and 
steep in six quarts of water till evaporated to 
two after it is strained ; then add two quarts of 
good brandy, two ounces extract of dandelion, 
I'rora three to four ounces of pulverized cloves, 
and six or eight ounces of loaf sugar. Dose — 
for an adult, from one to two table-spoonsful, 
in a little warm water, as often as the severity 
of the case may require. 

The worst cases of cholera morbus, dysen- 
tery, and bloody flu.x can usually be readily 
cured by a strong tea from a handful of ttie 
bark of the sweet gum, fresh from the tree is 
best, steeped in a pint of water till dark and 
strong. Drink it clear or sweetened; or, if the 
case is a severe one, add good brandy. 

An Indian remedy is a tea-spoonful of the 
powdered root of crane's-bill, in a decoction 
of water or milk, taken three or four times 
a day. 

Put two handsful of blackberry root in three 
pints of milk or water, and boil it down to a 
quart, and take a tea-cupful every two or three 
hours. 

Take one pint new milk, an ounce of mutton- 
tallow, and one gill good brandy or blackberry 
wine^ — put all together in a vessel, and make 
scalding hot. Take about one-half as hot as 
can be drank. The balance in about two hours 
after if needed. 

Take new-churned butter, before it is washed 
or salted ; clarify over the fire, and skim off all 
the milky particles ; add one-fourth brandy to 
preserve it, and loaf sugar to sweeten it. Let 
the patient (if an adult) take two table-spoons- 
ful twice a day. 

An equal part each of laudanum, tincture of 
rhubarb, essence of peppermint, and spirits of 
camphor (mix). Dose for a child six months 
old, two drops; dose for a child twelve months 
old, four drops; dose for a child two years old, 
eight drops; for an adult, twenty drops, after 
each evacuation, to be given in sweetened water. 

Three or four strawberry leaves eaten green 
is regarded as a good remedy ; and a tea made | 



from them is a simple and reliable curative for 
children as well as for adults. 

Put half an ounce each of pulverized gum 
kino and tincture of opium, into a pint of black- 
berry wine, and let it stand a week, with fre- 
quent shaking. Dose for an adult, a dessert 
spoonful two or three times a day. 

Mix equal quantities of Thomsonian hot 
drops, or No. 6, and paregoric; lake a teaspoon- 
ful frequently till the complaint is checked. 

Bloody Flux. — A very severe case of malig- 
nant bloody flux, reported to the Waler-Cure 
Journal, was thus successfully treated, after the 
patient, a well-educated physician, had been 
given up by the doctors: "My treatment was, 
tirst, a wet-sheet pack for a half hour; then 
washed, wiped dry, and clean linen ; a wet 
bandage about his abdomen, to be changed 
every two hours and covered with flannel. His 
bowels were now quiet for live hours. After 
this, small quantities of bilious matter w^ere 
discharged every few hours. An injection of 
cold water after every discharge of the bowels 
was administered. Cold water in small quanti- 
ties given as a drink. Sitting-bath morning 
and evening for fifteen or twenty minutes. Ou 
the third day his abdomen was covered with 
pimples, discharging water and pus. His skin 
had recovered its elasticity and softness. A 
critical fever followed. Pouring head-bath and 
tepid whole-baths were given every other dav 
after the bandages were omitteil, which was at 
the end of a week. In a few weeks he was as 
well as ever." 

Dyspepsia. — The philosophy of dyspepsia is 
thus stated by a recent medical writer: As soon 
as food reaches the stomach of a hungry healthy- 
man, it pours out a fluid substance called gastric 
juice, as instantly as the eye yields water if it 
be touched with anything hard; this gastric 
juice dissolves tlie food from witliout inward, 
as lumps of ice in a glass of water are melted 
from without inward. If from any cause the 
food is not thus melted, or dissfilved, that is 
indigestion or dyspepsia. Vinegar, in its action 
on food, is more nearly like the gastric juice 
than any other fluid known. Thus it is that 
a pickle, or a little vinegar will settle the 
stomach, when some discomfort is experienced 
afier eating. 

In dyspeptic and nervous affections, due at- 
tention to quantity and quality is of vast im- 
portance in view of a speedy cure. Rule — In 
these cases, oat-raeal gruel, or Indian-meal 
ruel, or arrowroot, or broth.s, are very good 
diet. They should never be taken hot, but 



736 



FAMILY health: 



warm ; a little above tlie temperature of new 
milk is best. These, with toast and water, and 
boiled mutton, or usual diet in great modera- 
tion, will assist the curative effects of the medi- 
cine. When oppression is experienced after 
meal, reduce the quantity the next one, and keep 
reducing until no unpleasant efTects are felt. 
Then {fradually increase if necessary. But, 
as a 1-ule, always leave off eating while you could 
eat more. This is the way to bring the digest- 
ive organs right, using judiciously-chosen med- 
icines. 

A very simple remedy, mucli in vogue in 
France and England, is in taking: no other 
nourishment than yolks of eggs, beaten up with 
the flour of potatoes, and water. Sir John 
Sinclair's mode of preparing it was this: 
Beat up an egg in a bowl, and then add six 
table-spoonsful of cold water, mix the whole 
well together; then add two table-spoonsful of 
the farina of potatoes, to be mixed thoroughly 
with the liquor in the bowl. Then pour in as 
much boiling water an will convert the whole 
into jelly, and mix it well. It may be taken 
either alone, or with the addition of a little 
milk and sugar, not only for breakfast, but in 
ca.ses of great stomachic debility, or in con- 
eumplive disorders, at the other meals. The 
dish is light, easily digested, extremely whole- 
some and nourishing. Bread or biscuit may 
be taken with it, as the stomach grows stronger. 

The following was employed by the eminent 
Dr. Physic in his own case, and as we are in- 
formed, was of decided advantage when all 
other remedies failed: Take of lilckory ashes, 
one quart ; soot, six ounces; boiling water, one 
gallon; mix and stir frequently; at the end of 
twenty-four hours, pour off the clear liquor. 
A tea-cupful may be taken three times a day. 

Another remedy Is: Take one pound of the 
extract of swine or sow thistle, two ounces each 
of magnesia and pulverized rhubarb, made into 
a common-sized pill ; take one In the morning 
and two at night, with an external application 
of the extract of tobacco with tea leaves in a 
bandage over the stomach. 

Boil np yellow dock root quite strong, and 
drink about a wine-glass before each meal. 

Anti- Dyspeptic Pills. — Take half an ounce of 
gym ammoniac, jammed up, and put into a 
spider, or low iron vessel ; keep it over a mod- 
erate fire until melted, frequently mashing up 
the gum with a knife to facilitate the melting, 
being careful not to burn it. Put in from 
twelve to fifteen lea-spoonsful of good molasses, 
Btirred up and well Incorporated, setting the 



dish off the tire when the molasses is put in, to 
prevent its burning, yet maintaining sufficient 
heat to cook it well together; then add half an 
ounce of pulverized aloes, previously prepared 
and ready for use, melted and mixed with the 
other. Now take it from the fire, and when it 
becomes half cooled add an ounce of pulverized 
rhubarb, to be worked into the mixture with a 
knife at first, and then with the hands as soon 
as the mass is cool enough to admit of it, and 
let all be thoroughly worked together. Make 
into common four-grain pills. This, to our 
certain knowledge, Is an invaluable remedy, 
and especially for enfeebled female dyspeptics. 
Commence with four pills, or enough to 
operate well, and then take just enough each 
night to move the bowels gently— generally 
about two pills for an adult male, and one, and 
sometimes even less for females; tliis to be reg- 
ularly continued until the dyspepsia is cured. 
For dyspepsia, this treatment has probably 
never been excelled ; it has been so thoroughly 
tested, that we can not too highly commend its 
virtues. 

A good quantity of old cheese is recom- 
mended as the best thing to eat when distressed 
by eating too much fruit, or oppressed with any 
kind of food. Physicians have given it in 
cases of most extreme danger. 

liervou^ Dyspepsia. — The water-cure treat- 
ment Is, to take a morning ablution, a hip bath 
at eighty degrees, for ten miimtes daily, a hot 
and cold foot bath at bed-time, and wear a wet 
girdle a part of each day. The diet should be 
mostly dry, solid, and abstemious in quantity. 
Do not drink at meals. 

Infant Dyspeptics. — Boiled rice, boiled wheat 
meal, witli good milk or a very little sugar, a 
moderate proportion of good mealy potatoes, 
and baked sweet apples, make a combination of 
tlie best articles for a dyspeptic infant liable to 
diarrhea. 

Earache Remedies- — Take a small piece of j 
cotton batting or cotton wool, making a depres-J 
sion in the centre with the end of a finger, andj 
fill it with as much ground pepper as will rest 
on a five cent piece, gather it Into a ball and tie 
it up, dip the ball into sweet oil and Insert it 
into the ear, covering the latter with cotton 
wool, and use a bandage or cap to retain it in 
its place. Almost instant relief will be expe- 
rienced, and the application is so gentle that an 
Infant will not be injured by it, but experience 
relief as well as adults. 

Cotton or wool wet with sweet oil and pare- 
goric, or saturated with a strong decoction of 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



737 



tobacco and placed in the ear; or vinegar pour- 
ed on a liot brick, conducting the steam into 
the ear witli a funnel, usually aflbrds quick 
relief. 

Put into the ear a small clove of garlic, 
Bteeped for a few minutes in warm salad oil, 
and rolled in muslin or thin linen. In some 
time the garlic is reduced to a pulp; and, 
having accomplished its object, should be re- 
placed with cotton to prevent the patient tak- 
ing cold. 

An Emetic. — Six grains of tartar emetic and 
sixteen grains of ipecac. 

Eiysipekts. — .\t tlie first appearance of ery- 
sipelas or such eruptions, apply laudanum and 
lard beat up together. 

Take a quantity of sassafras bark from the 
root; boil it well; add weak lye; drain off the 
liquid, and thicken it with wlieat bran (or 
shorts if bran can not be had), making a poul- 
tice of it and apply to the part or parts affected, 
renewing it as often as it becomes dry. While 
using it, in the water that the patient may de- 
sire to drink, a<ld a piece of saltpeter the size 
of a pea to a pint of water. 

The water-cure treatment is: To keep down 
the general fever; local application of wet 
cloths; keejiing the head cool by pouring cold 
water upon it, as much and as often, as neces- 
sary. Keep ih? feet warm. Bathe the patient 
as often during the night as may be necessary to 
give him sleep. Water drinking, clysters, and 
spare diet when the appetite comes, must be 
practised. 

Eye-Si'jht. — Milton's blindness was the re- 
sult of overwork and dyspepsia. One of the 
most eminent American divines lias, for some 
time, been compelled to forego the pleasure of 
reading, has spent thousands of dollars in vain, 
and lo.st years of time, in consequence of get- 
ting up several hours before day, and study- 
ing by artificial light. Multitudes of men and 
women have made their eyes weak for life by 
the too free use of the eye-sight in reading 
small print, and doing fine sewing. 

In view of these things, it is well to observe 
the following rules in the use of the eye.s: 

Avoid all sudden changes between light and 
darkness. 

Never begin to read, or write, or sew, for 
several minutes after coming from darkness to a 
bright light. 

Never sit to sew or write by candle or lamp 
light at a table with a dark cloth on it. When 
no other remedy presents itself, spread a sheet, 
or white paper, before you. 
47 



Kever read by twilight, or moonlight, or on 
a cloudy day. 

Never read or sew directly in front of the 
light, or window, or door. 

It is better to have the light fall from above, 
obliquely over the left shoulder. 

Never sleep so tliat on first awaking, the eyes 
shall open on the light of a window. 

Do not use tlie eye-sight so long that it iv- 
qnires an eHbrt to discriminate. 

Too much light creates a glare, and pain.s 
and confuses the sight. The moment you are 
sensible of an effort to distinguisli, that mo- 
ment cease, and take a walk or ride. 

As the sky is blue and the earth green, it 
would seem that the ceiling should be of a 
bluish tinge, and the walls of some mellow tint. 

The moment you are instinctively prompted 
to rub the eyes, that moment cease using tliem. 

If the eyelids are glued together on waking 
up, do not forcibly open them, but apply the 
saliva with the finger; it is the speediest dilu,r 
ent in the world; then wash eyes and face in 
warm water. 

Remedies for Sore Eyes. — One ounce sulphate 
of iron, or copperas; half an ounce sulphate of 
zinc, or white vitriol, in a pint o^ soft water; 
and filter the whole through several thicknesses 
of cloth, in order to free it from the coloring 
matter of the copperas. 

Put eight grains of lunar caustic, made fine, 
into four ounces rain water, adding one ounce 
of laudanum well shaken, when it is fit for use. 

Steep thoroughly a quarter of an ounce of 
goldthread, till the liquor is reduced to about a 
gill; then add finely-pulverized alum about 
the size of a kernel of corn; then filter or 
strain. 

Dissolve a lea-spoonful of honey in a wine- 
glass of water, if tliis be too strong so as to 
cause the eyes to smart very much, reduce with 
water — it will perfectly cleanse and heal, and will 
in some measure restore the sight of aged per- 
sons if used for a few weeks, two or three times 
a day. 

Take of sulphate of zinc ten grains, sugar of 
lead twenty grains, rose water one pint; dis- 
solve each separately and mix. Turn off the 
clear liquor for use. 

Steep one-fourth of an ounce of flowers of ar- 
nica in a quart of water, till reduced to a gill. 
Mix a tea-spoonful of this arnica water with 
the same quantity of rain water, when it is fit 
for use. 

To one gill of soft water add forty-five grains 
each of fine salt and fine loaf sugar, and twenty- 



738 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



three grains each of sugar of lead and white 
Titriol made fine. 

Make a decoction of fresh wild turnip or of 
lobelia, strain through a fine cloth; or dissolve 
twelve grains of white vitriol, and sixteen of 
sugar of lead, in half a pint of soft water or 
whey, and put the mixture in three gills of new 
milk, and use for eye-water. 

Wash the eyes in cold spring water after 
small split sticks of sassafras have been pre- 
viously soaked in it; it is both cooling and 
healing. 

The water-cure remedy for inflamed eyes, is 
to persevere in a strict vegetable diet; wash the 
eyes in tepid water two or three times a day ; 
take a sponge-bath daily, and one or two short 
hip and foot baths, 

For sore eyelids, use the ointment of nitrate 
of silver, putting a few drops of laudanum into 
the eye immediately afterward, and repeat. 

Removal of Particles from the Eye. — When a 
foreign body, such as a particle of slraw, dust, 
etc., gets between the eyelids and the globe of 
the eye, but without being infracted, a solution 
of gum arable, dropped into the eye, may be 
advantageously employed for its extraction, as 
the solution does not produce any disagreeable 
sensation. 

Or, take a horse hair and double it, leaving a 
loop. If the mole can be seen, lay the loop 
over it, close the eye, and the mote will come 
out as the hair is withdrawn. If the irritating 
object can not be seen, raise the lid of the eye 
as far as possible, and place the loop in it as 
far as you can, close the eye and roll the ball 
around a few times, then draw out the hair ; 
the substance which caused so much pain will 
be sure to come with it. 

A particle of iron or steel, if not too deeply 
imbedded, may be removed by the application 
of a powerful magnet. 

A strong solution of sugar, inserted drop by 
drop, under the eyelids, will comjiletely pre- 
vent the caustic action of lime, if applied 
immediately. 

Falling of the Womb. — In such cases, the 
horizontal posture in bed, with the hips ele- 
vated, is exceedingly desirable; with fomenta- 
tions or warm bathing applied to the lower 
bowels and womb, taking twenty to thirty drops 
of laudanum to check the pain. Frequent 
bathing the aflfecled parts with cold water, or 
cold water womb injections with a syringe, with 
the use of abdominal supporters ; alternating 
these cold water injections with an oak-bark 
decoction to be used cold, with a little alum 



dissolved in it, are all nsnally beneficial in 
moderate cases, in connection with properly 
regulated diet. Sitz baths, and warm and cold 
local baths, are useful in such cases. In severe 
cases, a skillful physician should be called. 

Fainting — If a person faints, place him flat 
on his back on the floor, loosen his clothing, 
and push the crowd away so as to allow the air 
to reach him, and let him alone. It is barba- 
rous to dash water over a person in a fainting fit. 

Felons. — Stir air-slakeil lime into a pint of 
soft soap until it reaches the consistency of soft 
putty ; make a leather thimble, fill it with this 
composition, insert the finger, and the cure is 
certain. Or, wrap the part affected with a clotli 
thoroughly saturated with tincture of lobelia. 
Or, cut a hole in a lemon and thrust in the fin- 
ger, encasing the felon in the acid fruit. Or, 
use a salve made of equal parts of salt, hard 
soap, and spirits of turpentine, renewing it. 
Or, soak a piece of rennet in warm milk until 
it becomes soft, apply it to the felon, and renew 
it occasionally ; or apply bruised bitter-sweet 
berries in the same manner. If a felon or ring- 
worm appears to be coming on the finger, soak 
the finger thoroughly in hot lye, even though 
it be painful. 

For Female Weakness. — Take a handful of 
hollyhock blossoms, three pints port wine, a 
quarter of a pound of loaf sugar, and a grated 
nutmeg. Take a wine-glass every morning 
before breakfast. 

Feet— To Allay Pains in the— For such pains, 
caused by fatigue, bathe them in warm water 
and salt, and rub them well with a coarse 
towel. This has also cured neuralgia and 
rheumatism. 

Nail in the Foot. — To relieve from the terrible 
eSects of running a nail in the foot of man or 
horse, take peach leaves, bruise them, apply 
to the wound, confine with bandage, and the 
cure is as if by magic. Renew the application 
twice a day if necessary, but one application 
usually does the work. Binding a piece of fat 
salt pork on the wound is a very common 
remedy. 

Fevers. — When persons are feverish and 
thirsty beyond what is natural, indicated, in 
some cases, by a metallic taste in the mouth, 
especially after drinking water, or by a whitish 
appearance of the greater part of the surface 
of the tongue, one of the best " coolers," inter- 
nal or external, is to take a lemon, cut off the 
top, sprinkling over it some loaf sugar, work- 
ing it downward into the lemon with a spoon, 
and then suck it slowly, squeezing the lemon, 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



739 



and adding more sugar as the acidity increases 
from being brouglit up from a lower point. 
Invalids with feverishness may take two or 
three lemons a day, in this manner, with the 
most marked benefit, manifested by a sense of 
coolness, comfort and invigoration. 

In an early st.age of fever use saltpeter, in 
doses from five to fifteen grains, every two 
hour-i. 

Ague and Fever. — A celebrated doctor says 
that a third or half a wine-glass of lime or 
lemon juice, in which is dissolved a piece of 
chalk about the size of a small hickory-nut, 
will effectually cure chills. To be taken while 
eflervescing, and on the first symptoms of the 
chill. 

For ague and fever, and other intermittent 
fevers, take three-quarters of an ounce of finely- 
ground coffee with two ounces of lemon or lime 
juice, and three ounces of water; this mixture 
to be drank warm, and while fasting. 

Pure apple vinegar, about a wine-glassful at 
a time, at intervals before the return of the 
chills, has broken and cured ague and fever. 

Take best Peruvian bark, two ounces; wild 
cherry-tree bark, two ounces; poplar, one ounce; 
ginger, one table-spoonful ; cinnamon, one dram ; 
balmony, one ounce; capsicum, one table-spoon- 
ful ; cloves, quarter ounce. Have all finely 
pulverized, and put in two quarts good port 
wine, and let it stand one or two days before 
using. Take a wine-glassful four or five times 
a day, and the disease will soon disappear. 
Much better and safer than quinine. 

Take of the best brandy one pint, camphor 
one ounce, dissolved; cloves and jalap each 
half an ounce, Peruvian bark two ounces, Vir- 
ginia snakeroot one ounce, water one pint; boil 
the cloves and root with the water, to one-half; 
strain and mix the others in powder with the 
above. Dose — a table-spoonful three times a 
day in the absence of the fever. 

Blackberry wine with Peruvian bark and 
quinine is regarded as a sure and safe rem- 
edy for fever and auge. 

Boil down a pailful of boneset or thorough- 
wort to two quarts of strong liquor, when done, 
strain, and add one quart of molasses, and boil 
again a few minutes ; then put it in a bottle or 
jug, adding a pint of good brandy, and one 
ounce each of rhubarb and Peruvian bark. 
Take a table-spoonful three times a day, or as 
much as the patient can bear. A sure remedy 
if persevered in. Some use it without the 
brandy, rhubarb, and Peruvian bark ; the latter 
is good to compound with the boneset, and with- 



out the liquor, the decoction will need to be 
frequently renewed. 

A decoction of sweet flag, dogwood blows or 
bark, cherry bark, hops, etc., may be used as a 
preventive of the ague in low, marshy regions. 

Put three hen's eggs into a pint of good vine- 
gar; after the shell is dissolved remove the 
eggs, and take half a gill of this vinegar at a 
time three times a day. 

Mix equal parts of pulverized cinnamon, 
rhubarb, sulphur, and cream of tartar; a tea- 
spoonful of this mixture in molasses should be 
taken three times a day; and if the ague still 
continues obstinate, make a syrup of snake- 
root, ginseng, wormwood, coltsfoot, cohosli- 
■oot, tansy, and hyssop, adding spirits and 
nolasses, to be taken before the ague fit ; and 
another syrup, made of coldwort or coldweed, 
chicken grass, buUrush, and maiden-hair, to be 
taken after the fit. 

A strong tea of the bark of crab-apple tree 
is highly recommended, as a cure for the ague 
and fever. 

Fever and Ague Physic. — One ounce each of 
gum aloes, rhubarb, cloves, and cinnamon, and 
two ounces of red Peruvian bark, all well pul- 
verized, and put into a quart of whisky ; take 
a table-spoonful one hour before each meal. 

Rhubarb, columbo, and essence of pepper- 
mint, each one ounce, one pint of water, forty- 
five grains quinine. Table-spoonful once an 
hour until it operates as physic; then, same 
amount three times a day. To keep, add one 
gill of whisky. 

Fecer and Ague Pills. — Take blue mass twenty 
grains, sulphate quinine thirty grains, oil of 
black pepper twelve grains ; make into twelve 
pills, and take one every hour for six hours 
before the chill. 

Take of aloes two ounces, gamboge and cream 
of tartar each one ounce, sal-niter (saltpeter) 
half an ounce. Divide into pills of five grains 
each, of which three are a dose. Powder and 
sift the whole, and mix in a mass with syrup 
or mola-sses. 

Water-Cure Treatment. — B'irst give the pa- 
tient a warm rubbing bath, to get the skin in 
good working order, with a dash of the douche 
after it, and put him on a fever diet of dry 
brown toast and berries. The next day, as the 
symptoms begin to appear, put him in the wet- 
sheet pack — and in the midst of the fever and 
perspiration which follow the chills, put hiui 
j under the douche ; the next day a douche, and 
the third a pack^helping the sweating with 
' the blanket pack, toning and stimulating with 



740 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



the douche. A week or two's treatment will 
conquer. 

Congestive Fever, or Cold Plague. — Tliis is a 
malignant form of conge.slive fever, commencing 
with a chill, and running its course in a very 
short time, if not arrested, assuming a typhus 
form, and often terminating fatally. It re- 
quires energetic treatment. Copious blood-let- 
ting, .'Strong hot brandy toddy, plasters to the 
stomach and feet and hand.s, have been success- 
fully tried. Salts as a cathartic and followed 
by quinine, have been useful. 

Hay Fever. — N. S. Leeds, of Richmond, In- 
diana, communicated, in September, 1868, to 
the Cincinnati Commercial, liis e.\f erience rela- 
tive to the hay fever in tlie no.se, says: In 
years past I have been treated by allopathic, 
homeopathic, and water-cure pliysicians, but 
all admitted their inability to cure. Dr. Wm. 
T. DouGAN, of Kiles, Michigan, conceived the 
idea that the disease was local, developing itself 
first in the nose, and, if treated topically, it 
could be airested, or at least confined to the 
liose. His diagnosis proved correct. He gave 
me the following prescription, which held my 
attack this year in check, or at least so con- 
trolled it that I was enabled to attend to busi- 
ues.s, as usual. I have been subject to attacks 
of "hay fever," jicriodically since 1863, com- 
mencing tiie 15th of August, and lasting about 
four weeks, and have found no relief until this 
season, .save in "fleeing to the mountains." 
Knowing that thousands are afflicted as I am, 
and the medical fraternity lielpless to relieve, 
i take great pleasure in giving my testimony 
to the entire efficiency of this treatment. 

Prescription : Take one quart of warm rain 
water, add a table spoonful of salt ; stir till dis- 
solved, and, by means of a " nasal douche," 
pass it through the nostrils, to be followed im- 
mediately by another quart of warm water, to 
which add zincsulphate, six grains; morphine, 
two-thirds of a grain ; pure glycerine, three 
drams; carbolic acid, fifteen to twenty-five 
drops; stir well, and pass it through the nos- 
tril, as before. The fii-st quart should be passed 
througli the nose under a high pressure, to 
remove as much as possible all poi.sonous secre- 
tions from the linings of the nose ; while the 
la.st should be done slowly, to allow the medi- 
cine to act on the mucous membrane. This 
can be regulated by elevating or lowering the 
reservoir of the douche. I repeat the operation 
from four to six times a day. The salt and 
water should be administered some two weeks 
prior to the time of attack, aa it is of great 



benefit in removing whatever the irritating 
cause may be. For sulphate of zinc can be 
substituted any astringent — tannin, sugar of 
lead, etc. — but morphine, glycerine, and car- 
bolic acid are deemed indispensable. 

Scarlet Fever. — Is so called from the color 
and appearance of the skin, and the scarlet 
eruptions that appear on the body; occurring 
at all seasons of the year, but generally in the 
Fall and beginning of Winter, children and 
young persons being most subject to it. When 
the fever runs high, and the throat is seriously 
affected, it assumes the character of a putrid 
sore throat, which is very dangerou.s, because 
mortification is apt to take place. 

In ordinary cases of scarlet fever, or raeasleii, 
u.se freely raw, ungroinid barley, steeped into 
a tea. 

Dr. LiNDSLY, of Washington, strongly recom- 
mends the mode of treatment of scarlet fever 
resorted to by Dr. Schneemann, physician to 
the King of Hanover. It is as follows, and ex- 
ceedingly simple : From the first day of the 
illness, and as soon as we are certain of its 
nature, the patient must be rubbed morning and 
evening over the whole body with a piece of 
bacon, in such a manner that, with the excep- 
tion of the head, a covering of fat is everywhere 
applied. In order to make this rnbbing-in 
somewhat easier, it is best to take a piece of 
bacon the size of the hand, choosing a part still 
armed with the rind, that we may h.ave a firm 
grasp. On the soft side of this piece slits are 
to be made, in order to allow the oozing out of 
the fat. The rubbing must be thoroughly per- 
formed, and not too quickly, in order that the 
skin may be regularly saturated with the fat. 

Responsible men from neighboring counties 
in Maryland testify to numerous in.stances of 
tlie fat-bacon treatment with uniform success, 
while those who depended on medicines alone, 
had, in most cases, fallen victims to the disease. 

Dr. W. Fields, of Delaware, says the fol- 
lowing treatment, if faithfully followed, will 
cure nine out o! every ten cases: For adults, 
give one table-spoonful of good brewer's yeast 
in three table-spoonsful of sweetened water, 
three times a day; and if the throat is much 
swollen, gargle with yeast, and apply yeast to 
the throat as a poultice, mixed with Indian 
meal. Use a plenty of catnip lea, to keep the 
eruption out of the skin for several days. 

Another mode of treatment is to wash the 
patient in weak lye which feels a little slippery 
to the fingers. It is best to begin in time, when 
the fever or redness first appears; and witli a 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



741 



clolh or sponge apply It all over the child eveiy 
few hours; but if the fever has got up, it should 
be repeated every five minutes until the heat 
abates. Even bathing the feet in weak lye ha.s 
a very soothing effect. Bleeding and strung 
cathartics are bad — nauseating doses of ipecac 
good. If the throat is swelled, apply sweet oil, 
or a liniment made of this and aqua ammonia, 
and drink freely of slippery elm, catnip, or 
sage tea. If the swelling is very bad, it is best 
to call in the doctor — or blister, and apply a bag 
of hops dipped in warm vinegar round the neck 
from ear to ear, the sufferer breathing the fumes 
of the vinegar. Gargling a strong infusion of 
sencca snakeroot or cayenne pepper will do for 
large children or grown persons; and afterward 
use vinegar of squills. Give a do.se of calomel 
when the skii\ begins to peel off; and be very 
careful, for many days after, not to take cold. 

Dr. Charles T. Thompson reports in the 
Lancet, that repeatedly immersing the patient 
as the strength will allow, in a warm bath, in 
the early stage of the disease, produces a sooth- 
ing and refre.-jhing feeling, soon followed by 
multitudes of eruptions on the surface — thus 
one of the greatest dangers of this malady — the 
suppression of the eruption — is avoided. The 
bath prevents the dissemination of the disease ; 
the body should be gently dried by soft linen 
cloths after each bath. After a few baths, the 
appetite generally returns, when nutritious food 
should be provided. Dr. Thompson testifies, 
that in pursuing this simple treatment for fif- 
teen years, he has not lost a single patient. 

Spotted Fever. — Sometimes called malignant 
nervous fever, or sinking typhus, has prevailed 
at different periods in New England, and in 
some portions of the West in 1865. In most 
cases it is best to commence with an emetic; 
after which, move the bowels, bathe the feet 
thoroughly in mustard and water, and give 
freely an infusion of pleurisy root and boneset. 
Sponge frequenily with vinegar and water, and 
as the fever begins to subside, give quinine in 
the usual doses. In severer cases, besides the 
emetic, put a mustard plaster the entire length 
of the spine, and flannel cloths wrung out of 
hot mustard water to the legs and bowels ; and 
when the emetic has operated, give one grain 
doses of ipecac, with from two to ten grains of 
quinine — the greater the prostration the larger 
the dose of quinine. 

Typhoid Fever. — After an emetic, aided by 
warm stimulating drinks, hot nmstard foot 
balhs, and warmth applied to the body by use 
of bottles of hot water, put twenty drops of the I 



tincture of aconite root in two thirds of a tum- 
bler of water, and administer a tea-spoonful 
every hour. If the skin is hot, the alkaline 
sponge bath should be employed three or four 
times a day; and the extremities should be 
constantly kept warm. When secretion has 
commenced, but not before, quinine should be 
used to increase the strength. 

Typhus or Nervmi^ Fever. — W'hethcr caused by 
impure air, damaged provisions, over-fatigue, 
excessive indulgence, or whatever weakens the 
nervous system, it is essentially a disease of 
debility. Give an emetic, and weak camomile 
tea, and the next day give some active purga- 
tive. Tonics, such as quinine, wines, cordials, 
should be early employed, with a nourishing 
diet, cleanliness, and pure air. Drj' heat, and 
mustard plasters to the feet, are excellent aids 
in restoring the flagging energies of the system. 
Yeast, in this disease, is a valuable remedy — 
two or three table-spoonsful, every two or three 
hours, have afforded imme<liate relief, ami 
speedy recovery. This remedy given to fifty 
typhus patients, restored them all. 

Yellow Fever and Black Vomit. — The follow- 
ing is regarded as an infallible remedy for these 
terrible diseases, having cured many persons af- 
ter having been given up by medical men: Take 
the juice of the green leaves of the verbena, ob- 
tained by pounding them with a pestle and mor- 
tar, and give it to the patient in small doses, three 
times a day, accompanied by injections of the 
same juice every two hours, until the bowels are 
cleansed. Many of the medical profession have 
adopted this remedy. The verbena is a small 
shrub which grows in all countries, principally 
in low, moist situations — and there are two 
species, male and female, the latter being mostly 
used fortius purpose- In a recent yellow fever 
epidemic in New Orleans, about five thousand 
of the frequenters of the haunts of intemperance 
were swept away before a single temperate, 
sober man was toucheil. 

Fever Sores. — Wash and syringe the sore with 
a decoction of shrub maple, or white-oak bark ; 
then make a strong decoction of blue-flag root 
and shrub maple, strain, and simmer down to 
a salve, adding beeswax and honey, well mixed 
before getting cold. Apply this as a plaster, 
and drink freely of tar water. 

Flatulence or Wind. — To correct the stomach, 
or eject wind, mix together two ounces of sim- 
ple syrup, with one ounce each of spirits of tur- 
pentine and mucilage of gum arable; and take 
a tea-spoonful every two or three hours until 
the difficulty is removed. 



742 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



Flatulence, or colic, may be temporarily re- 
lieved with fomentations ; or chewing saffron 
leaves and swallowing the juice, is good for a 
windy stomach. 

For flatulency, acidity, and gripes in young 
infants, mix an ounce each of pulverized rhu- 
barb and pulverized saleratus or sal-soda; then, 
to a large spoonful, add half a pint of boiling 
water; when cool, strain it, and add a little 
essence of peppermint and a table-spoonful of 
brandy, sweetening it with sugar. The mother 
or nurse should take one or two table-spoonsful 
every hour, or oftener, according to the symp- 
toms. If this does not remove the complaint, 
give .some of the same to the infant. Catnip 
and soot teas are also very good for such com- 
plaints. 

Frost Bites and Chilbhiins. — If frozen away 
from home the limb should be plunged deep 
into the snow. If near liome, put the frozen 
part into water in which there is a considera- 
ble portion of ice in small bits, to keep the 
temperature of the water to the requisite de- 
gree of coldne.ss — about 32°. The frozen part 
should not be rubbed, but the unfrozen flesh 
near it may be to good advantage, as that 
would hasten the recirculation of the blood. 

After the frost is drawn from the limbs, per- 
manent relief may be secured by one or two 
applications of boiled lye of wood ashes, made 
80 strong as to be .slippery between the fingers, 
settled, drained, and a large handful of salt 
mixed with each quart of the liquid. Or, ap- 
ply kerosene oil, or oil of peppermint, to the 
frozen parts a few times at night, when retiring 
to bed ; or, bathe the feet with a solution of 
one ounce of gum shellac and four ounces of 
alcohol. 

A salve for frost bites, long known and 
highly valued in Germany : Twenty-four ounces 
of mutton tallow, Jwenty-four ounces of hog's 
lard, four ounces of peroxide of iron, four 
ounces of Venice turpentine, two ounces oil of 
bergamot, two ounces of bole Armenia, rubbed 
to a paste with olive oil. Melt together the tal- 
low, lard, anil peroxide of iron, stirring con- 
stantly until the mass assumes a perfectly black 
color ; then add gradually the other ingredi- 
ents, stirring until well mixed. Spread on 
linen, and apply daily. Its effect upon even 
the most painful frost sore is most extra- 
ordinary. 

Chilblains are caused by sudden changes from 
excessive cold to too great beat. When the 
foot is exposed for a considerable length of 
time to a low temperature, the circulation of 



blood is diminished, and the surface, if not the 
whole structure, chilled, benumbed, and stiff- 
ened. The feet, when chilled, should be brought 
to their normal stale very slowly and gradually 
by exercise or rubbing, rather than by approach 
to the fire. But when swelling and redness are 
already present, gentle frictions with pulver- 
ized starch will give relief from the itching 
and smarting. So also will an ointment com- 
posed of two ounces of collodion, one ounce of 
Venice turpentine, and half an ounce of castor 
oil, well mixed. Spirits of turpentine afford 
relief to some, either alone or mixed with olive 
oil, or warm spirits of rosemary. So also will 
solutions of white vitriol, sal-ammonia, chlo- 
ride of lime, sugar of lead, etc.; but no appli- 
cation yet tried has proved so generally useful- 
as pelroleum or coal oil (kerosene.) Kub the 
swellings with it, and also keep it constantly 
applied by wetting the stocking with it over the 
swollen toes or heel. Some prefer to mix it 
with hartshorn — one part of hartshorn to two 
parts of the oil. Equal parts of kerosene and 
lime water have also been I'ound useful. 

Gall Stonts. — When the pain is severe, give 
an emetic or cathartic, which will be likely to 
remove the gall stone. If not, give twenty to 
thirty drops of laudanum, and repeat according 
to the urgency of the case. A warm bath will 
frequently give imniediale and permanent re- 
lief. Soap, alkalie.s, nitric acid, and from 
thirty to eighty drops of the tincture of blood- 
root, and hemp-seed are sometimes used to dis- 
solve the gall slone; but these remedies are | 
not reliable. Mercury will relieve the pain, i 
and generally effect a cure, if ihe disease is not 
dependent on an unhealthy liver. 

Orarel. — The use of honey, eaten with the 
food, or used in tea, has frequently proved ben- 
eficial. Or, make a strong decoction of the 
roots of ox balm and the queen of the meadow, 
and drink it freely, and as warm as it can be 
borne. Or, use a decoction of the root called 
Jacob's ladder. 

Headache. — The severest cases of headache 
are oftentimes helped, and the nervous head- 
ache cured, by some sympathizing person rub- 
bing the hands from the top of the head down, 
and off the shoulders, after the mesmeric man- 
ner. The most intense pain can be soothed in 
a few minutes by this simple remedy, remem- 
bering to carry the hands upward farther away 
from the head than when the downward pass is 
made. This will frequently cure the toothaclie. 

Dr. SocQUET, of Paris, considers nitrate of 
silver an infallible specific for nervous head- 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



743 



aclie. His formula for a pill is : Take tliiee 
centigrammes of nitrate of silver, and six cen- 
tigrammes of sal-ammoniac, with a sufficient 
quantity of extract of gentian. Two or tliree 
of these pills m.iy be taken in the course of 
twenty-four hours, viz.: in the morning, fast- 
ing, in the middle of the day, and before going 
to bed. Xervous headaches that had lasted for 
years have been thus cured in the course of 
three or four days. Three or four of these 
pills will remove the headuclie which accom- 
panies the milk fever, and sometimes lasts as 
long as twenly days. 

Bathe the forehead and temples with a mix- 
ture of equal parts of hartshorn and strong 
vinegar, and snuff a little of it up the nose. 
Or, bathe the head with this essence: Four 
ounces of liquor ammonia, half a dram of 
English oil of lavender, and one ounce of cam- 
phor dissolved in a pint of spirit of wine. 

Drink half a dram of aromatic spirits of am- 
monia, in a little water, and at the same time 
apply a clotli to the forehead wet in'a solution 
of one ounce each of muriate of ammonia and 
alcoliol in nine ounces of water. 

When sick headache is caused by superabund- 
ance of acid on the stomach, drink two tea- 
spoonsful of finely-pulverized charcoal in half 
a tumbler of water, and it will generally give 
relief in fifteen minutes. When sick headache 
proceeds from a foul stomach, an emetic is the 
fitting remedy ; when it proceeds from a bad 
state of the liver, tlie water-cure treatment is 
excellent — wet-sheet packing, and rubbing wet 
sheet, the half batli, and wet girdle; with coarse 
diet, Graham bread, apples, and parched corn. 

Heart Disease. — The victims of this disease 
are generally per.sons of irregular or wandering 
habits, or addicted to strong drink. Give a 
tea-spoonful of a mixture of equal parts of 
laudanum and ether, in a little cold water, re- 
peating it till relief is aflbrded. An issue 
made upon each thigh has frequently cured 
this complaint. A strong nmstard plaster ap- 
plied to the breast, and one between the shoul- 
ders, and also hot applications to the feet, are 
excellent remedies. Cultivate a quiet, even 
temper of mind — avoiding all sudden and vio- 
lent exertions of strength; using a vegetable 
diet mainly, with cold water for drink, rising 
early, and exercising moderately, are the best 
conditions both of relief and of cure. 

For palpUalion of the heart, put into a quart 
of best whisky about one and a half tea-cups 
of prickly-ash berries; and take a. tea-spoonful 
three times a day, awhile before each meal. 



This is al.so excellent for the blood, and for a 
debilitated system. 

Hip Injury. — Stiffness and weakness of mus- 
cles, consequent on blows, falls, etc., are often 
improved or cured by a persevering use of the 
douche — applying as strong a force to the af- 
fected parts as can be borne without dis- 
comfort. 

Hunger.— FoT inordinate hunger, supposing 
it to proceed from a stomach acid, take a tea- 
spoonful each of magnesia and sugar in a 
table-spoonful of milk or beer. 

Hydrophobia. — John Wesley's remedies for 
the bite of a rabid dog were: 

1. Plunge into cold water daily for twenty 
d;iys — keep under as long as possible. This 
has cured, even after the hydrophobia had 
begun. 

2. Or mix the ashes of trefoil, or oak ashes, 
with hog's lard, and anoint the part bitten as 
soon as possible, repeat twice or thrice, at six 
hours' internii.ssion. This has cured many in 
England, and, in one instance particularly, a 
dog bitten on the nose by a mad dog. 

3. Or mix a pound of salt with a quart of 
water; squeeze, bathe, and wiush the wound 
with this brine for one hour; then bind some 
fine salt on the wound for twelve hours. The 
author of this receipt was bitten six times by 
rabid or mad dogs, and each time cured him- 
self by this simple remedy. 

A writer in the ^i'ationat Intelligencer says 
that spirit of hartshorn is a certain remedy for 
the bite of a mad dog. The wounds, he adds, 
should be constantly bathed with it, and three 
or four doses, diluted, taken inwardly during 
the day. The hartshorn decomposes, chemi- 
cally, the virus insinuated into the wound, and 
immediately alters and destroys its deleterious- 
ne.ss. The writer, who resided in Brazil for 
some lime, first tried it for the bite of a scor- 
pion, and found that it removed pain and in- 
fiammation almost in.stantly. Subsequently 
he tried it for the bite of a rattlesnake with 
similar success. At the suggestion of the 
writer, an old friend and physician in England 
tried it in cases of hydrophobia, and always 
with succe.ss. 

Put an ounce and a half of sliced or bruiseil 
root of elecampane — the green root is prefera- 
ble — into a pint of fresh milk, boil down to 
half a pint, strain, and, when cold, drink il, 
fasting at least six hours afterward. The next 
morning make a similar decoction from two 
ounces of the root, fasting as before; and re- 
peat on the third morning. This is highly 



744 



FAMILY HEALTH ; 



recommended as a sure antidote of the bile of 
mad dogs, and has been repeatedly tried with 
uniform success. Five cliildren bitten were 
thus cured, and eighteen years afterward ex- 
hibited no evidences of tlie virus or injury. 

Mr. John Gray, of Covington, Kentucl^y, 
gives the following cure for liydrophobia, 
which, he says, he hnmvs has proven ellectual 
in at least fifty cases, and asserts that Dr. 
-Mead, an English physician, declares he never 
knew it to fail in a practice of thirty years, in 
which he had used it a thousand times : Take 
ash-colored ground liverwort, cleaned, dried, 
and powdered, half an ounce; of black pepper, 
powdered, half an ounce; mix these well to- 
gether and divide the powder into four doses, 
one of which must be taken before breakfast 
for four successive mornings, in half a pint of 
warm cow's milk. After ail these four doses 
are taken, the patient must go into a cold bath 
before eating every morning fur a month. He 
must be dipped all over, but not stay in, with 
his head above water, longer than half a minute, 
if the water is very cold. After this, he must 
go in tliree times a week for a fortnight longer. 
It should be borne in mind that the "ash-col- 
ored ground liverwort" is tlie European liver- 
wort, and is a very diB'erent thing from the 
American or Quaker liverwort, and it is diffi- 
cult to obtain it of our druggists. They ought 
to become acquainted with its inestimable vir- 
tues, and provide a constant supply. 

The douche is recommended — a jet of water 
of any required size and height can be made 
a most powerful agent in subduing the hydro- 
phobia; after douching, perspiration is brought 
on by coverings to retain the heat. 

A preventive of hydrophobia is, to take a 
white onion, cut it across the grain into four 
equal slices, sprinkle fine salt on them, and ap- 
ply them to the wound, bandaged on, as soon 
as possible after the bite, when the onion will 
extract tbe poison; repeating every half hour 
with fresh slices until the onion ceases to show 
any discoloration. Then apply a healing 
plaster. 

.\nother preventive, discoverd by M. Cos- 
ter, a French physician, is a constant bathing 
of the wound with a mixture of two table- 
spoonsful of fresh chloride of lime in lialf a 
[lint of water, which decomposes and neutral- 
izes the virus. 

Of the mad-stone remedy, which is noticed 
among the antidotes to poison. Dr. John C. 
GuNN, in his excellent work, the New Family 



Piiysician,* says: "I have always heard of ita 
uniform success, and would recommend that 
whenever this celebrated stone or talisman can 
be found, it should be tried." 

Hydrolhorux. — This disease, known also as 
dropsy in the chest, with the lower extremities 
badly swollen, livid, and tumorous, should be 
treated as one of the topical kinds of drop-sy. 
A lea-spoonful of spirits of turpentine, taken 
frequently, is ollen beneficial. Or a strong ex- 
tract of ilandelion root — the freshly dug rout is 
preferable — with a little orange peel added; 
take two or three tea-cupsful a day. p^requent 
purgatives are important. 

Infiammalion and SivUrngs. — Pound or crush 
a fresh beet from the garden, and apply it as a 
poultice to an inflamed wound, and frequently 
renew it with a fresh one; this will .secure a 
speedy cure. Or, boil leaves and stalks of 
poppies, and simmer down nearly all the 
liquid, and apply as a poultice, anj frequently 
renew, to check infiammalion or mortification. 
Or, get a strong decoction from blue-Qag roots, 
and make a poultice of it by stirring in bran, 
and apply it to the inflamed part. Or, dis- 
solve sugar of lead in water and vinegar, and 
saturate linen cloths with it, and place upon 
the inflamed, swelled, or erupted parts. 

A kind of cushion of powered ice kept to 
the entire scalp has allayed violent inflamma- 
tion of the brain, and arrested fearful convul- 
sions induced by too much blood there. In 
croup, water, as cold as ice can make it, ap- 
plied freely to the tliroat, neck, and chest, with 
a sponge or cloth, very often aiTords an almost 
miraculous relief; and, if this be followed by 
drinking copiously of the same ice-cold ele- 
ment, the wetted parts wiped dry, and the 
child be wrapped up well in the bed-clothe-s, 
it falls into a delightful and life-giving slum- 
ber. All inflammations, internal or external, 
are promptly subdued by the application of ice 
or ice-water, because it is converted into steam 
and rapidly conveys away the extra heat, and 
also diminishes the quantity of blood in the 
vessel of the part. 

For a White Swelling. — Take swamp moss, 
that which grows on the ground is best, or that 
on old logs, if quite green will do; boil it in 
strong vinegar, and apply to the swelling as 
hot as can be borne, repeating once in three 
hours until it is reduced. Then to strengthen 
and complete the cure, make a strong decoction 



* Published by Moo&e, WiLSTACit & Moore, Cii 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



745 



of the bark of white oak and sweet apple tree, 
and batlie frequently. The bark of the sweet 
apple is a powerful astringent. 

Nothing can be better for an outward appli- 
cation in inflammation of the bowels than to 
take the yolks of six e;,'gs, .stir in salt sufficient 
to make a poultice. Spread it upon a piece of 
linen or cotton, and apply it to the bowels; it 
will be moist and consequently cool for twenty- 
four hours. The water-cure treatment directs 
copious tepid injeclions for the constipated state 
of the bowels, applying wet clotlis freely to the 
whole abdomen — the colder the water, so as not 
to be disagreeable, the better. Small quantities 
of ice or iced-water, may be frequently taken; 
and drink any quantity required of water of a 
moderate temperature. When severe iliarrhea 
occurs, the warm sitz bath and cold w.ater in- 
jections may be occasionally employed to 
advantage. 

In-Growing Nails. — Put a very small piece 
of tallow in a spoon, and heat it over a lamp 
until it becomes very hot, and drop two or 
three drops of it between the nail and granula- 
tions. The effect is almost magical. Pain and 
tenderness are at once relieved, and in a few 
days the granulations are all gone, the diseased 
parts dry and destitute of feeling, and the edge 
of the nail exposed, so as to admit of being 
pared without any inconvenience. The opera- 
tion cause.s little or no pain, if the tallow is | 
properly heated. 

Test of Insanity. — "I can not," says Dr. 
WlOAN, " remember to have seen a single in- 
stance of insanity, however slight, and however 
incognizable by any but an experienced medi- 
cal man, where the patient, after relating a short 
history of his complaints, physical, moral, and 
social, could, on trying to repeat the narrative, 
follow the same series. To repeat the same 
words, even with the limited correctness of a 
sane person, is, I believe, always impossible in 
the very mildest ca.se of insanity." This test 
can not be relied on, however, in monoraonia, 
or any of the milder forms of insanity. 

Ilch. — It matters but little with the sufferer 
whether the itch proceeds from the presence 
of parasites beneath the scarf skin, or from an 
irritated or deranged liver — relief is what is 
wanted. To cure the itch in two hours, take 
of flour of sulphur three ounces, quicklime five 
ounces, water two pints; boil them together, 
and when they have perfectly combined, allow 
the liquid to cool, and decant them into her- 
metically-stopped bottles. Three and a half 
ounces is sufiieient to effect a cure. The patient 



is first well rubbed all over with soft soap for 
half an hour, and placed in a bath of tepid 
water for another half hour. He is then rub- 
bed over with the solution of sulphuret of cal- 
cium, which is allowed to dry on the skin for 
a quarter of an hour. The operation is com- 
pleted by washing in the bath. 

Another recommends to wash twice a day 
with strong soft soap; it will usually cure; if 
not, after washing as above, apply an ointment 
every night composed of two oimces of lard, 
half an ounce of sulphur, and qunrter of an 
ounce of salts of tartar, well mixed. Or, mix 
together two ounces each of lard and flour of 
sulphur, two drams each of white hellebore 
and sal-tartar, and twenty drops of oil of lemon. 
A single application of petroleum all over the 
body will generally cure. When the itch pro- 
ceeds from a disordered liver, the diet should 
be rectified, using coarse, unbolted farinaceous 
food, with fruits and vegetables, abjuring pork, 
grease, and hard water, using but little salt. 

A han<lful of gunpowder, a gill each of whisky 
and spirits of turpentine, thickened with sul- 
phur to the consistency of ordinary salve or 
ointment. Before commencing its use take a 
dose of sulphur every night for a week. Three 
or four applications are usually sufficient to 
cure the Western or prairie itch. 

Jaundice. — A decoction of dandelion root is 
an excellent remedy. Or, a table-spoonful of 
castile soap made fine, and mixed with new 
milk, and taken two or three limes a day. Or, 
boil carrots thoroughly, drink the water in 
which they are cooked, and eat the carrots, so 
long as there may seem to be a necessity for 
continuing it. Or, a strong bitters made of the 
leaves, or bark of the root of the peach tree, 
taken in moderate doses three or four times a 
day. A strong decoction of bonesetor thorough- 
wort, drinking two tea-cupsful at a time, once a 
day for a week or two; and the inner bark of 
barberry, steeped in cider is also excellent. 

Kidney Infiammation. — Induce perspiration 
by first giving an emetic slowly, and then apply 
over the region of the kidneys a hot fomenta- 
tion of hops, wormwood, and tan.sy, simmered 
in vinegar and water, thickened with a little 
bran; and use the following drops: Two ounces 
each of sweet spirits of niter and oil of sweet 
almonds, and one ounce of spirits of turpen- 
tine; mix, and give a tea-spoonful in a cup of 
warm spearmint tea every three hours during 
the day; also drink freely a decoction made 
of 'the leaves or root of marsh-mallow and 
muUen leaves, or of either of them, if both can 



746 



FAMILY HEALTH : 



not be procureel. Urinary difficulties proceed- 
ing from disordered kidneys, are treated under 
that head. 

Lightiihig. — The most safe position in an un- 
prutfctcd licuse during a tliuiider storm, is a 
cliair in tlie middle of tlie room with the feet 
on the rounds. VVlien a person has heen struclc 
down by lightning, the body should be drench- 
ed freely with cold water, and do not get dis- 
couraged if animation is not immediately re- 
stored ; continue the drenching tor hours, for 
we have the record of animation being restored 
alter a drenching of several hours. 

Liniments for Mheumatlsm, etc. — -Take one 
ounce each of aqua ammonia, oil of cedar, oil 
of sassafras, spirits of turpentine, oil of hem- 
lock, oil origanum, and gum camphor, and two 
quarts of best alcoliol ; shake thorouglily, and 
apply with a flannel cloth before a hot lire or 
stove. 

Put two ounces of pulverized Spanish flics 
into a pint of alcohol ; after three d;iys infu- 
sion strain otT tlie tincture for external appli- 
cation. 

Four ounces benzine, two of tincture cam- 
phor, and one each of chloroform and tincture 
of opium, and mix well. Apply by wetting a 
cloth or flannel with the liniment, and placing 
it on the afl'ected part; then gently j)ress a 
napkin, folded in several thicknesses, over the 
saturated cloth, as long as the patient can bear 
the burning sensation. It will not blister. 

Take a pint each of brandy and soft soap, a 
little spirits of turpentine, and three large red 
peppers, and boil them down^to about one half 
the original quantity, being careful that the 
fire does not reach over the vessel while boil- 
ing so as to endanger its becoming inflamed. 
This is an excellent liniiuent for rheumatism 
or other pains. 

One pint alcohol, high proof, one ounce of 
oil origanum put into the alcohol and well 
shaken up to cut it thoroughly; then add two 
ounces each of sweet or olive oil, spirits of 
hartshorn and laudanum, each put in sepa- 
rately and well shaken before adding the next ; 
one gill spirits of turpentine, two ounces each 
gum camphor, gum opium, and castile soap 
cut up fine, and a beet's gall. Simmer over a 
slow fire till well incorporated, making nearly 
a quart when bottled. This is a superior arti- 
cle of opodeldoc or liniment. 

One of tiie most powerful liniments for the 
relief of severe pain, is made of equal quanti- 
ties of spirits of hartshorn, sweet oil, and chlo- 
rcform ; dip into this a piece of cotton cloth 



doubled, about the size of a silver dollar, lap 
it on the spot, hold a handkerchief over it so 
as to confine the fumes, and the pain immedi- 
ately disappears. Do not let it remain on over 
a minute. Sli::ke it well before using; keep the 
bottle closely stopped. 

Mix half an ounce each of oil of origanum, 
sweet oil, oil of spike, turpentine, spirits of 
ammonia, brandy, and best alcohol, with a 
quarter of an ounce of gum camphor. 

Take four ounces gum elastic, one ounce each 
of tincture of lobelia, oil of origanum, gum 
camphor cut in alcohol, olive or sweet oil, 
spirits of hartshorn, spirits of turpentine, and 
laudanum, adding a beef's gall if it can be had. 

For a fresh cut or bruise, add to a pint of 
best alcohol one ounce of sal-ammoniac, well 
pulverized ; when dissolved saturate a linen 
cloth and place it upon the wound, rewetting 
it as often as it gets dry. 

An ounce each of sal-ammoniac and gum cam- 
phor, two ounces each of spirits of hartshorn 
and oil of sulphur, half a pint of oil or spirits 
of turpentine, in a pint of alcohol, well mixed. 

To three ounces of alcohol add one-fourth 
of an ounce of cayenne pepper, half an ounce 
each of fine gum gnaiac and gum camphor, let 
it stand a week, and add about half as much 
spirits of turpentine, when it will be ready 
for use. 

Tliree ounces of oil of origanum, four ounces 
of aqua ammonia, two ounces of tincture of 
opium, half a pint of spirits of camphor, and 
alcohol enough with these ingredients to fill 
a quart bottle. 

An ounce of tannin dissolved in an ounce 
of glycerine is an excellent remedy for chaps, 
sores, and excoriations. Equal parts of sweet 
oil, ammonia, and chloroform; or equal parts 
of chloroform and .soap liniment; or equal parts 
of chloroform, extract of camphor, and extract 
laudanum, make supeiior family liniments. 

Oure-AU Liniment. — One pint of strong spirits 
of wine, two drams of alkanet root; let it .stand 
two days, then add one dram of camphor, and 
strain through muslin, then add two drams 
each of opium and spirits of turpentine, and ' 
eight drams of origanum. It is good for cuts, 
fresh wounds, colic, pains in the stomach, etc.; 
for pain in the ear drop it on wool and apply 
it. For internal complaints take twenty or 
thirty drops on sugar. 

Liquid Opodeldoc. — Two ounces castile soap, 
one ounce eacli gum opium and gum camphor, 
all cut fine; one ounce spirits of turpentine, all 
put in a quart of best alcohol. The opiuin 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



747 



sliould be first put in the alcohol, frequently 
shaken up, for a week before adding the other 
ingredients. Tliis makes an excellent strength- 
ening liniment. 

To Make British OH. — Half a pint each of 
spirits of turpentine and linseed oil, Barbadoes 
tar, three ounces; oil of amber, two ounces; oil 
of juniper, half an ounce; mix well together. 

Mi.x two ounces of oil of origanum, one each 
of oil of hemlock, oil of sassafras, and oil of 
wormwood, two ounces each of gum camphor 
and spirits of turpentine, one ounce of tincture 
of cantharides, in a quart of good alcohol. 

An egg well beaten, half a pint of vinegar, 
one ounce of spirits of turpentine, quarter of 
an ounce each of spirits of wine and camphor, 
well incorporated, put into a bottle and shaken 
several minutes, and well corked. Three or 
four thorough applications a day for rheu- 
matism, lumbago, sprains, chilblains, or bites 
of insects. 

Liver Complaint. — Suitable injections should 
be frequently used ; and when the pain in the 
side is severe, apply a plaster made of gum 
ammonia and squills, prepared in vinegar. 
Whatever tends to promote the urine is good 
in this case; half a dram of purified niter, or 
a tea-spoonful of sweet spirits of niter may be 
taken in a cup of the patient's drink, three or 
four times a day. Diet lightly, drinking but- 
termilk freely. 

Another remedy is to make a strong tea or 
syrup of burdock and dandelion root, and use 
it freely; or of dandelion alone, taking a tea- 
cupful twice a day. 

Licer and Spleen Obstructions, etc. — Take the 
leaves, wood, bark, and bark of the roots of 
bitter-sweet, steep out the strength, strain and 
sweelen into a syrup. Use in such doses as 
may seem best for liver and spleen obstructions/ 
jaundice, dropsy, bruises, inward soreness, and 
coagulated blood. 

Luck-Jaw. — The application of beef's gall to 
the wound will prevent lock-jaw. Besides its 
antispasmodic properties, the gall draws from 
the wound any particles of wood, glass, iron, 
or other .substances that may cause irritation, 
when other applications have failed. Or, an 
application of warm lye, made as strong as pos- 
sible, to the wound, either by plunging the 
limb into it, or bathing the part with fiannel 
saturated with the lye. When the jaws are set 
pry them open, or pour down by the side of 
the mouth two parts of the tincture of lobelia 
to one of cayenne, in table-spoonful doses, and 
repeat frequently until relaxation is produced; 



and, in severe cases, give injections of lobelia, 
cayenne, and laudanum. 

Measles. — Mr. Swift, of Detroit, a gentleman 
whose statements the Advertiser asserts may be 
implicitly relied on, says: I wish to make 
known a treatment that will speedily cure and 
keep the nieusles on the surface of the skin until 
the disease turns, and will bring it out when it 
has struck in — though simple, it is sure: Take 
a pint of oats and put them into a tight vessel; 
pour on boiling water, and let it stand a short 
time; then give the decoction to the sick per- 
son to drink. It must be pretty warm. In fif- 
teen minutes yon will see a change for the better. 

Give the patient plenty of cold water; use 
light, liquid food ; wash or sponge occasionally 
with warru water and vinegar to allay the heat 
and itching of the skin. Also, use repeated 
towel baths, with cold water drink. Cold 
boiled rice and mellow uncooked apples have 
cured the measles. When the disease has been 
prevalent, those who take sulphur to purify the 
blood, as in case of the itch, escape it. 

Menses. — To bring on Timely Courses, when 
Obslnicted. — Steep the herb Jerusalem oak, 
known also as worm-seed, and drink it strong 
and freely. Or, use the essence of red cedar ; 
or, elecampane in the form of a strong tea ; or, 
a tea-spoonful of the powdered root of crane's- 
bill in a decoction of water or milk, taken three 
or four times a day. Or, a decoction of the 
common vervain root, taking half a tea-cupful 
three or four times a day. Or, take sixty grains 
each of the extract of dandelion and saltpeter, 
and twenty grains of ipecac, wet with molasses, 
made into common four-grain pills, and use as 
may seem necessary. 

For excessive or immoderate flow of the menses, 
boil conifrey root in milk, and use it. Or, for 
an adult, take twenty drops of laudanum and 
five drops of oil of cinnamon, on loaf sugar, or 
in any other manner, repeated in half an hour 
in severe cases. Or, put two ounces of light- 
colored uiyrrh, made fine, and a fourth of an 
ounce of oil of cinnamon in a pint of good alco- 
hol ; let it stand a few days, sliaking it up fre- 
quently before ready for use. For ait adult, 
take a tea-spoonful three limes a day. It is 
good also for exce-ssive flow of urine. Or, 
isinglass dissolved in hot water, which will 
require four or five .hours, and drank freely. 
A decoction of blackberry root is also an excel- 
lent remedy. 

For bearing down pains, steep the roots of 
raaiden's-hair in hot water, and drink freely 
until relief is obtaiued. 



743 



FAMILY HEALXn I 



How to Extract a Needle- — A needle deeply 
imbedded in the muscles of the hip of a cliild, 
was extracted by passing the positive pole of a 
horse-shoe magnet, highly charged, over one 
extremity of the needle; in a few minutes the 
needle was readily discovered coming nearer 
the surface, and, in less than half an hour, the 
head was drawn through the skin and easily 
removed. 

NervoiLsncss. — I have known, observes a writer 
in the Practical Farmer, many men, and women 
too, who, from various causes, had become so 
aflfected with nervousness, that when they 
stretched' out their hands they shook like aspen 
leaves on windy days — and by a moderate use 
of the blanched foot-stalks of celery leaves as 
a salad, they became as strong and steady in 
limb as other people. I have known others 
60 very nervous that the least annoyance p'ut 
them in a state of agitation, and they were al- 
most in constant perplexity and fear, who were 
also effectually cured by the daily moderate 
use of blanched celery us a salad at meal times. 
I have known others cured, by using celery, for 
palpitation of the heart. Everybody engaged 
in labor weakening to the nerves, should use 
celery daily in season, and onions in its stead 
when not in season. 

Neurahjia. — Dissolve half a dram of finely- 
pulverized sal-ammonia in an ounce of c:unphor 
water — not spirits of camphor — and take a tea- 
Bpooliful at a dose, repeating it several times, 
at intervals of five minutes, if the pain be not 
removed at once. A few minutes is often suffi- 
cient to relieve the worst cases. 

Or, lake two large table-spoonsful of cologne 
and two tea-spoonsful of fine salt; mix theiu 
together in a small bottle; every time you have 
any acute affection of the facial nerve.s, or neu- 
ralgia, simply breathe the fumes iti yonr nose 
from the bottle, and yon will be imiuediately 
relieved. 

The severest cases of neuralgia are sometimes 
removed by painting the parts two or three 
times a day with a mixture composed of half 
an ounce of tincture of iodine and half a dram 
of the lUilphate of morphine. 

Take half an ounce each of sweet oil and 
chloroform, two drams gum camphor, a dram 
and a half of spirits of ammonia, and mix well 
together. 

This di.sease has been cured by combining 
one part of belladonna extract with two parts 
of liog's lard, and rubbing the limb several 
times a dny with it. Gentle purgatives sliould 
be used, with proper diet. 



Obstinate ca.ses of neuralgia, caused by va- 
riations of the weatlier, have been perfectly 
cured by covering all the painful parts with g. 
coating of collodion containing hydrochlorate of 
morphine in the proportion of thirty granmies 
of the former to one of the latter. The relief 
is prompt and permanent, the coating falling 
off of itself in a day or two. 

It is said that the juice of one lemon a day, 
taken in Winter, will cure the most obstinate 
case of neuralgia. No sugar should betaken, 
as it has a tendency to counteract the effects of 
the lemon juice. 

NUjht Sweats. — Drink a gill or more of warm 
water at night in bed just after retiring. Or, 
take twenty drops of elixir vitriol in a little 
water, three times a day, and drink freely of a 
cold infusion of sage. Or, take thirty drops of 
acetic tincture of bloodruot, three times a day. 
A warm sponge bath at night, and a cold one 
on rising in the morning, wiping dry with a 
coarse towel, using considerable friction; or 
bathing the body occasionally with a weak de- 
coction of white-oak bark ; or with vinegar and 
whisky, has been found effective. 

Ointments, Poultices, Plasters, and Salves. — 
Blue or mercurial ointment is thus made : Take 1 . 
one ounce well pulverized resin, pour on enough 1 1 
spirits of turpentine to cut or moisten it; then 
grind down in the mortar ; then add four ounces 
quicksilver, and all well ground down ; then 
melt and add twelve oimces old lard, not hot, I I 
and mix all well together. f 

Elder Ointment is excellent for burns, chapped 
hands, cows' cracked teats, and sores generally: 
Take of lard, the inner bark of sweet elder, and 
the inner bark of bitter-sweet root, equal parts 
in bulk, and two spoonsful of balm of Gilead 
buds ; simmer for half an hour, adding a little 
beeswax and mutton tallow. This is about the 
same as the golden ointment. 

Glycerine Ointment is prepared by any drug- 
gist by simply rubbing a little giyoerine into 
what is called "cold cream," just enough to 
give it a soft, lard-like consistency. It will 
keep a month or two, if well corked. 

Plantain and h6u.se-leek, boiled in cream, 
and strained before it is put away to cool, makes 
a very cooling, soothing ointment; plantain 
leaves alone laid upon a wound are cooling and 
healing. 

White-oak ointment is excellent for sores 
and bruises : Take a peck of the inside bark of 
white oak; boil in two pails of water until the 
strength is extincted ; then remove the bark, 
and add half a pound of fresh butter, and sim- 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



749 



luer tci the coiisisteiii'V of molasses, being careful 
uot to burn it. 

Poultices are indispensable in allaying pain 
and inflammation, and in drawing gatlieringa to 
a bead. Bread, or wbeal flour, boiled in milk, 
mixed witli a small portion of lard, constitutes 
a good suppurative poultice for local inflamma- 
tions. Cuinfrev root, or a fresli beet from the 
j,-rcnleu, bruised, makes a cooling and effective 
jioultice. An application of warm stewed pump- 
kin, renewed every fifteen minutes, is especially 
good for inflammation of tlie bowels. The 
leaves of the common alder possesses great 
potency as a poultice. To prevent mwtijica- 
tion, make a poultice of yeast and ])ulverized 
charcoal, and apply to the part afiected; or, 
bathe with white lye; or put on a gunpowder 
poultice. 

Mustard plasters on the feet, and ice-water 
on the head, with the patient in a warm bed, 
are good for convulsions. By u.sing syrup or 
molasses for mustard plasters, tbey will keep 
soft and flexible, and not dry up and become 
hard, as when mixed with water. A thin paper 
or fine cloth should come between the plaster 
and the skin. The strength of the plaster is 
varied by the addition of more or less flour. 

A good plaster to drive away any old en- 
largement or swelling of the glands, is made by 
mixing equal pans of powdered pokeroot and 
lard; or, lake the fresh root, roast and bruise 
it, and bind it on the swollen part while hot. 

Adhesive or Strengthening Plasters. — Melt to- 
gether one ))ound of resin, two ounces each of 
beeswax and deer or mutton-tallow, and half 
an ounce each of camphor gum and balsam of 
fir; then add half a gill of alcohol, a few drops 
only at a time to prevent burning or running 
over. Then pour the whole into a piail of cold 
water, and work it like shoemaker's wax. Ex- 
cellent for pains in the side, back, etc. Or, 
take two pounds of litharge plaster, and half a 
pound of frankincense, melt together, adding 
three ounces of red oxide of iron, and form it 
into a plaster. Or, take equal parts of Bur- 
gundy pitch and dragon's blood, or gum kino, 
melted together. 

Sulve Recipes. — A mixture of lard and Scotch 
snuQ is very efficacious for fresh wounds. A 
salve for hurts caused by needle."!, pins, etc., 
may be made of rye flour, soap, and molas.«e.s ; 
or the white of an egg beaten up with camphor. 
Sweet mutton tallow is an excellent healing 
salve. 

Take one ounce lard, two ounces white-pine 
turpentine, half an ounce beeswax, half an 



ounce resin, one ounce strained honey, and one- 
fourth ounce gum camphor made fine, when 
melted together, add slowly one ounce lauda- 
num, stirring all the while till cold ; if the 
laudanum were all added at once, it would 
cause the mass to run over. After taking some 
good purifying pill, this salve will cure salt- 
rheum, and other eruptions, or sores. 

Melt together four ounces of white-pine tur- 
pentine, two ounces each of laudanum, lard and 
honey, one ounce each of beeswax and rosin, 
and half an ounce each of gum camphor and 
sugar of lead. A valuable salve is made by 
adding about ten per cent, of phenicor carbolic 
acid to butter or other fatty matter used for 
such purpose. 

The well-known and popular Green Mountain 
Halve is I bus made: To five pounds of resin, and 
four ounces each of beeswax. Burgundy pitch, 
and mutton or deer's tallow ; an ounce each of 
the oils of hemlock, red cedar, and origanum, 
balsam of fir, Venice turpentine, and very finely- 
pulverized verdigris : Melt the resin, beeswax, 
Burgundy pitch, and tallow together, adding 
the oils, having rubbed the verdigris up with 
a little of the oils, and put in the other arti- 
cles ; stir well, and pour into cold water, work- 
ing it like wax until cool enough to form into 
rolls. This is excellent for rheumatism, or 
local pain, or weaknesses. 

Palsy — Paralysis. — Keep the bowels open, 
and take some good nervous pills, and touic 
bitters. Fifteen grains of ergot taken every 
morning, acting, as supposed, upon the spinal 
marrow, has cured the palsy. An infusion of 
the fever-few herb, drank freely, cold, haa 
proved a valuable remedy. 

Piles. — Piles are principally occasioned by 
costiveness and cold, and not unfrcquently by 
sedentary habits, and are too often neglected 
until they become very serious and difficult to 
cure. In the early stages, the whole difficulty 
can be removed by mild cathartics ; but in ad- 
vanced stages, when there is considerable in- 
flammation or bleeding, cold water or astrin- 
gent lotions should be applied ; and, to arrest 
bleeding, continued pressure is more certain. 

For external piles, a good ointment may be 
made of equal parts of lard, sulphur, and 
cream of tartar; or, half an ounce each of 
ointment of galls and stramonium ointment, 
and ten grains of sulphate of morphine, well 
incorporated, and applied night and morning. 

A good bolus for internal piles: Powdered 
caslile soap, one ounce; powdered muriate am- 
monia, one ounce ; powdered jalap.i, one ounce; 



750 



FAMILY HEALTH: 



balsam copaiba, sufficient to make into bolus. 
Insert one every night. 

Two parts of sugar of lead and one of salt- 
peter, ground down with sweet oil, for external 
application. 

Make an ointment of stramonium leaves, or 
of celandine, and apply night and morning ; 
if tlie blind piles, the ointment must be put up 
where tlie complaint is located. Drink tar 
water twice a day, and take a little of the es- 
sence of fir every night on retiring to rest. 
The blind piles are greatly relieved by the ap- 
plication of West India molas.ses. 

Ward's Paste, a celebrated pile remedy, is 
made as follows: Eiglit ounces each of ground 
black pepper and dried elecampane root ground, 
four ounces of [lowdered feimel seed, and one 
pound each of honey and loaf sugar, mixed in 
a mortar to tlie consistence of paste; taking a 
portion as large as a chestnut four or five times 
a day, designed to regulate the bowels and 
strengthen the vessels of the affected parts. It 
is also an excellent preparation to overcome 
costiveness in general. 

Steep a handful of low mallows (from which 
diildren pick and eat the little vegetable mu- 
cilaginous cheese) in about three gills of milk; 
strain it, and mix with it about half the quan- 
tity of molasses. Apply externally, as warm 
as agreeable. 

A clergyman writes to the jl/at»i« Farmerlhat 
lie cured himself from long continued piles by 
taking a tea-spoonful of sulphur every other 
day, mixed with a third of a cup of new milk, 
repealing it a few times. 

Pills, Physic and Blood Purifiers.— For an ex- 
cellent ayue, jaundice, and liver pill, take equal 
parts of pulverized aloes and finely-scraped 
castile soap, mixed with honey, and make into 
common four-grain pills, taking one at a time, 
three times a day, until it acts upon the bow- 
els; then omit three days, and then recom- 
mence, and so alternate till a cure is effected. 

Anti-Bilious Pills. — One ounce each of aloes 
and gum gamboge, and one-eighth of an ounce 
each of cream of tartar and saltpeter, well pul- 
verized and well mixed together; then wet 
with one-fourth of an ounce of essence of pep- 
permint ; if too wet, let the mass remain a few 
days, working it over occasionally. Make into 
a four-grain pill ; from two to four is a common 
portion. A capital article. 

Superior Anti-Bilious Pills. — One ounce of 
aloes, half an ounce each of fine jalap, calomel, 
and gu[u gamboge, and one-fourth ounce of 
gum guaiacum, all made fine and sifted, and 



well mixed in their powdered state; then wet 
.with two drams of as strong essence of pepper- 
'mint as can be cut, and work over properly, 
and make into common four-grain pills. Take 
ifrom two to four for an adult, an hour before 
breakfast, or at night before retiring; in case 
of a violent fever, continue taking them for 
three or four nights. To be worked off by 
.water gruel. 

I These are invaluable pills to break up fevers 
and ague and fever. When ceasing to take the 
pills, in cases of fever, or ague and fever, take 
two grains of quinine every two hours till the 
fever is broken; then continue to take the same 
quantity of quinine, but only three times a day, 
for a week; then two grains a day for awhile — 
this to strengthen the system, and prevent a 
relapse. It may be taken in sweetened liquor. 
, The quinine produces perspiration, which 
breaks the fever ; it may be aided, if thought 
best, by herb drinks, warm foot bath.s, and 
! body washing. 

Draper's Anil-Bilious Pills. — One ounce of 
gum aloes, half an ounce each of gum gam- 
boge, jalap, calomel, gum guaiacum, and salt- 
peter, all made fine, well mixed and wet with 
'one-fourth of an ounce of essence of pepper- 
|mint or cinnamon, or a strong tincture of cam- 
phor, and made into common four-grain pills. 
Dose — from two to four ior an ailult. 

Blood Purifying Pills.— Take sixty grains of 
the extract of dandelion ; if the dandelion 
should from cold or other cause be hard, hold 
it to the fire and mildly warm it; then add 
sixty grains of finely-pulverized and sifted salt- 
peter, and work it in thoroughly with the hands. 
Then lay it aside for twenty-four hours; hold 
it to the fire to soften, and again thoroughly 
work it, and add twenty grains of pulverized 
colocynth, or bitter apple, well worked in the 
same as the saltpeter. Make into thirty-five or 
forty pills; take one at a lime three times a day 
an hour before breakfast and dinner, and just 
before retiring for the night. If too relaxing, 
lessen the quantity ; but one or more should be 
taken each day till the system is thoroughly 
cleansed. 

For those who prefer to take their medicine 
in liquid form, put the above three articles in ii 
bottle, with about thirty-five tea-spoonsful of 
alcohol, or good whisky; let it stand a week 
before the strength will be sufficiently extracted 
for use. A dose— a tea-spoonful three times a 
day, taken as above; but if the articles are not 
properly cut and dissolved, double the quanlily 
of alcohol, and, of course, double the dose. 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



751 



Dr. Sappinglon's Celebrated Anti-Ferer Pills. — 
Sulphate of quinine, forty grains; gum myrrh, 
ten grains; liquorice, thirty grains; well mixed; 
moisten with a little water, and add just enough 
of the oil of sassafras to impart an agreeable 
odor. Divide into forty pills; one for a dose, 
to be repeated every one or two hours, or 
longer, to suit the case. 

These pills, for fever, are the result of nearly 
fifty years' experience, and are based on the 
theory that tonics, and not irritants, are what 
is required in cases of fever; and that quinine 
is really a tonic, and not a stimulant. 

Hooper's Female Pills.— Take of aloes eight 
ounces, sulphate of iron (copperas) dried, two 
and a quarter ounces, canella, ginger, castile 
soap, each one ounce, uiyrrh, extract of black 
hellebore, each two ounces. Powder the dry 
articles and beat the whole into a mass with 
syrup, and divide into pills of two and a half 
grains each. Dose — three to four pills. 

Liver J'ills^^Ta.ke of cayenne pepper half a 
dram, fifteen grains each of bloodroot and ip- 
ecac, each to be pulverized, and all well mi.xed 
with from thirty to sixty grains of the extract 
of dandelion, and fifteen grains of the extract of 
mandrake or May-apple, together with ten or 
fifteen drops of the oil of anise cut in a dram 
of alcohol, seven ounces of wine or good whisky, 
or three and a half ounces of alcohol. Then 
form the compound into pill mass, and roll it 
into forty-eight pills, prom two to four pills 
are an active cathartic, while one pill every 
night on retiring will be found a most excellent 
corrective of the liver. This quantity may be 
put into forty-eight tea-spoonsful of currant or 
grape wine, and taken in the liqnid form, a lea- 
epounful equaling one pill. 

Anti-yervons Pills. — Take fifteen grains each 
of valerianate of zinc, pulverized loaf sugar, and 
gum arabic made fine, wet with a few drops of 
Witter and mixed well together. Leave it in 
pill mass for a day or two to become properly 
incorporated, and then roll in flour and make 
into pills. Take one or two pills at a time, and 
three or four tin\es a day, to quiet the nerves 
and produce sleep. 

Another superior anti-nervous pill, very use- 
ful in bad dyspepsia, nervous headache, sleep- 
lessness, confusion of thought, and palpitation 
of the heart, is thus made : Take thirty grains of 
alcoliolic extract of Ignatia amara or St. Igna- 
tius bean, and ten grains of powdered gum 
arabic; make into forty pills; one pill to be 
taken an hour before breakfast and one an hour 



before retiring at night — only half a pill for the 
young, the aged, and the delicate. 

Purgative and Tonic Pills. — Take extract of 
colocynth three grains, extract of hyoscyamus 
one grain, sulphate ferri one grain, and extract 
of jalap one grain, worked together and m.ade 
into pills of proper size. 

A Mild Pliysic Cordial. — Two ounces pounded 
liquorice root and one ounce anise-seed steeped 
half a day; half a pint of liquid when done. 
Strain ajid bottle it while hot; then add an 
ounce of pulverized rhubarb, shaking the whole 
well. Next day add half a pint of some good 
distilled liquor. A dose from two to eight 
tea-spoonsful. 

Or, cut one dram of oil of anise in two 
ounces good alcohol, and add one ounce of rhu- 
barb and two ounces of liquorice root or stick, 
steeped in water, reduced to half a pint when 
done; then strain, and add half a pint of good 
brandy or whisky. 

A Mild Physic for Fevers. — Equal proportions 
of rhubarb, senna, liquorice root or stick, and 
anise-seed, steeped in water until strong, and 
strained; and give a tea-spoonful or more once 
an hour until it operates. 

Hull's Physic. — Take of myrrh, cinnamon, 
mace, cloves, safl'ron, ginger, each one ounce, 
aloes eight ounces, sal-niter two ounces; pow- 
der, mix, and sift. Dose — half dram. (Jood 
in colic, etc. 

..•in Excellent Purgative. — Small doses of salts, 
in a tumbler of cold water, sweetened with 
syrups, are excellent purgatives in many cases. 

Stood Piirijicr. — A decoction of the flowers of 
the common alder, or the bark of the roots 
boiled in cider, taking a tea-cupful every hour 
or two until it moves the bowels, and then less, 
is an excellent blood purifier. 

Or, make a decoction of equal parts of the 
roots of blue flag, burdock, and yellow dock, 
and of sassafras, dogwood, and black or tag 
elder bark, and drink it once or twice a day. 

Or, take two ounces each of yellow dock and 
yellow parilla root, and one ounce each of poke 
and blue-flag root, bruise and put them into a 
quart of whisky ; shake up repeatedly tor three 
days. Dose — two tea-spoonsful three times a 
day. 

Physic for Children. — Mild cathartics only 
should be given to children, such as cold-pressed 
castor oil, rhubarb, and magnesia. Herb teas 
aid nature in her eflforts. Syrup of ipecac is 
excellent for colds, coughs, or stoppages of the 
respiratory organs. 



752 



FAMILY HEALTH: 



Rhubarb and Magnesia for Children. — Mix 
one drain of pondered rhubarb witli two drams 
of carbonate of magnesia, and balf a dram of 
ginger. Dose — from fifteen grains to one dram. 

Cumpimad Suda Physic fur Children. — Mix one 
dram of calomel, five drams of sesquicarbonate 
of soda, and ten drams of compound clialk ; 
powder togetlier. Dose — five grains; a mild 
purgative for cliildren during teething. 

Pleurisy. — Give tea-spoonful doses of equal 
parts of tincture of lobelia and Thomson's 
No. 6, or tincture of cayenne in place of the 
latter, repeated every ten minutes until four or 
five doses are taken- ten to fifteen drops of 
laudanum may be added to each of the first 
three doses. Bathe the feet, and drink warm 
tea — the best is made of equal parts of pleuri.sy 
root, boneset, and blood root; and prepare the 
pysteui for a thorough emetic of lobelia and 
ipecac, given in connection with the above tea. 
Put about the patient in bed bottles of hot water 
or hot brick or stone, and apply a mustard 
plaster over the seat of the inflammation. Con- 
tinue the tea, giving occasional doses of the 
tincture compound, keeping up the sweating, if 
po.«sible, for twelve hours, and then give a 
cathartic. The treatment of chronic pleurisy 
should be milder — a mild emetic about once a 
week, in broken doses, occupying fully an hour; 
bathing the lower extremities in lye, or salt 
water, or alternating them, daily, with faithful 
rubbing. Then apply a plaster made of Bur- 
gundy pitch, resin, and beeswax, melted to- 
gether, stirring in a little finely -pulverized 
bloodroot, May-apple root, and poke root; and 
repeating it for weeks perhaps until pustules 
are produced. 

Pimples, Styes, and Eruptimis. — Touch them, 
in their first stages, with spirits of turpentine 
every six hours. Or, dilute corrosive sublimate 
with the oil of almonds, and apply to the face 
occasionally for a few days. 

Poisons. — Poisons are introduced into the 
system by various means. They are often con- 
cealed in food by the ignorant cook or house- 
keeper, and as ignorantly partaken of by her- 
self and others. Pickles are often poisoned 
by being scalded in brass or copper kettles; it 
makes them look green, but that greenness ren- 
ders them poisonous. Brass or copper vessels 
ought not to be used for any purpo.sc, unless 
they are previously scoured very bright; it is 
better for health to avoid their use for cook- 
ing purposes altogether. Brass waali-dislies 
ought never to be used ; they cause sore eyes, 
eruptions, etc. Water is poisoned by being con- 



veyed in lead pipes, or .standing in pails painted 
in the inside. Milk is poisoned by using such 
pails for milking. Cheese is often poisoned in 
the same way, and by using, in manufacture, 
brass, copper, or wooden tubes painted inside. 
Ignorance often places a deadly weapon in 
our choicest articles of food, but selfisline3.i 
often conceals a greater. It manufactures and 
commends poison for others in many temptingly 
disguised forms. Candies, toys and cakes are 
ornamented or colored with various poisons. 
The blending of colors in various ways, in can- 
dies or cakes, makes them attr.active to the eye, 
but destructive to the health of those who use 
them. Cakes, ornamented with colored dust, 
candies colored in such nice style, toys so highly 
attractive to children, caii.se decayed teeth, 
canker, intestinal inflammation, nauseating 
headache, colic, spasms and often convulsions. 
Confectionery may be prepared without color- 
ing material, so as to be wholesome. Gay 
colors are made of poisonous materials, that 
ought never to be introduced into food or 
drinks. 

Wall paper ornamented with beautiful green, 
pretty yellow and lively red, often diffuses 
through sleeping and sitting-rooms an atmos- 
phere impregnated with a poisonous vapor that 
causes headache, nausea, diyne.«s of the mouth 
and throat, cough, depression of spirits, pros- 
tration of strength, nervous affections, boils, 
watery swellings of the lace, cutaneous affec- 
tions, and inflammations of the eyes. These 
occur in more serious t'orms in apartments that 
are not constantly and thoroughly ventilated. 
Poisons are either "corrosive," such as kill 
or destroy the texture of the part; or, "con- 
stitutional," affecting the sy.stem through the 
nerves and blood-vessels. Mineral and acid 
poisons, as lead, copper, arsenic, oxalic acid, 
aqua fortis, and the like, kill the living parts 
on the instant of touching, and death speedily 
results from inflammation, s^vtUing, and morti- 
fication. Alcohol, opium, prussic acid, strych- 
nine, and the like, are constitutional, and affect 
the system through the nerves and blood-ves- 
sels. There are, besides the gases, over sixty 
solid substances in nature which destroy life in 
a day, an hour, a minute. 

An antidote is that which instantly renders 
a poison innocuous by removal, or chemical 
combination. For corrosive poisons, such as 
mineral and acid, indicated certainly by the 
patient carrying the hand to the throat, swallow 
instantly two gills or more of sweet oil, train 
oil, melted butter, or any other simple oil or 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



753 



giense first at liand. This soothes, protects, 
and vomits. Or take magnesia, powdered clialk, 
soap, or saleratvis, in water. As to the consti 
tutioiial poisons, give instantly a heaping tea- 
.spoonlul each of salt and mustard, stirred 
quickly in a glass of cool or warm water. This 
usually causes instantaneous vomiting; if not, 
repeat till it does. As soon as the vomiting 
ceases, as there may be some of the poison left 
in the stomach, swallow the white of an egg or 
two; and to make assurance doubly sure, drink 
freely of very strong coffee. The egg is the 
best for corrosive poisons ; the coffee for the 
constitutional. Coffee is the antidote for a 
larger number of poisons than any other sub- 
stance in nature. 

Sliced onion, in a raw state, will collect and 
draw poison from the human system, wlien 
taken internally; or externally applied to the 
arm-pits, and frequently renewed. 

Cyanide of potassium, extensively used in 
electro-plating and other jjrocesses, sometimes 
produces painful ulcers on the hands of those 
who use it. The most effectual remedy for 
which is the protosulphate of iron, in fine 
powder, thoroughly mixed with raw linseed 
oil, and applied to the parts affected. 

Poisonous Bites. — The treatment for hydro- 
phobia has been already fully considered. In 
hirge numbers of well-attested cases in our 
country, the poison from the bite of rabid dogs 
and rattlesnakes, has been completely extracted 
by the application of the mad-stone — a porous 
stone, resembling the piece of lava used by 
painters. This stone, applied to the wound, 
adheres firmly; after two or three hours, it is 
taken off, soaked in warm water to divest it of 
the poison it has absorbed, and thus applied 
till the virus is entirely extracted, when it will 
cease to adhere, and the greenish poisonous 
matter no longer appear on the water. It is 
idle to ridicule the successful effects of this sim- 
ple remedy of na|»jre. Whether cupping, or 
some other powerful drawing remedies may not 
produce the same results, should be faithfully 
tested, as some substitute for the mad-stone, 
accessible to all, is greatly needed. Mrs. Tay- 
lor, of Terre Haute, and .Joseph Baugh, 
near Blooiiiington, Indiana, possess mad-stones 
which have for many years cured every case in 
which they have been used. A quarry of mad- 
stone is said to have been recently discovered 
by Rev. E. T. Eitcher, on his farm, a few 
miles from Indianapoli.s. 

Snake Bites. — Several years ago the Smith- 
sonian Institute commenced a serie.s of experi- 
48 



ments, testing the practicability of neutralizing 
the poison of snakes, founded purely on a 
chemical basis, which developed great results. 
The fact was illustrated that the poison of the 
most venomous rattlesnake can be neutralized 
in an incredibly short time. After the most 
extraordinary results from all the experiments 
witnessed, there was promulgated from the In- 
stitute, at the time above mentioned, the follow- 
ing simple but certain cure for snake bites, and 
for the sting of all kinds of insects: Thirty 
grains of iodide of potassium, thirty grains of 
iodine, one ounce of water; applied externally 
to the wound by saturating lint or batting — the 
bite to be kept moist with the antidote until 
the cure is effected, which will be in one hour, 
and sometimes instantly. The limb bitten 
should be corded light to prevent circulation. 
The liquid should be kept in a phial with a 
glass stopper. 

Use whisky or other liquor freely until intox- 
ication is produced — it is a certain neutralizer 
of the poison, and is coming into general use 
for this purpose by the intelligent and observ- 
ant practitioners of medicine. A bottle of 
whisky, mouth downward, has been applied to 
a poisonous snake bite; the whisky gradually 
becomes darker and the discoloration round the 
bite diminished, until at last the whole of the 
poi.son appeared to have been absorbed by the 
spirit. Sweet or olive oil is a reliable remedy, 
taking a table-spoonful of it internally, and 
bathing the wound with it. 

The universal remedy in the reptile country 
of Bombay for snake bites is liquor ammotiice 
fortior, or strong solution of ammonia: Doses, 
for an adult, thirty-five drops in a wine-glass 
of water; eight to twelve years old, about half 
the quantity of ammonia and water; four to 
eight years old, ten to fifteen drops in a fourth 
of a wine-glass of water. This is as.serted to be 
a cure for hydrophobia in its worst form. 

One table-spoonful each of gunpowder and 
salt, and the yolk of an egg, all beaten together, 
nd applied as a plaster to the wound. A yel- 
low water will issue; and when the plaster 
becomes soaked with the poison it will drop 
off; when it should be renewed, and so con- 
tinued till it will adiiere a long time — evidence 
that the poison has all been drawn from the 
wound. 

An Indian remedy is to pound up sweet-flag 
roo* and apply it in its green .state as a poultice; 
if dry, boil it in chamber lye, and rejjeat the 
application; it is cooling and 'drawing, and re- 
garded as a certain remedy. Or, use a poultice 



rs-t 



FAMILY health: 



of blue clay and gunpowder, wet with clianiher 
]ye, and repeat. 

A strong decoction of wliitc-:isli leaves, taken 
internally, and also applied to the wonnd, is 
represented as an antidote to the bite of a rattle- 
pnake. Tlie application of cold water as a 
douche, or the wet sheet so as to produce con- 
siderable sweating, has proved successful. 

For Bee-Slings, Spider-Biles, and Ivy Poison, 
bathe (he parts with sweet oil ; or hartshorn or 
turpentine; or wet the wound, and bind on salt 
alone, or mixed with the yolk of an egg; or 
bind sliced onions over tlie spot; or wash with 
a strong decoction of white-oak bark. 

Pohjpits. — Polypus, a fungus growth of the 
nose, is readily cured when small by the use of 
finely-powdered bloodroot as a snuff, and mixed 
witli water and used as a nose gargle. Or, use 
a snuff composed of equal parts of finely-pulver- 
ized bayberry bark and May-apple root, and as 
much as both of these of bloodroot. The snuff 
may be alternated, every few days, with the fol- 
lowing treatment: Dissolve two drams of sul- 
phate of zinc in two ounces of tincture of 
bloodroot, and with it saturate lint or cotton, 
and placing it upon the polypus, and plug up 
that nostril with cotton so as to keep the lint in 
its place. 

For Prickly Heat in Children. — For a cooling 
drink, take a little lemon juice, or acid dis- 
solved in gum arabic solution, in water properly 
sweetened to apply rye flour to the skin, and 
keep the child from exercising during the heat 
of the day, is an effectual treatment. 

Quinsy and Sore Throat. — For quinsy make a 
strong decoction from smartweed, and drink it 
freely, applying the steeped herbs to the neck, 
and leaving them on all night. Or, first take 
an emetic, drinking warm sage tea to aid it; 
and boil a handful each of hops, wormwood, 
sage, boneset, hoarhound, and catnip, or as 
many of them as can be had; put the whole in 
a coffee-pot, and inhale the vapor as warm as it 
can be borne. Use for external application a 
liniment made of one ounce each of oils of 
sa.ssafras, hemlock, pennyroyal, and sweet oil, 
spirits of hartshorn, spirits of camphor, spirits 
of turpentine, and tincture of cayenne — bathing 
the neck and throat frequently, keeping the 
neck meanwhile well bandaged with flannel. 
The oil of hemlock alone is an excellent appli- 
cation. 

For sore throat, dissolve a table-spoonful "tif 
salt in half a tumbler of water, and use it as a 
gargle. Or, take twenty drops of spirits of 
turpentine on loaf sugar every night, till cured; 



black currant jelly will hasten the cure. Or, 
mix a penny's worth of pounded camphor with 
a wine-glass of brandy; pour a small quantity 
on a lump of sugar, and allow it to dissolve in 
the mouth every hour. Or, use as a gargle a 
tea-spoonful of chlorate of potash in a tumbler 
of water. Or, put two table-spoonsful of ashes 
in one pint of boiling water, to which, after 
being strained, add two tea-spoonsful of table 
salt, a piece of alum, and one of saltpeter, each 
the size of a nutmeg, the juice of three limes, or 
a little vinegar or orange juice, all sweetened 
with honey, and when cold, gargle the throat 
every three liours. Or, take one ounce of 
water, two drams each of gum arabic and white 
sugar, one dram of iodide of potash, and half a 
dram of iodine; mix, and keep in a phial with 
a glass stopper. This wash is to be applied to 
the back part of the throat, the tonsils and root 
of the tongue, with a camel's hair brush, tho 
tongue being depressed with a spoon handle or 
other suitable instrument. , 

Rheumatism. — Among the liniment recipes 
already given, are several especially efficacious 
in rheumatic affections. Diet not unfrequently 
has quite as much to do as exposure in producing 
rheumatism. One man in Oliio who liad been 
subject to this complaint for several years, left 
off the use of pork, and the rheumatism sub- 
sided; but recommencing its use, his old com- 
plaint returned to vex him. 

Two table-spoonsful of castor oil, and one 
tea-spoonful of spirits of turpentine; heat 
these together, then rub hard the part affected 
with a piece of flannel saturated with the mi.x- 
ture; and bind on the flannel upon retiring to 
bed well saturated with the warm preparation. 

Dissolve one ounce gum guaiac in a pint of 
strong brandy or alcohol, and take a table- 
spoonful morning, noon, and night, and bathe 
the affected parts with alcohol, or some good 
liniment. 

Take twenty to thirty dRips of the tinct- 
ure of gum guaiac in sweet cream or milk, 
increasing the quantity as the patient can bear 
it. This will restore the sluggish action of the 
blood in cases of rheumatism or palpitation of 
the heart. 

Put one grain of iodine in a gallon of water, 
and drink two pints daily of this iodine water; 
and stay an hour daily in a hot-salt bath, at 
one hundred degrees; using some mild cathar- 
tic to move the bowels. 

Boil a small pot full of potatoes, and bathe 
the parts affected with the water in which the 
potatoes were boiled, as hot as it can be applied 



TREATMENT OP DISEASES. 



755 



immediately before going tri bed. The pains 
will be removed or greatly allevialed by next 
moniing. A poultice of finely-grated raw poke- 
root has proved highly efficacious. 

Kheuiiiatic Drops, or Thomsonian No. 6, a 
.stimulant and tonic, and an excellent remedy 
for rheumatism, bruise.^, hemorrhage, wounds, 
sores, and strains, is thus made: Take gum 
myrrh, one pound : golden seal, four ounces ; 
African cayeniie, one ounce; put these into a 
jug with two quafts best brandy; shake several 
times a day for eight or ten days, when it is fit 
for use. Dose — from one to two tea-spoonsful 
in warm water. 

Take of pulverized colchicum from five to 
eight grains every hour until it produces vom- 
iting, purging, or perspiration. When nausea 
takes place, give a piece of sugar wet witli 
liranily or cologne; and, when the stomach will 
bear it, a cup of warm tea, and let the patient 
.sleep. The colchicum should be very finely 
pulverized, and preserved by mixing it with 
three times the quantity of pulverized loaf 
sugar. 

For inflammatory rheumativn, take one ounce 
each of sulphur and saltpeter, lialf an ounce of 
gum guaiac, and one-fuurth of an ounce each of 
colchicum root and nutmegs, each well pulver- 
ized, and all mi.xed in good syrup or molasses. 
Take one tea-spoonful three times a day; In 
severe cases an adult luaj' take two tea-spoonsful 
at a time. It should be well shaken each lime 
before taking. Also bathe the parts affected 
with half an ounce of pulverized saltpeter in 
half a pint of sweet oil. Or, make a poultice 
of stewed pumpkin, apply it warm to the af- 
fected part, renewing it every fifteen minutes, 
until a cure is produced, which is ordinarily 
in a short time. The fever drawn out by the 
poultice makes it extremely ofifensive when 
taken off. 

Lemon juice is recommended as a frequent 
cure for acute rheumatism. It is given in quan- 
tities of a table-spoonful to twice the quantity 
of cold water, with sugar, every hour. The 
e0'ect of the lemon juice was almost instantane- 
ous in one case mentioned ; in ten days the 
worst case was cured, and in seven the other 
was able to go out, and there was a flexibility 
of the joints of the cured, quite unusual in 
recovery after other modes of treatment. Acute 
rheumatism has been cured by taking four or 
five drops of saturated tincture of aconite. 

The water-cure treatment for rheumatism is 
the use of the rubbing wet sheet; the douche 
ap[ilied to the spine and parts aflectcd ; daily 



tepid bath; occasional wet-sheet packs; a wet 
bandage applied to the diseased parts, with 
plain and simple diet. 

Rickets. — Should be treated in the main as a 
case of scrofula. If proper treatment is com- 
menced early, deformity may be prevented. 
Wash twice a day with salt and water, com- 
mencing with the water slightly warm, and 
gradually using it colder, until quite cold ; ap- 
ply stimulating liniments to the spine and 
joints once or twice a day. Occasionally bathe 
the surface with astringent tonics, as a decoc- 
tion of white oak and dogwood bark. Pure air, 
plenty of sunshine, abundant exercise, daily 
ablutions, and a strictly fruit and farinaceous 
diet, are the essentials of the remedial plan. 

Mingu-onn. — Small red rings containing a 
thin acrid fluid, which sometimes itch intoler- 
ably Wa.sh the affected parts with .soap and 
water, and apply mercurial ointment. Or, boil 
tobacco leaves well, adding vinegar and strong 
lye to tlie liquor, and with it wash the affected 
parts. Or, anoint several times a day with 
castor oil. Balsam of Peru, melted with an 
equal quantity of tallow, makes an excellent 
ointment for ringworm and scaldhead. By 
adding half an ounce each of tincture of blood- 
root, tincture of lobelia, tincture of stramonium^ 
seeds, and oil of cedar, an infallible remedy 
for ringworm and tetter is provided. Apply 
wet gunpowder on the ringworm on retiring 
at night. 

Scaldhead. — A di-sease principally confined 
to children. Pills, sulphur, or blood purifying 
sj'rups are necessary ; wash the head daily in 
tepid water — about seventy-five degrees, and 
give a hot and cold foot bath at bed-time, with 
a coarse and opening diet. .\ good ointment 
is sometimes applied with advantage; but the 
scalp should not be combed so as to wound it, 
and cause it to bleed. 

Scurf on the Head of Infants. — A simple and 
effectual remedy. Into a pint of water drop a 
lump of fresh quicklime the size of a walnut ; 
let it stand all night, then pour the water oft' 
clear from tlie sediment or deposit, add a quar- 
ter of a pint of the best vinegar, and wash the 
head with the mixture. Perfectly harmless ; 
only wet the roots of the hair. Or, rub to- 
gether two ounces of lard and two drams of 
diluted suliihuric acid, and anoint the head 
twice a day. 

Scrofula or Salt-Rheum. — It proceeds from 
some inherent poison in the system. The blood 
must be purified. An excellent alterative syrup 
for scrofula, and all diseases arising from im- 



756 



FAMILY HEALTH: 



purity ortlie blood, is thus made: Two ounces 
each of yellow dock, yellow parilla, prickly 
ash, burdock, sarsaparilla, wintergreen, blue 
flag, and bitter-sweet. Put all together, in a 
crude state, and steep in three quarts of water 
till evaporated to one, when strained. Now 
add one pint good London dock or Holland 
gin, one ounce extract of dandelion, and one 
ounce of sulphur; sweeten with loaf sugar to 
taste. Dose — a table-spoo^jful three times a 
day before meals. If the bowels be costive, add 
one ounce pulverized rhubarb to the mixture. 

Or, take a handful of common sarsaparilla, 
one-fourth of an ounce of seneca snakeroot, and 
boil slowly in one quart of water, in a clo.sed 
vessel, down to a pint. To this add forty grains 
of calomel. When you begin using it, take 
one-fourth of a wine-glassful night and morn- 
ing, and keep taking the dose that will cause 
three or four stools a day, always shaking the 
bottle well before taking it. If the mouih gets 
sore, stop taking it awhile. Substitute for it 
one day in each week a dose of salts. Drink 
burdock-root tea. Keep clean ; live low, on 
rice, skim milk, etc. Take horseback e.Nercise. 

If a fever attend the case, take some salts 
every day or two, and use the following oint- 
ment : Make a strong decoction of equal parts 
of the bark of the root of the river willow, 
skunk's cabbage, and blue-flag roots; strain, 
and add a portion of lard to it, and boil down 
until the water is all evaporated. When cold, 
it is ready for use. 

Or, put one grain of iodine to a gallon of 
water, and drink four half-pint glasses of the 
iodine water before breakfast ; take a warm salt 
bath, at ninety degrees, daily ; and if the pulse 
is hard, use antinionial wine at night. 

The late Nicholas Longwokth, of Cincin- 
nati, tested the following remedy for scrofula 
so thoroughly, that he caused the recipe to be 
printed, and sent to all who desired it: Put 
one ounce of aqua fortis in a bowl or saucer, 
drop into it a piece or pieces of copper the size 
of two copper cents, which will produce efl'er- 
vescence; when the effervescence ceases, add 
two ounces of strong vinegar. The fluid will 
be a dark green color. Wash the sore with 
water, and then apply this liquid to it, morning 
and evening, with a soft brush or rag. It 
should and will cause the affected part to smart ; 
if too severely, put in a little rainwater. 

The water-cure treatment is designed to draw 
out the poisonous matter from the system 
through every pore, making it palpable upon 
every sheet and bandage. Alternate packings in 



the wet sheet and dry blankets — wet-sheet packs 
an hour or longer, and blanket packs until a full 
perspiration is induced ; each followed by a 
cold-water bath, and bandages night and day ; 
tepid-sitz bath, with a pure diet, and much out- 
door exercise. 

Scurvy. — Use either the juice, or a decoction 
of burdock root — using a wine-glass of thejuice, 
or half a pint of the decoction, three times a 
day. Onions are an infallible cure for this 
disea.se — eaten plentifully. 

Sea-Sickness. — A horizontal position in the 
middle of the ve.ssel, and a tight bandage over 
the abdomen, is an efl'eetual remedy. 

Sleeplessness. — If the cause is known, rectify 
it; if by tea or coffee, or other strong stimu- 
lants, cease their use, at night especially. Care 
should be taken, not to go to bed with cold feet 
or stomach long empty. Many devices for in- 
ducing somnolence have been practiced with 
moi'e or less success ; one of these is combing 
the hair, which has a very soothing effect on 
some persons. Another is to have the feet 
gently shampooed. Walking about the bed- 
room in one's night-dress, so as to get what Di". 
Franklin called an air bath, is a good plan ; 
and the cold-water bath just before retiring to 
rest, by virtue of its stimulating action, is often 
successful. In more refractory cases, the warm 
bath may be tried — it acts by withdrawing the 
blood from the brain. On the same principle, 
the upright position, by fav{)riug the return of 
blood from the head, is sometimes useful. It 
is indeed no uncommon tiling to meet people 
who sleep with great facility when sitting in a 
chair, or in a carriage, but who sleep with 
difficulty when lying down in a bed. 

To induce sleep in case of wakefulness in 
fever, apply a tobacco leaf to the scalp ; or, in 
ordinary ca.ses, take a grain or two of camphor 
at bed-time. 

Skin Diseases and F.niptions. — The several 
diseases coming under this general head have 
been treated separately. One of the best exter- 
nal applications, after taking proper purifiers, 
for many eruptive diseases of the skin, is a 
strong decoction of liops, in which, when per- 
fectly cold, the limbs or other affected parts 
should be bathed several times a day. A hot- 
salt bath is one of the most powerful tonics 
which can be employed in the various skin 
diseases so prevalent in new countries. An 
ointment may be made of twenty, forty, or sixty 
grains, as the desired strength may be required, 
of hydriodate of potash, rubbed into a fine pow- 
de", and well mixed with a half ounce each of 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



757 



lard and Bpermaceti. This gently rubbed on 
flie diseased surface several limes a day, will 
aVlay the burning and itching. An o.xcellent 
wa,sh for eruptions is made by taking half an 
ounce of dried, unmanufactured tobacco leaves ; 
pour on a pint of boiling water, and let it stand 
an hour; strain, and add tliirty drop.s of creo- 
sote. With tliis bathe the parts frequently 
during the dny, and lay upon them at night 
cloths or cotton moistened with the infusion. 

Small-Pox. — Early vaccination is strongly ad- 
vised by the best medical men in this country 
and Europe. This subject was reported on by 
an able committee to the French Academy of 
Science, through M. Depaul, stating that the 
researches of the committee tended to show 
that this operation is not more dangerous dur- 
ing the first week of the birth than at the second 
or third month. Delays are dangerous! "If 
all children," continued M. Depaul, "were 
vaccinated within the first two or three days 
after birth, sraall-pox, already rare now in com- 
parison with what it was fortnerly, would, we 
are convinced, completely disappear." 

Dr. Hall, in his Journal of Health, gives the 
following general deductions from extended and 
I'lose observation, in regard to the subject of 
vaccination for small-pox: 

"1. Infantile vaccination is an almost perfect 
safeguard, until the fourteenth year. 

"2. At the beginning of /ottrieen the system 
gradually lo.ses its capability of resistance, until 
about twenty-one, when many persons become 
almost as liable to small-pox as if they had not 
been vaccinated. 

"3. This liability remains in full force until 
about forty-two, when the susceptibility begins 
to decline and continues for seven years to 
grow less and less, becoming extinct at about 
fifty, the period of life when the general revo- 
lution of the body begins to take place, during 
which the system yields to decay or takes a new 
lease of life, for two or three terms of seven 
years each. 

"4. The great practical use to be made of 
these statements is — let every youth be revacci- 
nated on entering fourteen. Let several at- 
tempts be made, so as to be certain of safety. 
As the malady is more liable to prevail in 
cities during Winter, special attention is in- 
vited to the subject at that time." 

Smalt-Pox Bemedies. — The small-pox remedy 
which cured thousands of cases in England, 
taken in all stages of the disease, is so simple 
that it can not be too widely disseminated. It 
is, cream of tartar, three-quarters of an ounce; 



rhubarb, thirteen grains; cold water, one pint. 
In severe ca.ses, a half a pint dose should be 
administered; and a less quantity in milder 
cases, orfor Children. The mixture should be 
well stirred, or shaken, immediately before ad- 
ministering it. When applied in the earliest 
stage of the eruption, the eruption is arrested, 
and suppuration prevented, without any injuri- 
ous result. In cases characterized by delirium, 
great benefit has been obtained by applying a 
bottle of hot water to the feet. Plenty of fresh 
air is important, and an out-door airing, at the 
earliest period jiracticable, is recommended. 

Another remedy, highly recommended by a 
member of the Royal College of Surgeons of 
England, and promulgated by the most scien- 
tific school of medicine in the world — that of 
Paris — and which has been successfully tested 
in California, by curing cases so far gone that 
the physicians said they must die; and also in 
promptly curing cases of scarlet fever: One 
grain each of sulphate of zince (better known 
as white vitriol) and powdered fox glove, or 
digitalis (valuable in the ratio of its green 
color — the dark should be rejected ) ; the.se 
should be thoroughly rubbed in a mortar or 
other vessel, with a few drops of water. When 
well incorporated, add four ounces of water, 
with some syrup or sugar. Dose — a table- 
spoonful to an adult, and two tea-spoonsful to 
a child, every second hour, until the symptoms 
disappear, which is n.sually in twelve hours. 
The herb, by its febrile qualities, lays hold of 
the fever, which it immediately .strangles, while 
tlie zinc acts the part of a tonic, instantly re- 
storing equilibrium. Should the bowels be- 
come constipated in the progress of the disease, 
not a common occurrence, a pill made of a 
dram of the compound powder of jalap and 
one grain of fox glove, mixed with a little 
syrup or sugar, should be given an adult, and 
half that quantity to a child. 

A remedy largely in practice in China, where 
it is esteemed one of the greatest medical dis- 
coveries of modern times, is: When the pre- 
ceding fever is at Its height, and just before the 
eruption appears, rub the chest with croton oil 
and tartaric ointment. This cau.ses the whole 
of the eruption to' appear on that part of the 
body, to the relief of the rest. It also secures 
a full and complete eruption, and thus prevents 
the disease from attacking internal organs. 
This is said to be the established mode of treat- 
ment in the English army in China, and is re- 
garded as a perfect cure. 

It luis been asserted, apparently on good au- 



758 



FAMILY nKALTO: 



tliorily, lli;it in a place wliere hundreds of cases 
iicouricii, tlie following remedy was used as a 
cnnitive, and also, as preventive from taking 
tlie sniall-pox — even those who had never been 
vaccinated exposing tlieniselves to the disease 
with impunity: One ounce of the root of sar- 
rueenia purpurea, familiarly called ladies' sad- 
dle, or water cup, or fly trap; pour over it a 
liint of hot water, and let it steep on the stove 
half an hour; then pour ofT the liquid into a 
bottle, and take a tea-spoonful three times 
daily. The effect is to allay the fever and irri 
tation caused by the formation of postules, the 
latter drying away rapidly, leaving slight, if 
any, ti'aces of the disease. 

Tlie following prescription is vouched for by 
the Easlport (Maine) Sentinel, as a cure for 
the small-pox, corroborated by Dr. W. Fields, 
of Delaware : Give to the patient two table- 
spoousful of hop yeast and water, sweetened 
with molasses', so as to be palatable — equal 
parts of each — threetimes a day. Diet: Boiled 
rice and milk, and toasted bread, moistened 
with water, and without butter. Eat no meat. 
Give catnip lea as often as the patient is thirsty. 
Give physic when necessary. If the above 
treatment is strictly followed, no marks of 
small-pox will remain. 

To Allay Irritation and Pitting in Smalt-Por. 
One of the most remarkable discoveries, made 
by an old resident physician of Cincinnati to 
allay the irritation of small-pox, is to dust 
the patient every few hours with lycopodinm, 
an American and European plant, conuuonly 
called club-moss. Use for the purpose a com- 
mon powder-puff. It will also prevent pitting. 
Solon Robinson and others have strongly re- 
commended to dissolve collodion in alcohol, 
and apply all over the face with a soft brusla, 
making an almost air-tight protection, and pre- 
venting any seals from small-pox; but Dr. 
Christen, of Prague, condemns its use for this 
purpose, as driving the disease within, and 
producing positive injury. To prevent pitting 
it is safest to rely on the yeast and lycopodinm 
remedies. 

Somnambulism. — A person whose son was ad- 
dicted to night-w.ilking in his sleep, placed a 
pail of cold water over the door of the child's 
bedroom, in such a manner that when the door 
opened the somnambulist received its contents 
over his head and shoulders. Ten experinjents 
with this treatment were required, and the boy 
is now entirely broken of his habit. 

Soothing Syrup for Children. — Take simple 
Bvrup, two ounces; half a dram of oil of anise, 



' and one dram of the best alcohol. Mix the ml 
and alcohol, then gradually add the syrup, con- 
tinually rubbing in a clean mortar. 

Or, take syrup of poppies, one ounce; water of 
anise-seed, three ounces; catawba brandy, half 
ounce; mix. This is a most excellent remedy 
for children teething, or belly-ache, so called 
in infants. Dose — a tea-spoonful as required. 
Sore Breast and Kipples. — Avoid all applica- 
tions of a poisonous nature, which, though 
carefully washed off, may yet be imbilied in 
small portions by the sucking infant. Moisten 
the nipples two or three times a day for some 
weeks before suckling, with brandy or whisky, 
slightly acidulated with diluted sulphuric acid. 
Another remedy is, equal parts by weight of 
glycerine and tannin, dissolving the tannin in 
the glycerine, applied to the nipples. Or, ap- 
ply a mixture of warm spirits of turpentine 
and camphor. Or, for sore breasts apply over 
the whole surface an ointment made by sim- 
mering a little of the bark of bitter-sweet, or 
some bruised smart weed, in mutton tallow. 
Or, for sore nipples, pour boiling water on nut- 
galls (or oak bark, if galls can not be obtained) 
and when cold strain it off and bathe the parts 
with it, or dip a cloth in the tea and apply it; 
or, twenty grains of tannin may be dissolved 
in an ounce of water, and applied. The appli- 
cation of a few drops of collodion to the raw 
surface, has been highly recommended by some 
physicians. It forms, when dry, a perfect coat- 
ing over the diseased surface. The balsam of 
fir, applied in small quantities, is excellent for 
the sore nipples of nursing fenuiles. 

Sour Stomach. — Lime water, taken in doses 
of four to five ounces, is a fine corrective for a 
sour stomach. When this fails, use lemon juice 
or muriatic acid, from twenty to forty drops in 
cup of water, three times a day. Purified 
charcoal being an absorbent and remover of 
putrefaction, and operating as a stimulant to { 
the bowels, may be used with advantage in ^ 
cases of sour stomach, attended with costiveness. 
Sprains and Stiff Joints. — In addition to the 
liniment remedies already given, some special 
applications may be mentioned. Fill a small 
bag partly with salt, and quilt it several times 
across to hold the salt in place, bind it upon 
the affected part, keeping it saturated with a 
strong decoction of wormwood and hot vinegar. 
Or, make a liniment or poultice of common | 
salt, sweet milk, and wormwood, applying it 
with a flannel bandage as hot as it can be borne. 
Sun-Slroke. — Dr. James Fischer, of St. 
Louis, recommends that families keep on hand 



TIIEATMEMT OP DISEASES. 



759 



llie following preparation, during the liot Sum- 
mer season, for persons suffering from sun- 
stro";e, or overcome with severe heat, the cost 
of \,-hich would be only about fifty cents: One 
handful of common salt, three ounces of aqua 
ammonia, two ounces of spirits of nitric ellier, 
and one ounce of spirits of camphor. The salt 
should be dissolved in a ijuait bottle about 
three-fourths full of pure rain or river water, 
and the other fagredients added, the wliole well 
shaken together and kept tightly corked. In 
ease of attack the patient should be removed to 
a shady, cool place, and the head bound with 
three or four thicknesses of cloth well saturated 
witli tlie liquid, care being taken to keep it 
from the eyes. The throat and region of the 
heart should also he treated in tlm^ame way, 
and the cloths be wet every ten or lifteen min- 
utes. Tlie limbs should be constantly chafed, 
either liy dry rubbing or with aromatic vinegar, 
and to produce respiration the breast and the 
stomach be alternately pressed. As soon as the 
patient can swallow, every ten or fifteen min- 
utes a quarter of a cup of strong tea or coffee, 
or in default of these, of sugared water, with 
the addition of a small tea-spoonful of acetate 
of ammonia, shouhl be given for an adult, and 
a less quantity of the last to children, say from 
five to fifteen drops, according to age. This 
treatment would save many lives. 

Teethinff. — Children often suffer exceedingly 
during dentition, which is sometimes followed 
by diarrhea, cholera infantum or Summer com- 
plaint, convulsions, and death'. The swollen, 
painful gums, in extreme cases, should be scari- 
fied, some soothing .syrup given, and the bowels 
kept open. With proper food on the part of 
the mother and child, the bowels kept open and 
regular, cleanliness and good nursing generally, 
there is no good reason to doubt its safe passage 
through the period of infancy. 

Tetter. — Corrosive sublimate one grain, castor 
oil one dram, oil of lavender half a dram, alco- 
hol two ounces. This makes a cosmetic lotion 
of great reputation for the cure of tetter and 
other skin eruptions; but care should be used 
in its application, not to let it get into the eyes 
or mouth. Or, an ounce of puccoon root in a 
pint of vinegar, taken in small quantities two 
or three times a day. Or, a solution of chloride 
of lime and spirits of wine, or some other good 
article pf spirits, used as a wash. Among the 
ringworm remedies, an excellent one, equally 
applicable tc tetter, may be found. 

Tonics. — Many of the roor beers combine 
pleasant beverages and invigorating tonics, 



where the ingredients are largely composed of 
wintergreen, wild-cherry bark, spruce, black 
birch, hops, sarsaparilla, dandelion roots, yel- 
low parilla, and other roots and herbs. For 
general debility and chronic weakness, put an 
ounce of carbonate of iron in a pint of black- 
berry wine, and take a table-spoonful three 
times a day before meals. For a good tonic 
bitters, take a handful each of the roots of In- 
dian hemp, bitter root, milkweed, lady-slipper 
root, and prickly-ash bark ; bruise, and add a 
pint of boiling water ; when cold, bottle and add 
a pint of good whisky, and an ounce of carbon- 
ate of iron, and take half a wine-glassful three 
times a day. 

A celebrated tonic, or elixir of life, the re- 
cipe for which was found among the papers of 
Dr. GuiNET, a Swedish physician, who lost hLs 
life at the age of one hundred and four years by 
being thrown from a horse, was thus made: 
One ounce of Socotrine aloes, and one dram 
each of zedoary, gentian, best safi'ron, rhubarb, 
white agaric, and Venice treacle — -reducing 
to powder and sifting the first six ingredients, 
put them into a bottle with the treacle, and 
pour on a pint of brandy ; keep cool and jooist 
to prevent fermentation; after eight or ten days, 
shake the whole well night and morning; next 
morning pour off carefully, as long as it comes 
clear, into another bottle; add half a pint of 
brandy — set it away eight or ten days, when 
filter again, and so repeat till thoroughly clear. 
From a tea-spoonful to a table-spoonful is a 
dose, according to the age or condition of the 
person, for any special disease; but in health, 
and with a view to prolong life, seven or eight 
drops are taken in the morning, and double the 
quantity at night, in wine, lea, or soup. The 
secret of its composition remained in Dr. Gui- 
net's family for several generations — all using 
it daily ; his mother attaining the age of one 
liundred and seven years, his father one hun- 
dred and twelve, and his grandfather one hun- 
dred and thirty years. 

Toothache Beniedies.— Creosote is a danger- 
ous remedy, and should not be used, often con- 
tracting the muscles of the face. Plunging the 
feet in cold water often effects a cure. Mix 
equal quantities of pulverized alum and com- 
mon salt, placing the mixture on a small piece 
of wet cotton, so it will adhere, and put it in 
the hollow tooth. Or, apply pulverized cam- 
phor and cayenne pepper on cotton, to the part 
affected. Or, seven drams of nitrous spirit of 
ether, and two drams of alum reduced to an 
impalpable powder, mixed and applied to the 



rco 



FAMILY UEALTU : 



toolli. Or, the extract of tobacco, in a solution 
of water, rubbed on the lace; or lake a iia[ier 
of cut tobacco, pour upon it a wine-gUiss of 
warm water; squeeze out part of the moisture, 
I'luoe tlie pulp upon a slice of bread, and apply 
it as a plaster to the face. Or, take a lump of 
unslaked lime the size of a hickory nut, and 
slake or dissolve it in about two-thirds of a 
tumbler of water, and hold this lime water in 
the mouth contiguous to the tooth, rejjeating it 
until the pain entirely ceases. A superior arti- 
cle of tooth-ache drops may be thus made: 
Mix three ounces of alcohol, two ounces each 
of laudanum, gum camphor, and tincture of 
cayenne, and one ounce each of tincture of 
iiiyrih, oil of cloves, sulphuric ether, and 
ajiinidtiia. 

Ulcer.t. — If inflamed, should be poulticed with 
slippery-elm bark and water; or, if painful, the 
slippery elm should be mixed with a decoction 
iif bops, and repeated until the inflammation 
sub^iides; then dress with salve. When ulcers 
are of long standing, irritable, and painful, with 
a burning sensation, or when they do not show 
a <lisposiiion to heal, or when the edges are 
covered with a dead white skin or scurf, they 
slionld be penciled on the edges every week or 
ten days with lunar caustic, and then poulticed 
until the inflammation is overcome, when apply 
this salve: Three parts beeswax, two of lard, 
and one each of resin and mutton suet, melted 
and mixed together. Another ointment for 
ulcers and tumors is thus compounded : Two 
ounces of calomel, one ounce of sugar of lead, 
and half an ounce of red precipitate, well mixed 
and rubbed together to a very fine powder; then 
add three to four ounces of melted yellow wax, 
and six ounces of olive oil; mix and stir till 
cool. Such are the curative properties of hops, 
that a strong decoction alone, externally ap- 
plied, cold, several times a day, powdering the 
ulcer with finelj'-pulverized charcoal after each 
bathing, has repeatedly eflected cures of bad 
ulcers. Longwokth's remedy for scrofula 
already given, is equally applicable to ulcers. 

Urinary Difficulties. — For painfulness, heat or 
difiicnlty in discharging urine, or when the 
urine is too highly colored, make ordinary- 
sized pills of equal parts of ox gall and finely- 
])ulverized liquorice root, and take one or two 
every night. Or, steep two ounces of juniper 
berries, and half an ounce of gum arable, add- 
ing some spirits of niter, and take in small 
quantities. Or, use a tea made of the root of 
the common garden parslej-, or of the leaves 
of uva ursi; of either of which from one to 



three pints may be drank daily. An infusion 
or .syrup made from the leaves of buchu is also 
very serviceable in alTcctions of the urinary 
organs. 

The following will be found a very efficacious 
prescription to alleviate the pain and burn- 
ing sensation often experienced in voiding the 
urine: Take balsam copaiba one ounce, sweet 
spirits of niter one ounce, loaf sugar half an 
ounce, powdered gum arabio one ounce, lauda- 
num one dram, peppermint water sufficient to 
make an eight-ounce mixture. A little es.sence 
of peppermint may also be added to cover the 
taste. The doijc for an adull is a lable-spoonl'ul 
tliree times a da_v. 

if the above remedies should fail, take super 
or bicarbonate of soda, as much as will lie on 
a five cent piece, four or five limes a day, dis- 
solved in a qiiantity_of cold water. 

For incnnliiience uf urine, add four or five drops 
of the tincture of Spanish flies to each ounce 
of the above mixture of copaiba, and take from 
one to two sjioonsful of it daily. 

Venereal Disease. — In ordinary cases, cure 
is quite certain by means of strong purifying 
syrup or decoction of May-apple root, blue- 
flag root, and poke root; and if any of the fol- 
lowing can be added, all the better, namely: 
Stillingia, yellow parilla, burdock, and cory- 
dalis formosa, commonly called turkey corn or 
squirrel corn — a handful of each, except some- 
what less of the May-apple; boiling several- 
hours slowly in rain water, until reduced to 
two quarts of strong decoction ; strain and add 
two pounds of white sugar, when boil to dis- 
solve the sugar; when cold, add four drams of 
iodide of potassa, first dissolving it in two 
ounces of water. Dose — two or three table- 
spoonsful two or three times a ekiy ; if acting 
too freely on the bowels, reduce the quantity so 
as to produce not more than two operations 
•daily. If there are ulcers in the throat or 
mouth, touch them occasionally with caustic, 
and wash with a strong decoction of white-oak 
bark, in which has been dissolved some alum 
and borax ; or a wash of a decoction of May- 
apple, blue flag, and poke roots, with a table- 
spoonful of powdered borax dissolved in each 
pint. The body must be kept clean, bathing 
occasionally in a warm bath in which some 
saleratus has been dissolved, or lye added. The 
water-cure treatment advises wet cojnpresses 
unremittingly applied to the afiected parts, fre- 
quent use of the wet-pack sheet, and scanty 
vegetable diet — the hunger-cure being highly 
recommended. 



TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



roi 



Vomiting. — To check stoniacli sickness or 
vomiiing, for an adult, take twenty drops of 
laudanum, and five drops of the oil of cinna- 
mon on loaf sugar, or in any other manner — 
repeat in half an hour in severe cases. Or, a 
hunch of the flowers of the larkspur, or half 
an ounce of the leaves and flowers steeped in 
a pint of boiling water, and given in half-tea- 
spoonful doses, at short intervals, or every half 
hour. 

Whooping Oougk. — While the disease will 
run its course, it can be mitigated. Sometimes 
mild emetics are given, and sometimes opiates 
to allay the severity of the cotigh. Simmer 
together half a tea-cup of lard and a piece of 
gum camphor as large as one's thumb; rub 
this ointment on the stomach. Take the gum 
of asafetida the size of one's thumb, steep in 
water, half a tea-cupful wh-'n done, sweetened 
witli honey or loaf sugar ; take from half to a 
whole tea-spoonful three or four times a day. 
Or, mix a tea-spoonful of castor oil in a table- 
spoonful of molasses; take a tea-spoonful when- 
ever tlie cough is troublesome. Or, place small 
quantities of the carbonate of lime in saucers 
in the room where the child sleeps, merely 
sufficient to make the odor perceptible. The 
odor is like coal tar, and, if not too strong, is 
not unpleasant. 

Wonns in Children. — Peach leaves boiled in 
milk are an excellent remedy; the apples or 
knots growing on cedar trees, eaten, will expel 
worms; honey and milk ; a strong decoction of 
witch-hazel, salt, powdered sage, and molasses, 
taken frequently ; a lump of green copperas 
half the size of a pea, rubbed and dissolved in 
about two table-spoonsful of sweet milk, on 
going to bed, are all regarded as useful vermi- 
fuges. Or, take half an ounce each of Caro- 
lina pink root, Alexandria senna, and manna, 
bruised and mixed together; add a pint of boil- 
ing water, and when cool, sweeten. Dose for 
a child live years old, given only on an empty 
stomach, a wine-glassful three times a day in 
sweet milk. To make worm pills, ethereal ex- 
tract of malefern, thirty drops; extract of dan- 
delion, one dram, with powdered gum enough 
to make thirty pills. Dose — from six to twenty, 
followed by a strong dose of castor oil in half 
an hour. 

The hydropathic treatment for worms is, co- 
pious tepid injections, to cleanse out the viscid 
slimy secretions in which the animals are im- 
bedded, and very plain coarse diet, to remove 
the condition upon wliieli their existence and 
development depends. Unfermented wheat- 



meal bread, and plenty of good apples, are an 
example for a perfect dietary system in the case. 
Kelief is obtained bj- the expulsion of the 
worms; but like all chronic maladies, a cure is 
only to be efl'ected by restoring ln.*althy action 
and secretion. 

For viorm fever in children, steep about three- 
fourths of an ounce of pink, and one-fourth of 
an ounce of senna together; sweeten, and give 
cold to the child during the day, whenever 
thirsty. At night give a small quantity of 
lealomei, enough to cut up the worms, but not 
enough to physic ; and next morning give 
enough of calomel and jalap to physic ofi" 
well, breaking up the fever, and carrying off 
the worms. 

For tape-worm, abstain from all food, except 
to eat the meats of pumpkin-seeds freely, for 
some thirty hours or more, upon which the 
worm seems to gorge, letting go its hold on the 
membrane, and in some measure probably be- 
comes torpid, when a large dose of castor oil is 
administered, and it is ejected. This has been 
repeatedly tried with success ; and lizards and 
other small reptiles, taken into the stomach by 
drinking out of brooks or springs have been 
expelled in the same manner. 

Wounds. — To prevent wounds from mortify- 
ing, sprinkle sugar on them ; the Turks first 
wash fresh wounds with wine, and then sprinkle 
on the sugar. The leaves of the geranium, 
md also of valerian, bruised and applied to 
the wound, are very efficacious. The balm of 
Gilead buds, or marigold flowers, bottled up in 
rum, make an excellent lotion for fresh cuts or 
wounds. 

Hold a freshly cut wound or bad bruise over 
a dish of coals, on which are smoking woolen 

s saturated with lard or sweet oil, or other 
grease — enveloping the limb, if convenient, 
with a blanket, to condense the smoke upon the 
wound, in a few minutes the bleeding will 
cease, coagulating the albumen, and promoting 
the healing. Ulcers and other cutaneous dis- 
eases may be advantageously treated in the 
same way. 

The earth treatment, discovered by the Vicar 
of Fordington, is a new remedy for wounds 
likely to prove of great utility — the natural 
remedial agent of dogs and other dumb brutes. 
At the Pennsylvania Hospital many cases have 
been successfully treated with a simple applica- 
tion of dry earin, under the direction of Dr. 
Addinell Hewson, as given in the New York 
Tribune, in March, 1869, a few of which we 
here append : 



702 



FAMILV HEALTH : 



At the time of its introduction there was 
lying in the ward a patient snflering from a 
very severe compound fracture of the lower 
leg. The wound was in an unliealthy condi- 
tion, and its exudations, amounting to a pint in 
twenty-four hours, were so offensive as to cause 
a siolcening and even dangerous stench, that the 
excellent ventilation of the ward and the usual 
disinfectants were hardly able even to mitigate. 
It occurred to Dr. Hewsojj to teat the power 
of dry earth to absorb this odor, as it had that 
of excrement. The effect was magical. Not 
only was the ofl'ensiveness entirely overcome, 
but the effect on the character of the wound 
itself was such as no previous treatment had 
been able to compass. The suppuration was, 
within a few days, so reduced that the daily 
dressing of a single half pint of earth was not 
even s;ilurated ; the edges of tlie flesh wound 
lost their inflamed character; the intense pain 
of the sore was entirely relieved, and a healthy 
granulation has ensued. 

A railroad brakeman whose hand was, a year 
and a half ago, crushed between the coupling 
heads of two cars, and who has never been free 
from pain, and seldom from intense pain ; whose 
hand from the wrist to the knuckles was a fes- 
tering mass of carious bones and inflamed flesh, 
and whose system had been so reduced that he 
could not have survived the amputation which 
alone can entirely relieve him, is now happy in 
freedom from pain. His flesli wound has taken 
on a healthy character, and his strength is fast 
returning. He even hopes to save his hand, but 
the long-continued decay of the bone makes 
this impossible. 

Within a few days a woman was brought to 
the hospital with her neck and a large part of 



her body very severely and dangerously burned. 
That she could escape long weeks of agony was 
beyond hope. Yet on Monday her eye was 
clear and calm, and her voice was strong, and 
when the doctor asked her how she felt, she 
said she was a great deal better, and that she 
had no pain. 

Last ^Vednesday an entire breast was re- 
moved for cancer, and the wound was dressed 
with dry earth. It is now healing rapidly. 
There has been no inflammation and no sup- 
puration, and this woman too — calm and hap- 
py-looking, with a healthy color and a steady 
voice — spoke far more than her cheerful words 
in thankfulness for her relief. 

The earth used is carefully selected, dried, 
and pulverized. George E. Waring, Jr., of 
the Earth Closet Company, of New York city, 
recently communicated the following practical 
directions on this subject : 

It is too early in the course of the experi- 
ments to speak very positively on the matter, 
but the following may be considered as estab- 
lished : 

1. The earth should contain as little sand 
and organic matter as po.ssible — probably pure 
clay is the best. 

2. It should be thoroughly dry and finely 
pulverized. 

3. It should be applied directly to the' wound 
or sore, without the intervention of clolh or lint, 
save where there is danger that the earth may 
"burrow," as in deep sores — in these cases a 
little lint or a bit of folded linen should be pui 
in the bottom of the wound. 

4. The earth should be washed o2' daily with 
a gentle stream of tepid water, accompanied, 
when necessary, with a light sponging. 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 

Science, Invention, Curious Statistics, and Yaluable Bits op Knowledge. 



Romance of Iflodern Science. — 

The old alcliemiats wasted their lives in the 
pursuit of two unattiiinable objects — the philos- 
opher's stone and the elixir of life; the former 
lo turn all metals into gold, and the latter to 
bestow perpetual youth. It is now known that 
the turning of all metals into gold would have 
greatlj' diminished, instead of augmenting, the 
wealth of mankind-; for if gold were made so 
abundant it would no longer answer the pur- 
pose of money, and for use in the arts it is less 
valuable than iron. It may be that men will 
Bometimes be brought to the belief that unfad- 
ing youth would be no blessing, though BuL- 
WER makes it very fascinating in the rejuve- 
nated LoDis Grayle. 

Modern Science does not expend its efforts 
in tlie pursuit of these chimeras; but while it 
is familiar with marvels of which the ancient 
alchemists could form no conception, its own 
future is not wholly unadorned with the dreams 
of romance. Had some superior intelligence 
appeared to one of the long-bearded Arabs, 
among his retorts and crucibles, and prophesied 
the achievements which the human race were 
destined to make within a few hundred years, 
how utterly incredible would have been the 
prophecy ! 

Looking down the future, he would have 
said: "It shall be ascertained that Arabia, 
Egypt, all sea and land, are not at rest, but are 
constantly rushing away toward the East more 
swiftly than the fight of an arrow from a bow. 
The earth is spherical and swings through space 
at the rate of a thousand miles a minute. The 
distance from us to the sun is so great that a 
horse running twenty miles an hour, without 
rest day or night, would require more than five 
hundred years to make the journey, and yet 
tliis distance shall be measured with a rod and 
line. Though this fiery orb is as large as one 
million four hundred thousand globes the size 
of this earth, man shall measure its mighty 



span. He shall weigh its vast mass with a bal- 
ance, and the sum of its tons shall be told ! He 
shall learn from God's infallible Scripture, 
written in the rock, that the earth was spoken 
into being ages on ages before Adam. He 
shall weigh and measure planets that he has 
never seen. Hidden from the eyes of all who 
have ever lived, deep .sunk in the depths of . 
space, he shall discern and map myriads of 
other suns, and shall approximately compute 
the inconceivable distances that separate them 
from us. Swarming in the dust beneath our 
feet, in the air we breathe, in the interior of 
our own bodies, in every stagnant pool, he shall 
discover multitudes of living being.s, of strange 
and curious structure, whose numbers cast 
those of the visible inhabitants of the earth 
into insignificance. He shall render iron as in- 
corruptible as gold. He shall harness imp.al- 
pable vapor to chariot wheels; he shall make 
it dig his mines, grind his corn, saw his wood, 
weave his clothes, and drive his ponderous 
iron ships over seas to continents now undis- 
covered. At his easy command the rent rock 
shall leave its bed and fly headlong through 
the ai_r. He shall lay his hand upon the solid 
mountains and they shall yawn open to his 
passage; he shall be borne through them in 
ease and comfort, with a velocity surp.assing the 
fleetest steed. The sunbeam shall become hia 
faithful limner, and the thunderbolt the obe- 
dient servant of his will ; in silence it shall 
glide swiftly forth, bearing his messages of 
business, of pleasure, or of caprice, to the ut- 
termost parts of the earth, over Alps and under 
oceans, passing the sun in his race, and re- 
turning in the twinkling of an eye'" 

A Dream of tlie Future. — The mod- 
ern student of science, to whom these incredi- 
ble marvels are accomplished and familiar 
facts, seems less hopeful of continued triinuphs 
thai! were the ancient alchemists ; but there are 
(763) 



764 



THE CREAM OF FACTS : 



some ardent imaginations that love to sweep 
forward and revel in dreams of the future 
power of our race — tliougU tlie wildest flights 
of the most fertile fancy are tani^ when com 
pared with the achievements of the past. 

These minds conceive that man's power of 
transporting his body from one place to another 
lias l>y no means reached its ultimate limit; 
that he will not only move more swiftly over 
the earth, by means of pneumatic or other 
power, as yet undeveloped, but that he will sail 
through the air at will, and sweep under the 
sea. In their view, as the coal fields fail, man 
will bore through the earth's thin crust, and 
warm himself with a hot-air supply from the 
internal fires; or, chemistry may render water 
more cheaply inflammable, until every well 
and stream shall l'unli^Il warmth and illu- 
mination. 

In their view, express companies will send 
their packages over the earth in exhausted air- 
tubes; shooting the charges across continents 
and under seas, to New York, London, Pekin, 
in an hour, as we send our invisible word upon 
a wire. 

In their view, man will nntimately circum 
vent famine, by learning how to create food 
from the inorganic elements ; so that, instead 
of "driving nature into a corner," by Thor- 
EAu's heroic practice, or being crushed by the 
earthly nece.^sity of daily bread, as millions 
are, every civilized being will have a patent 
retort at his elbow, and will appease his hunger 
from lime to time by turning a crank, and com- 
bining carbon, oxygen, and the salts in succu- 
lent and appetizing forms of human nutriment. 
The auxiliaries of industry will continue to 
be niultiplied, till all are able to command 
leisure, and thus to secure mental cultivation. 
The vast mysteries of psychology will be re- 
vealed, and a universal alphabet will be adopted 
as the phonetic .solvent of all languages, to 
abolish clumsy orthographies and to straighten 
and shorten the road to knowledge. With the 
removal of ignorance and the temptations of 
poverty, degradation, vice, and crime shall 
cease, and oppression "and war shall come to an 
e[id ; and intelligence, comfort, prosperity, vir- 
tue, peace, happiness, shall be the common in- 
heritance of all. Higher still ! As the decay 
of old age is caused by the gradual accumula- 
tions of solid deposits in the Bystem, and as 
there are known methods of dissolving these 
deposits, some of the boldest imaginations be- 
hold the future radiant with the brightest of all 
hopes — the promise and assurance of perpetual 



youth! ,As this would be a doubtful blessing 
its fulfillment will probably be deferred — but 
are the other anticipations too extravagant to 
be realized ? And, perhaps discoveries in the 
realm of spiritual things will be even greater 
than these! 

"Some MocUed."— Almost every great 
iuveiuion, discovery, and reform has had to 
encounter not only the sneers of the ignorant 
and the denunciations of the conservative, but 
the persecution of religious bigots. These last 
retarded the progress of geology, of chemistry, 
of astronomy, of philosophy, and of all the 
physical sciences; it is only within the present 
century that, under a wiser ministry, the Church 
has come to accept the demonstrations of the 
learned, as to the structure of the material uni- 
verse. 

Propagandists of new doctrines respecting the 
earth have generally been branded as infidels. 
The distinguished Tycho Bbahe proved from 
Joshua that the sun revolved around the earth. 
Copernicus was so intimidated by the bigots 
of his time tliat he dared not publish his theory 
of a spherical universe until he was certain that 
he was on his deatli bed. Galileo was perse- 
cuted in the dungeons of Eome for dissemi- 
nating the same doctrine, which was declared 
to be "contrary to the Bible; " and Bru.vo was 
hunted from kingdom to kingdom, by Catholics 
and Protestants alike, and was finally burned 
at the stake for his " heresies." 

Doctor Faust was derided and' driven fi-om 
place to place by the German monks, on the 
ground that "his partner, the devil " had in- 
vented for him the art of printing. Doctor 
Franklin was charged with sacrilege for his 
temerity in tempting lightning from Heaven, 
and the inventors of lightning-rods were de- 
nounced for harboring the blasphemous purpose 
of thwarting the will of "an angry God." 

Stuart Mill exclaims, while deprecating 
the backward looking tendencies of those who 
are intolerant of moral progress : " There have 
been abundance of people in all ages of Christi- 
anity, who tried to make it something like 
Islamisra or Braminism ; to convert us into a 
sort of Christian Mussulmans with the Bible 
for a Koran, prohibiting all improvement; and 
great has been their power, and many have had 
acrifice their lives in resisting them. But 
they have been resisted, and the resistance has 
made us what we are, and will yet make us 
what we are to be."* 



•The Subjoctioa of Womau, p. 85. 



'' THE GOOD OLD TIMES" — CANALS, ETC. 



765 



•■ The Good Old Times.'' — TJiere are, 
in eveiy coiiiuuuiiiy, a lew morbid sentimental- 
ists who wag llieir lieads wisely and lament that 
the world is rushing to ruin, and talk about 
what they call "the good old times." In fact, 
however, history tells us that, not only is the 
average of human intelligence and comfort 
much higher tluin in any other age of the 
wbrld, but vice and crime are le.ss prevalent 
than ever befo^. 

King Solomon is said to have been "gor- 
geously attired," but this was only as compared 
with the hall-nude people of his time. More- 
over, this was the language of oriental extrava- 
gance; and when we remember that his ward- 
robe, like his table, must have consisted of a 
few of the coarsest things only, we can make 
considerable allowance for the magnificence of 
the display. 

Articles that were unknown to JuLlTjs C.ESAE, 
and were costly luxuries to Charles the First, 
even, are now things of commonest necessity. 
Norman Willi.^m came into Britain without 
a hat — for that article of apparel had not then 
been devised. Spectacles had not then been 
constructed, and it was still two centuries be- 
fore the mariner's compass, and four centuries 
prior to the birth of printing. 

Three hundred years ago^ — that is, when our 
great grandfatlier's great grandfather was born — 
carpets were utterly uuknown. The walls even 
of princely palaces were rough and unplastered, 
though sometimes abundantly hung with the 
tapestry which spiders weave. The floors were 
covered with rushes, which were swept out 
every few months, and fresh ones scattered in 
their places. Dogs and cats were allowed free 
access to the eating rooms, and the fragments 
and bones were thrown to them. They ate till 
they were satisfied, and the remainder was per- 
mitted to decay under foot. 

The drainings of the beer vessels and all i 
manner of refuse was thrown out upon these, 
ru.-ihes, and the dining halls were, of course, too ^ 
untidy fur a modern menagerie. There was no j 
window glass, even in the mansions of the 
nobility, and there was no way to exclude the 
cold without excluding the light also. To en- 
joy a beaiitiful landscape involved expo.sure to 
tlie weather, in all parts of Great Britain and 
America, even as late as one hundred and fifty 
years ago. 

A Roman senator who, in the Empire's palmy 
days, possessed estates in Kaples and Britain 
fiom which he drew an income that would be 
equivalent to a royal revenue in this day, had 



neither glass to his windows nor a shirt to 
his back, and when he rode in his coach of 
solid gold, without spring or covering, might 
envy our laborer who goes out to his work in a 
railroad car. An Earl of Northumberland in 
IGOO breakfasted off of wooden trenchers and 
dined in state off of pewter, and when he was 
absent from alnwick castle the glass was taken 
out of the windows and laid up in safety. Not 
a cabbage, carrot, turnip, or other edible root 
grew in England during the early part of the 
reign of Henry VIII, and from the scarcity of 
fodder, fresh meat was Only obtainable during 
the Summer, salted hog's flesh being generally 
u.sed by all classes the rest of the year. Queen 
Elizabeth's breakfast used to consist chiefly 
in strong ale and salt beef, and the same dainties 
were served up for her supper after she had 
retired to bed. 

In fact, it is probable that, before the seven- 
teenth century, no king of any country in the 
world lived as comfortable and well as the 
average of American laborers live to-day. 

Canals. — Canal locks were invented in 
1.5S1, by engineers of Viterbo, in Italy. They 
were nearly a hundred years getting fairly into 
use in France, and about a hundred and fifty in 
crossing the British channel. At this time it 
was made a felony in several European States 
to ride in wheel carriages. 

When, about 1760, Peter the Great com- 
menced a canal between the Volga and the 
Don, the governors and other dignitaries of 
the country opposed it earnestly, declaring it 
"impiety" to turn rivers out of the channels 
which Heaven assigned them! When .<iome 
Dutclrman proposed to make the river Man- 
zimares navigable to the Tagus, and that to 
Lisbon, the Portuguese Council declined to per- 
mit the sacrilege, and rebuked him, saying, 
"If it had been the will of Gon that the river 
should be navigable, he would have made 
it so!" 

When Bkindley, the great engineer, told a 
committee of Parliament, to whom Bridge- 
water's petition was referred, that canals were 
better than rivers and would largely supersede 
them, the committee were shocked, and asked 
him, "And jiray, sir, what do you suppose God 
made the rivers for?" "To feed the canals," 
lie calmly answered. 

Steamboats and Railroads.— It is 

only witliin the present century that steam has 
been of mucli practic:il utility as a propelling 



766 



CBEAM OF facts: 



power; yet Hero of Alexandria, more than 
two tlioiisand years ago, constructed a toy steam 
engine, by throwing jets of steam upon paddle- 
wheels. It was not till the beginning of the 
seventeenth century that De Cares proposed 
to apply the elastic property of steam as a 
power, and fifty years more passed before the 
Marquis of Worcester projected a high-pressure 
steam engine. Toward the close of the century, 
Papfx discovered a method of producing a va- 
cuum by the condensation of steam, and Captain 
Savary suggested the application of steam to 
navigation, and invented the first working steam 
engine. 

In 173G, Jonathan Hulls, also an English- 
man, took out a patent for a steamboat (tug), 
and published an illustrated description of it, 
entitled, "A description and draught of a new- 
invented machine for carrying vessels or ships 
out of or into any harbor, port, or river, against 
wind and tide." He proposed to employ one of 
Newcojien's rude engines, in which the piston 
was drawn up by a weight. The boat was to be 
propelled by a paddle-wheel at the stern. The 
plan being received with great derision, the 
boat was never made. But the conception en- 
titles him to immortal honor. 

About 1750, Watt applied himself to im- 
provements in the steam engine, and his success 
was so marked, that his inventions gave a new 
stimulus to the project of propelling boats and 
carriages by steam. The French claim for the 
Marquis De Jouffroy the honor of having 
been the first who successfully applied steam 
power to propel boats, in 1772 — when FuLTON 
was an infant. His boat was 145 feet long. 

In 1785, James Eumsev, of Virginia, pub- 
lished his plan for "propelling boats again.st 
the stream;" but it was to be by a mechanical 
contrivance other than steam. Two years later, 
he had got from John Fitch, of Connecticut, 
the idea of steam, and with it pumped water 
through a boat, propelling it at "the rate of 
three miles an hour against tlie current of the 
Potomac river. 

Fitch had already been working energeti- 
cally for two years, trying to get money enough 
to make a steamboat, and had won a wide repu- 
tation as a lunatic. At last, in October, 1788, 
his boat was finished. It was worked by oars, 
moved by a steam engine, having a twelve-inch 
cylinder and a three-foot piston — the product 
of Fitch's own genius and the work of his 
own hand. A mile was measured in the Dela- 
ware off Water street, Philadelphia, and, amid 
great excitement, the Pejsei'erance, Fitch's queer 



boat, ran the distance in dead water in seven 
minutes and a half, at the rate of eight miles an 
hour! This was practically the birth of steam- 
boating. On the 12th of October she ascended 
the Delaware twentj' miles in three hours and 
twenty minutes, with thirty pas.sengers on 
board ; after which trip she ran as a passenger 
boat for some time on the river. After being 
used a year she took fire and burned to the 
water's edge. 

In 1788, also, an experiment was tried by 
James Tay'LOR on Dalswinton Lake, Scotland, 
and he propelled his boat at the rale, first of 
five, then of seven miles an hour. Lord Ddn- 
DAS made a more perfect steamboat, on Taylor's 
plan, and tried it on the Forth and Clyde canal, 
towing two vessels, each seventy tons burden, 
twenty mjles in six hours. 

In the Spring of 1789 a second boat was built 
for Fitch, and, in 1790, a third, by a coiporate 
company of business men of Philadelphia. 
During a severe storm, the boats were driven 
upon Petty''s island, and the enterprise was 
abandoned. But Fitch had already fairly 
earned the credit of being the original inventor 
of steamboats, twenty years before Fulton ap- 
peared upon the Hudson. 

And he was not yet the victim of that despair 
which afterward terminated his life. He pro- 
ceeded to France, failed to obtain the assistance 
denied him at home, worked hie passage back 
to New York city as a common sailor, and 
there, in 1796, on Collect Pond, where now 
frowns the Tombs, he built another boat, pro- 
pelled by a stern-screw, which was operated by 
steam. Several witnesses decLare that it was a 
perfect success. The boat was a common yawl ; 
the boiler a twelve-gallon pot, with a lid of 
thick plank. John Hutchings, then a lad, 
employed to steer Fitch's boat, declares that 
Livingston and Fdlton frequently visited the 
boat and rode around the pond. 

As early as 1800, CoLLiN.s' History of Ken- 
tucky says in 1794, one Edward West tried 
an experiment with an oar-boat moved by 
steam, upon the Elkhorn at Lexington, which 
" moved through the water with great velocity." 
But the results of this success were evanescent. 

It was reserved for Kobert Fulton to reap 
the glory and fame of these tireless and disap- 
pointed inventors. Much honor is due to him; 
not for the invention of a steamboat, but for 
the permanent establishment of navigation by 
steam. After watching Fitch's propeller, he 
visited the scene of Tay'LOr's experiment 
in Scotland, examined the Charlotte Dundas, 



STEAMBOATS AND RAILROADS. 



767 



studied the progress of the invention in France, 
then returned to New York city and placed 
liiraself under the distinguislied patronage of 
Robert R. Livingston, whom he liad met in 
France and had succeeded in interesting in tlie 
dawning invention. Tliey procured from Eng- 
land an engine made hy Watt, of twenty-horse 
power, and, in 1807, tlie Clermont, one hundred 
and thirty-three feet long, was launched into 
the Hudson. 

The crowds that assembled along the wharves, 
most of them ignorant of Fitch's success twenty 
years before, were unanimous in their incredu- 
lity, and about equally divided between de- 
rision and sympathy for "the visionary." An 
accident delayed him, but after repairing a 
fracture in the niacliinery, the boat steamed up 
theViver to the astonishment of the multitudes 
of doubters, and made its way persistently to- 
ward Albany against wind and tide, exciting a 
tumult along the shore and creating consterna- 
tion on the wind-bound sloops, as it churned 
the water into foam and vomited fire along its 
path. The success of the trip completely up- 
set the a priori reasoners and revolutionized 
commerce. 

It is true that Fulton had only made four 
or five miles an hour, while Fitch, twenty 
years before had made seven to eight, and that 
Fulton's trip was experimental while Fitch 
had run a pa.ssenger steamboat for many 
months ; yet, the achievements of the two 
men, in the eyes of the world, were as different 
as failure and success. For Fitch was a pen- 
niless adventurer who, a captive in the Revo- 
lution, had been bartered for tobacco between 
Indian tribes, while Fulton was an accom- 
plished engineer, and was backed by one of the 
most famous and wealthy of the Cavaliers. 
And, what seemed still more to the purpose, 
Fitch's Delawai-e river boats hud all been 
given to fire or wreck, his propeller of Collect 
Pond had been carried to their bleak rookeries, 
piece by piece, by the shivering children of the 
Five Points, and he, himself, disgusted with 
the world's .stupidity, had died of drink in the 
wilderness of Kentucky. 

A few days after Fulton's great trial-trip, 
R. L, Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, made 
even a more successful effort, and was the first 
to put to .sea in a steamboat, taking his craft to 
Delaware. He introduced many important im- 
provements. From this time, the permanency 
of steam navigation was assured and its prog- 
ress was rapid. Henry Bell, of Glasgow, 
launched his Comet in ISll, and it made nine 



miles an hour; and from England steamboat- 
ing was introduced to Europe. 

Itailways- — In the meantime, railroads wero 
coming into use. Indeed, railways were con- 
structed two hundred years before steam locomo- 
tives were known, the tramways being formed 
first of \yood, then of iron, to diminish the fric- 
tion of wagon-wheels, in drawing coal from the 
mines with horses. Cast-iron rails were first 
used in 1767. Tlie stationary steam engine 
was substituted for horses in 1808, limiting its 
.service to drawing the cars up heavy grades by 
ropes extending from its fixed position at the 
top of the hill. 

Steam carriages for common roads had al- 
ready been devised, and scores of Englishmen 
had wasted their fortunes in efforts to perfect 
the chimerical scheme. The plan was even 
tried, in 1830, an expensive carriage, steam- 
propelled, plying for several weeks through a 
street of London. 

In 1825, George Stephenson introduced 
steam as a motive power on a coal railw.iy in 
England, making eight miles an hour. The 
result astonished the realm ; and there was a 
wide demand for steam railways. Stephen- 
son promised to run a train twenty miles in an 
hour. At this Nicholas Wood published a 
book to illustrate the benefits to be derived 
from railways, but deprecated the extravagant 
anticipations that were extant. He was confi- 
dent that he had measured the maximum 
power of the locomotive, and he adds " nothing 
can do more harm toward the adoption of rail- 
ways than the promulgation of such non.sense 
as that we shall see locomotive engines travel- 
ing at the rate of twelve, sixteen, eighteen, and 
twenty miles an hour !" 

In September 1830, scarcely forty years ago, 
was the formal opening of the first steam p-ts- 
senger railway, between Liverpool and Man- 
chester, England. Stephenson built the first 
locomotive, " The Rocket," which drew a train 
over the rails at the creditable speed of thirty 
miles an hour. From that day railroad enter- 
prises have assured rapid transit through every 
civilized country. 

In 1826, the Albany and Schenectady rail- 
road company was incorporated — capital S300,- 
000. In August, 1830, a double-track road was 
begun — one month before Stephenson's fa- 
mous .success. The company intended to use 
horses as a propelling power; indeed, horses 
were used for some months. But the locomo- 
tive was soon substituted, and in October, 1831, 
the number of passengers averaged three hun- 



76S 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 



dred and eighty-seven per d;iy. Tliis was the 
first ste;\iu railway in America; and the old 
silhouette of the first train of stage-coaches on 
liigh wheels, is as quaint as can well be im- 
agineil. Tliere are now (1869) more than 
fiirly-tive tlionsand miles in operation in this 
counliy. Some trains have allained the enor- 
mous speed of seventy miles an hour — one- 
tentii the speed of a cannon-hall. 

A Boy Inientor. — In the early atmospheric 
engines, the cocks by which the steam was 
admitted and condensed, and by which the in- 
jected and condensed steam was drawn off, 
were worked by hand ; and as the labor was 
light and monotonous, and required no skill, 
boys were employed for the purpose, called 
"cock-boys." It happened that a cock-boy, by 
name Potter, having an itch for play, and 
endowed with more ingenuity thin industry, 
imagined that by tying strings to the cocks, 
and connecting them with the working-beam 
above the cylinders, regulating the action by 
carrying them over and under certain pipes, 
he could make the beam, as it ascended and 
desceniled, open and close the cocks more reg- 
ularly and efi'ectually than he found himself 
able to do. This he accordingly accomplished, 
and was habitually absent from the engine- 
house, enjoying himself with his playfellows, 
when Ills employers were giving him credit for 
most extraordinary vigilance and regularity in 
the discharge of his duties. The engine, in 
fact, by this expedient, nearly tripled its effi- 
cacy. Thus, by tbe ingenuity of a child, the 
steam engine was first endowed with those 
qualities of an automaton which have ever 
since rendered it an object of interest and 
admiration. 

The Itlagnetic Telegrapli.— Is there 

anything new under tlic sun? Tne magnetic 
telegraph was foreshadowed by the poets and 
seers of the earliest times; not only in a vague 
and general way, but occasionally with curious 
definiteness. The Jesuits of the sixteenth cen- 
tury weie the legitimate successors of the ma- 
gicians of the middle ages. One of these, 
Strada, an Italian, nearly three hundred 
years ago, wrote of sympathetic magnetic nee- 
dles, by which distant friends were able to 
converse; though it is certain that the idea 
was only fanciful. Kirchek, a learned Ger- 
man Jesuit, is said to have achieved, half a 
century later, the transfer of written letters 
from one place to another by electricity. He 
tried to explain the method pursued, in his 



Praslnclones Magnelicce. An encyclopedia, pub- 
lished before the invention, or revival, of the 
magnetic telegraph, says: "His writings ex- 
hibit great learning, but are disfyured by many 
extravagances," 

The plan of making communications by sig- 
nals on hills h.as been in operation from time 
immemorial ; first, by beacon-lights, and second, 
more efTectually by tall posts with movable 
arms. Both were called telegraplis or sema- 
phores. Telegraphing is still carried on, in a 
fleet at sea, by means of flags. 

Dr. Watson, of England, discovered in 1747, 
that the charge of a Leyden jar could be .sent 
instantaneously through a circuit of four miles; 
when the possibility of conveying messages by 
electricity became a subject of conjecture. In 
1774, M. Lesaqe, of Geneva, Switzerland, pro- 
posed to transmit messages by means of elec- 
tricity generated by friction, causing it to move 
pendant pith-balls at the remote terminus. 

It is well known that when two jsith-balla 
are suspended from a wire that forms part of 
an electric current, the electricity communi- 
cated to the balls causes them to swing apart, 
while the wire is charged. Signals obtained in 
this way were very simple, and only two cir- 
cumstances prevented the success of the inven- 
tion, viz.: That electricity generated by an 
excited glass rod was too feeble to be effective 
at long distances, and that it was deemed neces- 
sary to have twenty-four insulated wires run- 
ning all the way I The voltaic battery was not 
then known ; and nobody seems to have thought 
of indicating all the letters of the alphabet 
through one wire, by having one divergence of 
the balls signify A, two prolonged ones B, two 
short ones C, etc., on the principle which now 
controls the telegraph. 

The discovery of the battery by Volta, at 
the beginning of this century, was a most im- 
port.int step, and the battery was applied to 
telegraphing by Mr. Soemmering in 1809, his 
signals consisting in bubbles of gas arising from 
decomposed water. -But the number of wires 
used constituted a fatal impediment. Seven 
years later, Mr. Konalds perfected the appa- 
ratus, dispensing with all the wires except one, 
and successfully conveying messages through 
eight miles of wire. He asked the English gov- 
ernment to adopt it for its use, and received a 
tardy reply that " telegraphs are of no u.se in 
time of peace, and during war the semaphore 
answers all the required purposes 1" This dis- 
heartened the inventor, and he abandoned the 
telegraph to its fate. 



J 



rnOTOORAPHY. 



769 



In ISIS, Professor CErsted, .1 Eiiroiieiin, 
discovered the magnetic propei'ty ol' tlie elec- 
tric current; and in 1832, Schweigger in- 
vented the recording electric telegraph, and 
about the same time Professor S»F. B. Morse, 
of New York University, invented and con- 
structed tlie first practical telegraph, in prin- 
ciple the same as that used at the present day. 
About the same time, or a little later, Professor 
Wheatstone, in England, and Mr. Alexan- 
der, in Scotland, constructed electric telegraphs. 

Mr. jSIorse's telegraph is the one generally 
used in this country, and on the European con- 
tinent; one chief point of superiority consisting 
in the simplicity of its alphabet. The symbols 
consist in a repetition of long and short strokes 
along a straight line; thus, a stroke followed 
by a dot signifies A; a stroke preceded by a 
dot, B; a single dot, E, etc. The mechanism 
of this telegraph was mainly invented by Al- 
fred Vail, of Morristown, New Jersey, and 
may be easily described. The transmitter is 
merely a spring key, like that of a musical in- 
stiument, which on being pressed down makes 
contact with the voltaic batlei-y, and sends an 
electric current to the receiving station. The I 
oiierator thus brings into action an electro- 
magnet at the station he communicates with, 
and that pulls down a point fixed to the iron 
lever, upon a strip of soft paper that is kept 
moving slowly under it. The duration of the 
pressure on the key thus occasions the difTer- 
ence in the length of the lines indented on the 
l)aper. 

iSince this invention became generally adopt- 
ed, Mr. Bain in England, and Mr. House in 
this country, have constructed telegraphs which 
])rint their own messages; and more recently 
Frederick C. Bakewell has devised an in- 
vention for sending exact copies of handwriting 
to avoid errors. As a special means of secrecy, 
the messages may be received on paper mois- 
tened witli a solution of nitrate of soda, and 
remain invisible until brushed over with a solu- 
tion of prussiate of jiotash. applied by the per- 
son to whom the communication is addressed. 

Every enlightened country is now covered 
over with a net-work of telegraphic wires; rates 
of transmission are being every year reduced ; 
and we may anticipate the time when tlie tele- 
graph will, in a very great measure, supersede, 
the mails. 

Velocity of Eleciricily. — E.xperiments which 
have been made over the telegraph lines be- 
tween Harvard College and San Francisco, show 
that the time required by electricity to travel 

49 



from jilace to place is as follows: From Boston 
to Buffalo and back, one-tenlh of a second ; to 
Chicago and back, one-fi!tli of a second; to 
Omaha and back, one-third of a second; to Salt 
Lake and back, one-half of a second; to San 
Francisco and back, about three-tpiarters of a 
second. 

Pliotograpliy.— The photographic pro- 
cess seems to be the only one of the wonderful 
modern invention.? that were not, centuries 
ago, anticipated or foreshadowed in song and 
prophecy. The thought of making nature her 
own limner was too audacious, and the result 
too astounding to be conceived of. The first 
step toward photography was the invention of 
the camera ob.scura; generating a desire to fix 
and transfer its beautiful pictures. 

About the middle of, the sixteenth cenlnrv, 
the alchemists delected the intlucncc of light in 
darkening the salts of silver — and on this phe- 
nomenon all photographic processes depend. 
The influence of the solar ray in faciliialing 
the cryslalization of saltpeter and sal-amnioniao 
w.as shown by Petit, in 1722; and fifty year.s 
later, Scheele, in an analy.sis to extract fire, 
which he erroneously supposed to be a simple 
chemical element, discovered that the violet 
rays of the spectrum possessed great [)ii\ver in 
influencing the nitrate of silver — then called 
"the acid of silver." Thus, from error, was 
a great truth evolved. From alchemy came 
chemistry. 

A quarter of a century later, at the beginning 
of the present century, Mr. Wedgwood, a por- 
celain raanufaclurer, and Mr. (afterward Sir) 
Humpurey Davy, first succeeded in impress- 
ing the images of the camera on the screen, but 
the retention was transient — the paper becom- 
ing black when exposed for a short time to the 
light. Wedgwood and Davy both published 
in 1802, "an account of making profiles by the 
agency of light" Had they understood the 
eflect of the compound salt, hyposulphite of 
soda, in rendering the paper insensible to the 
further impressions of light, they would doubt- 
less have perfected photography. As it was, 
their failure discouraged others, and the great 
discovery had to wait. 

M. NiEPCE, of France, began experiments in 
1814, and was the first to obtain permanent im- 
pressions of the camera. In 1829, he explained 
his process to M. Daguerre, and they |)ur.-ued 
their investigations jointly. Within the next 
ten years Neipce died, and Daguerke pro- 
duced the beautiful daguerreotype. 



r70 



THE CREAM OF facts: 



The process finally adopted by Daguerre 
was to deposit a film of iodine on a liighly- 
polislied silver i>late, by exposing the plate to 
the vapor of iodilie in a dark box. The pre- 
pared plate was then placed in the camera, and 
after an exposure to the light of ten minutes 
or more, an impression was made on the iodized 
silver, but too faint to be visible. To bring out 
the image, the plate was exposed to the vapor 
of nuroury, in a closed box. The mercury 
adhered to the parts on which the light had 
acted, and left the other parts of the plate un- 
touclied; and so a beautiful representation was 
produced. The iodized silver remaining on 
the iihite, was washed oR' by a solution of hypo- 
.--ulphite of soda, and the picture was exposed 
without injury. 

The process by which the images of the 
camera can be fixed on paper, was discovered 
by Mr. Fox Talbot, of England, in 1840; and 
at a later day, he was the first to impress and 
fix images on glas.s and steel. 

Tlie Stereoscope. — This is one of the 
most beautiful pictorial illnsious ever elTectcd. 
Its principle depends on the difl'erent appear- 
ance wliicli a near object presents when seen by 
the right eye or by the left. For instance, on 
looking with the right eye only, at a book 
placed edgewise before the face, the back and 
one side of the book will be perceiyed ; and on 
closing the right eye and opening the left, the 
back and the other side of the book alone will 
be visible. It is the blending of both these 
views, by the delicate and mysterious sense of 
vision, that produces the impression of solidity 
and distance. So, if the different appearances 
which the book presents to each eye be copied 
in separate drawings, and then be so fixed that 
the right view only can be seen with the right 
eye and the left view with the left, the two 
images will combine on tlie retina of the eye, 
and the compound picture will, in size, dis- 
tance, and perspective, seem to be the very 
book itself. 

Professor Wheatstone, of England, was 
the first who contrived, in 1838, an instrument 
to illustrate this effect of binocular vision, and 
he also claims to be the first who brought to 
notice the different appearances of an object 
seen with each eye separately. In fact, how- 
ever, the difference of vision was noticed by 
Leonardo da Vinci in 1500, and more care- 
fully by Galen in 1700. But Prof. Wiieat- 
STONE first rendered tliis knowledge practical 
by the invention and construction of the first 



stereoscope — made on the principle and some- 
what in the shape of those of the present day. 

It is generally supposed that the two pictures 
of a stereoscopic view are precisely alike — 
duplicates. Avareful examination of any good 
view will, however, show the error of tliis sup- 
position ; the perspective in the two pictures is 
perceptibly different, if they have been cor- 
rectly taken ; tlie right-hand view being taken 
from the standpoint of the right eye, and the 
other from that of tlie left eye. This differ- 
ence will be most palpable in a landscape, or 
some vista where distance intervenes between 
the objects in the foreground and those of the 
background — the foreground of the right-hand 
picture being relatively farther to the left. 

A. stereoscopic picture can not be obtained 
by photographing a painting, or any flat sur- 
face, from any two points of vision: there mast 
be articles in relief. These views are best 
taken with a double camera, occupying the 
position of the two eyes, and thus obtaining two 
slightly different pictures from the required 
angle at the same instant. Portraits thus taken 
are far more desirable than photographs; for 
with tlie assistance of tlie little toy, the stereo- 
scope, they not only retain the lineaments of a 
friend, but assure the appearance of his living 
presence forever. 

Matches. — According' to Pliny fire was a 
long time unknown to the ancient Egyptians, 
and when EuDOXUS (the celebrated astron- 
omer) showed it them, they were absolutely in 
rapture. The Persians, Phoenicians, Greeks, 
and several other nations, acknowledged that 
their ancestors were once without the use of 
fire; and the Chinese confess the same of their 
progenitors. PoMPANlON, MoLA, Plutarch, 
and other ancients, speak of nations who, at 
the time they wrote, knew not the use of fire, 
or had just learned it. Facts of the same kind 
are also attested by several modern nations. 
The inhabitants of the Marian Islands, which 
were discovered in 1551, had no idea of fire. 
Never was astonishment greater than theirs 
when they saw it on the desert of Magellan, in 
one of their islands. At first they believed it 
was some kind of an animal that fixed to and fed 
upon wood. The inhabitants of the Philippine 
and Canary Islands were formerly equally igno- 
rant. Africa presents, even in our own day, 
nations in this deplorable state. 

The inventor of lucifer matches has done 
more for the comfort of mankind than the in- 
ventor of the telegraph. The present genera- 



I 



rUILO>OPniCAL FACTS. 



(71 



lion of youths can scarcely comprcliend tlie 
indescribable relief matclies liave broiiglit to 
civilized man ; it is difiiciilt to nicasnre the 
contrast between tlia minute splinter holding in 
reserve instantaneous fire, and the clumsy flint, 
steel, and tinder that seem to us to have been 
discarded five centuries ago, but which, in fact, 
bent the backs and tried the skill and exhausted 
the patience of our own fathers and mothers as 
late as 1830. 

Not only is the match conducive to comfort 
and economy in every way, but it is also .a mis- 
sionary of good morals, for domestic profanity 
lias probably diminished one-half since tlie 
abolition of that prolific cause, the provoking 
tinder-box. 

It was a regular household care fifty years 
ago to provide enough tinder — scorched linen, 
or dried punk — to protect it from moisture, and 
have at hand a piece of steel and a flint " with 
fire in it." Even when thus fully equipped, 
the striking of a light was no mean accomplish- 
ment, and the unskillful hand, operating in the 
dark, would generally get no available si}arks, 
and skin the knuckles besides. The despairing 
performer would occasionally sprinkle powder 
on the tinder, sometimes with disastrous con- 
sequences. 

Finally, the tinder-box was partially super- 
seded by matches jjointed with brimstone, which 
would ignite on dipping into a phial of liquid 
phosphorus. This arrangement was expensive 
and dangerous, and did not become popular. 
Another invention was tlie use of a mixture of 
chlorate of potass and sugar, brought in con- 
tact with sulphuric acid — an explosive flame 
resulting. Tbis, for similar reasons, was not 
received with much favor. 

The first friction match of which we have any 
account, was invented by John Walker, an 
English chemist, in 1S29, and Prof. Faraday 
urged and secured its general introduction. 
This was a thin splinter of dry wood, tipped 
with a mixture of one-fourth chlorate of potass, 
one-half sulphide of antimony, and one-fourth 
gum. Its ignition was secured (sometimes) by 
drawing it briskly througli sandpaper. 

The next candidate, the Congreve m.%tch, 
completely supplanted the flint and steel. The 
matches first tipped with sulphur, were dipped 
in a mixture of phosphorus and chlorate of 
potass, and ignited by being rubbed on end, 
like the present lucifers. In the invention of 
friction matches, as in many other things, sci- 
ence owes a debt to quackery ; for phosphorus 
was discovered in 1669, by Brandt, a German 



alchemist, engaged in researches on the philos- 
opher's stone, or the art of converting common 
metals into goUl. Great progress has recently 
been made, until we have a variety of matches 
difiicult to improve upon, and tens of thousands 
of persons are engaged in tlieir manuractiirc. 

Inoculation. — In 1721, Doctor Z.vbdiel 
BoYi.STON, of Boston, during the ravages of the 
small-pox, introduced inoculation, as practiced 
by the physicians of Asia. It was not yet 
known in Europe, but BoYLSTON fearlessly- in- 
oculated his own son, and two of his servants, 
and the result being successful, began to extend 
the practice. The innovation was received with 
universal opposition, but he persisted against 
the popular clamor and an ordinance of the 
city council, until two hundred and forty-seven 
persons had passed under his hands. The tu- 
mult increased. A riot was imminent. His 
opponents maintained that he was spreading 
contiigion wilfully; for, as the plague was a 
judgment froni God on the sins of the people, 
all attempts to avert it would but provoke Him 
the more ; that, as there was a time appointed 
to every man for death, it was impious to at- 
tempt to stay or to avert the stroke. Religious 
bigotry so exasperated the ignorant against 
BoYLSTON, that attempts were made to take his 
life, and be was compelled to hide in his house 
to escape their fury. He lived, however, to 
see inoculation generally introduced into Mass- 
achusetts many years before it was practiced in 
England. In 1776, Doctor Jenxer introduced 
vaccination for kine-pox, which had been dis- 
covered by the dairy .servants of Gloucestershire. 
This soon superseded the old inoculation. 

I'liilosopllieal Fact s.— Mercury 
freezes at thlrty-eigl't degrees below Fahren- 
heit, and becomes a solid mass m.alleable under 
the hammer. 

The greatest height at which visible clouds 
ever exist does not exceed ten miles. 

Air is about eight hundred and fifteen times 
lighter than water. 

The pressure of the atmosphere upon every 
square foot of the earth amounts to two thou- 
sand one hundred and sixty pounds. An ordi- 
nary sized man, .supposing his surface to be 
fourteen square feet, sustains the enormnns 
pressure of thirty thousand two hundred and 
forty pounds. 

Heat rarefies the air to such an extent that it 
may be made to occupy five or six hundred 
times the space it did before. 



CREAM OF facts: 



Tlie barometer falls one-tenth of an inch for 
every seventy-eiglit feet of elevation. 

The violence of the expansion of water when 
freezing is sulficient to cleave a globe of cop- 
per of snch thickness as to require a force of 
27,000 pounds, to produce the same effect. 

During the conversion of ice into water one 
hundred and forty degrees of heal are absorbed 

Water, when converted into steam, increases 
ill hulk eighteen hundred times. 

One Iiundreil pounds of water of the Dead 
Sea contains forty-five pounds of salt. 

The mean annual depth of rain that falls at 
the equator is ninety-six inches. 

Portions of tlie Atlantic Ocean' have been 
so\inded to the depth of eight miles— a distance 
nincli greater than the altitude of the highest 
mountain, Everest, in Asia, which is five and a 
half miles. 

Assuming the temperature of the interior of 
the earth to increase uniformly as we descend 
at the rate of one degree in forty-six feet, at the 
depth of sixty miles it will amoinit to 480,000 
degrees of Fabrenhfit — a degree of heat suffi- 
cient to fuse all known substances. 

Hailstones sometimes fall with a velocity of 
<me hundred and thirteen feet in a second — 
rain thirty-four feet in a second. 

The greatest artificial cold ever produced is 
ninety-two degrees below zero. 

Thunder can be heard at the distance of 
thirty miles. 

Liglitning can be seen by reflection at the 
distance of two hundred miles. 

The explosive force of closely confined gun- 
powder is six and a half tons to the square 
inch. 

Sound travels at the rate of one thousand one 
hundred and forty-two feet per second — about 
thirteen miles in a minute. So that if we hear 
a clap of thunder half a minute after the flash, 
we may calculate that the discharge of electric- 
ity is six and a lialf miles off. 

In one second of time — in one beat of the 
pendulum of a clock, light travels two hundred 
thousand miles. Were a cannon-ball shot to- 
ward the sun, and were it to maintain full speed, 
it would be twenty years in reaching it — and 
yet light travels through this space in seven or 
eight minutes. 

A body projected from the surface of the 
moon, with a velocity of about 7,700 feet per 
second, would be detached from that satellite 
and brought to the earth by terrestrial gravi- 
tation. 

In silver-wire gilt, the coating of the gold is 



usually oidy the 3,384,000th part of an inch in 
thickness; nevertheless it is so perfect as not to 
exhibit cracks when e-xamined by the micro- 
scope. 

Strange as it may appear, a ball of a ton 
weiglit and another of the same material of an 
ounce weight falling from any height will reach 
the ground at the same time. 

BuFFON combined phane gla.ss mirrors only t5 
inches by 8, and with 40 of tlieni he set on fire 
a tarred oak plank 06 feet distant; with 98, at 
126 feet; with 112, at 138 feet; with 154, at 
1.50 feel ; with 1G8, at 200 feet ; and he melted 
all the metals af from 30 to 40 feet distant. 
There are a thousand wonderful things in sci- 
ence wiilch have never yet been discovered — 
let the world keep up the re.searcb. 

The heat does not increase as we rise above 
the earth nearer to the sini, bnl decreases rap- 
idly until, beyond the regions of the atmos- 
phere, in void, it is estimated that the cold is 
about seventy degrees below zero. The line of 
perpetual frnst at the equator is 1-5,000 feet al- 
titude; at 13,000 feet between the tropics; and 
9,000 to 4,000 feet between the latitudes of forty 
degrees and fifty-nine degrees. 

At a depth of forty-five feet under ground, the 
temperature of the earth is uniform tlironghout 
the year. 

In Summer time, the season of ripening 
moves northward at the rate of about ten miles 
a day. 

The human ear is so extremely sensitive 
that it can hear a sound that lasts only the 
twenty-four thousandth part of a second. Deaf 
persons have .sometimes conversed together 
through rods of wood held between their teeth, 
or held to their throat or breast. 

The ordinary pressure of the atmosphere on 
the surface of the earth is two thousand one 
hundred and sixty-eight pounds to each square 
foot, or fifteen pounds to a square inch; equal 
to thirty perpendicular inches of mercury, or 
thirty-fonr and a half feet of water. 

Late scientific professors have ascertained, 
by a series of instrumental admeasurement of 
waves rising in a high swell after a violent 
storm, that the average height of the highest 
ocean waves does not e"xceed forty feet. The 
descriptions which we read of w.aves runnincj 
"mountains high" are therefore only poetic 
hyperboles?. 

At a white heat all magnetism disappears; it 
is still sensible in iron when heated to a dark 
red glow. 

The magnetic power of the compass needle 



PHILOSOPHICAL FATTS. 



will be entirely destroyed or changed by bein, 
touched with the iuice of an cn"on. 

In the Arctic r^^gions, when tlie thermometer 
is below zero, persons can converse more than a 
mile distant. Dr. Jakieson asserts that he 
heard every word of a sermon at the distance 
of two miles. 

If a tallow candle be placed in a gun and be 
shot at a door, it will go through without sus- 
taining any injury; and if a niusket-ball be 
fired into wa^r, it will rebound and be flattened 
as if fired against any hard substance. A mus- 
ket-ball may be fired through a pane of glass, 
and if the glass be suspended by a thread it 
will make no diflference, and the thread not 
even vibrate. 

Why do candles and lamps "spirt" when 
rain is at hand? Because the air is filled with 
vapor, and the humidity penetrates the wick, 
where (being formed into steam) it expands 
suddenly, and produces a little explosion. 

AVhy does a drop of water sometimes roll 
along a piece of hot iron without leaving the 
least trace? Because (when the iron is very 
hot indeed) the bottom of the drop is turned 
into vapor, which buoys the drop up, without 
allowing it to touch the iron. 

Why do wet feet or clothes give us "cold?" 
Because, the evaporation absorbs the heat so 
abundantly from tlie surface of our body, that 
unless we keep actively exercising, its tempera- 
ture is lowered below its natural standard ; in 
eonsequpnce of which health is injured. This 
also explains why it is dangerous to sleep in a 
damp bed. 

Why is the health injured when the tempera- 
ture of the body is reduced below its natural 
standfird? Because the balance of the circu- 
lation is destroyed, blood is driven away from 
the external surface by the chill, and thrown 
upon the internal organs, which are oppressed 
by this increased load of blood. 

What is the cause of snow ? When the air 
is nearly saturated with rain or vapor, and 
condensed by a current of air below freezing 
point, some of the vapor is condensed, and 
frozen into snow. A few years ago, some fish- 
ermen (who wintered at Nova Zembla), after 
they had been shut up in a hut for several days, 
opened the window; and the cold external air 
rushing in, instantly condensed the air of the 
hut, and its vapor fell on the floor in a shower 
of sno%v. 

What is the cause of sleet? When flakes of 
Bcow (in their descent) pass througli a bed of 



air above freezing-point, they partially melt, 
and fall to the earth as half-melted snow. 

What is hail? Rain which has passed in its 
descent through some cold bed of air, and has 
been frozen into drops of ice. 

What is rain? The vapor of the clouds or 
air condensed, and precipitated to the earth. 

Why are raindrops sometimes much larger 
than at other times? When the raincloud is 
floating near the earth, the drops are large, be- 
cause such a cloud is much more dense than 
one more elevated. The size of the raindrop 
is also increased according to the rapidity with 
which the vapors are condensed. 

How does the non-conducting power of snow 
protect vegetables from the frost and cold ? It 
prevents the heat of the earth from being 
drawn off by the cold air which rests upon it. 

Why are woolens and furs used for clothing 
in cold weather? Because they are very bad 
conductors of heat, and, therefore, prevent the 
warmth of the body from being drawn off bv 
the cold air. 

What then is the principal use of elotliing in 
Winter time ? To prevent the animal heat from 
escaping too freely ; and to protect the body 
from the external air (or wind) which would 
carry away its heat too rapidly. 

Window-glass can be cut under water wi(h 
ordinary scissors. 

To Make Glass Tumblers. — Take any kind of 
a glass bottle — bottles of thin white glass, with 
flat bottoms are the best — hold the bottle firmlv 
by both ends; let another person pass a cotton 
cord twice around the bottle, and create a fric- 
tion by pulling the ends of the cord to and fro 
rapidly for a minute or so; then let him jerk 
the cord off, and, presto! you hold in one hand 
as serviceable a tnrabler as you wish, and in 
the other a neat but not gaudy candlestick. 
The bottle should be held with a strap, piece of 
leather, or other substance, with a hard, straight 
edge, firmly around it at the intended point of 
severance, in order to keep the cord in one 
place during the friction, and to secure straight 
and smooth edges to the glassware. Old bottles 
can be put to good use in this way. 

The following difl^erent method sometimes 
works more successfully : Place the bottle in a 
ve-ssel of water, to the height where it is de- 
signed to break it, and fill the bottle wiili 
water to the same level. Now pour coal oil 
inside and out on the water; cut a ring of 
paper fitting the bottle ; saturate it with alco- 
hol or benzine, and slip it down to the oil. 



77-4 



CREAM OF FACTS. 



Pour some alcoliol or benzine inside tlie bottle 
Set on fire; the cold water prevents the glass 
from heating below its surface, while the ex- 
pansion caused by the heat will break the ves- 
sel on the water line. 

Facts of Iluman Liife —The bodies 
of animals are continually undergoing a seri 
of invisible changes of substance, of which they 
Hre entirely unconscicms. We look at onr hand 
to-day, as we write, and we fancy it is the same 
in substance as it was yesterday, or last year— 
as it was ten years ago. The form of eacl; 
finger, of each nail, is the same. Sears made 
in our infancy are still there. Nothing is ap 
parently altered or obliterated ; and yet it is 
not the .same hand. It has been renewed over 
and over again since the days of our youth 
The skin and flesh, and bime have been fre- 
quently removed and replaced. And so it is 
more or less, with our whole body. The arms 
and limbs that sustained us in our schoolboy 
struggles are long since consigned to the dust, 
and have, perhaps, lived over again more than 
once in plant, or flower, or animal. In from 
four to sevenyears, tlie entire body is taken out 
and built in again with new materials. A con- 
tinued activity prevails among the living agen- 
cies to which this hidden work is committed. 
Every day a small part is carried away ; just as 
if a single brick were every day taken out of 
an old wall, or a single wheel out of a watch, 
and its place supplied by another. The body, 
therefore, requires constant supplies, at every 
period of its life, of all those things of which 
its several parts are built up. 

Vital Statistics. — The number of men in the 
world is equaJ to the number of women — a con- 
clusive fact against polygamy and celibacy. 
One-quarter die belore the age of seven. To 
every one thousand persons only one reaches 
the age of one hundred years, and not more 
than one in five hundred will reach the age of 
eighty. There are on the earth 1,200,000,000 
inhabitants. Of these, 33,333,333 die every 
year, 91,824 die every day, 4,789 every h(mr, 
and 75 every minute — every throb of a healthy 
)iulse knelling one human being into the land 
of souls. But reproduction asserts its superior 
lioHcr; for where sixty per.sons die, seventy 
babes are born. 

Marriage is commended by the circumstance 
that the wedded are longer-lived than the 
single. Marringes are more frequent during 
the months of June and December. Those 
born in the Spring are more robust than others. 



Births and deaths are more frequent by night 
than b}' day. 

There liave been, according to the record of 
Moses, le.=s than two hundred generations 
since the creation ; and les.s than sixty since the 
commencement of the Christian era. Out of 
1,000 infants, who are nursed by the mother, 
about 300 die ; of the .same number committed 
to the charge of strange nurses, 500 perish. 
Among 115 deaths there may be reckoneii one 
woman in giving birth. 

By observations made during the space of 
fifty years, it has been found that the greatest 
number of deaths lias been in the month of 
March, and next to that in the months of Au- 
gust and September; in November, December, 
and February, there are the fewest deaths; 249 
take place in Winter, 280 in Spring, 225 in 
Summer, and 237 in Autumn. 

Tlie first month, and especially tlie first day 
of birth, are marked by the greatest number of 
deaths; of 2,735 infants who die during the 
first month, 1,192 die on the first day. The 
number of twins is to that of the whole num- 
ber of single births as one in sixty-five. The 
number of marriages is to that of the inhabit- 
ants of a country as 175 to 1,000. 

The average weight of a woman — 12-1 
pounds — is to the average weight of a man — • 
140 pounds — as 67 to 98; but her brain is rela- 
tively larger, being to man's brain as 90 to 100. 

The laws of life seem to be very capricious 
and erratic: but, in fiict. Death cuts his swath 
across the earth with great regularity. Out of 
one hundred thousand persons born at any par- 
ticular time, a certain number will yield up 
their life in each year; in other word.s, the 
aggregate will be diminished in an increasing 
but regular proportion till none are left alive. 
Taking ten thousand persons of the age of fifty- 
two, we will find that one hundred and fifty-two 
will die before reaching fifty-three, and so on. 
It is said that with reference to the Avhole 
pojinlation of London, the same number of 
deaths by consumption occur in that city each 
year, and similar regularity is confidently pre- 
dicated of the various other contingencies to 
which life is subject. 

The Chance for Long Life Increasing. — The 
test of longevity exhibits the greatest triumph 
for civilization, because here the life insurance 
tables furni.sh ample, though comparatively re- 
cent statistics. Of course, in lengen<lary ages 
all lives were of enormous length ; Methu- 
selah lived almost a thousand years; and the 
Hindoos in their sacred books attribute lo their 



FACTS or HUMAN LIFE. 



progenitors a career of forty million years or 
tliereaboiits — wliat may safely be termed a ripe 
old age. But, from the beginning of accurate 
statistics, we know that the duration of life in 
any nation is a fair index of its progress in 
civilization. 

QuETELET gives statistics, more or less re- 
liable, from every nation of northern Europe, 
showing a gain of ten to twenty-fipe per cent, 
dnring the last century. Where the tables are 
most carefully prepared, the result is least equi- 
vocal. Thus, in Geneva, where accurate regis- 
ters have been kept for three hundred years, it 
seems that from 1560 to 1600 the average life- 
time of the citizens was twenty-one years and 
two montlis; in the century following, thirty- 
two years and nine months; and in the year 
1833, forty years and five months; thus nearly 
doubling the average age of man in Geneva 
witl'in those three centuries of social progress. 

In France it is estimated that, in spite of 
revolutions and Napoleons, human life has 
been gaining at the rate of two months a year for 
nearly a century. .By a manuscript of tlje four- 
teenth century, moreover, it is shown that the 
rate of mortality in Paris was then one in si.v- 
teen — one person dying annually to every six- 
teen of the inhabitants. It is now one in 
tliirty-two — a gain of a hundred per cent, in 
five centuries. In England the progress has 
been far more rapid. The rate of mortality in 
1690 was one in thirty-three; in 1780 it was 
one in forty; and it stands now at one in 
sixty — the healthiest country in Euroije. 

In other words, the average duration of hu- 
man life has doubled within three centuries; 
and this improvement is due to the more set- 
tled state of society, to the decreasing wars, to 
the multiplied comforts of life, and to the ad- 
vance in sanitary knowledge and regulations of 
recent years. As the growth of morality and 
culture repre.sses vice, this improvement in 
health and in prolonged life will be more 
marked than at present. 

Comparative Longevity. — A statistician has re- 
cently shown that man's longevity is — striking 
an average — in exact proportion to his educa- 
tional attainments, provided tliat his health has 
not been injured by undue confinement or over- 
mental exertion. The best educated comnmni- 
ties are the longest lived, and the best educated 
soldiers live amazingly longer than the igno- 
rant and seem to wear a charmed life; not so 
much against bullet and bayonet, as against the 
effects of disease, privation, and wounds on their 
constitutions and lives. 



It is also a well-known fact that the moun- 
taineer lives longer than the lowlander; the 
farmer than the mechanic; the traveler than 
the sedentary; the temperate than the self- 
indulgent; the just th.an the dishonest. In five 
things are the secrets of health : Fresh air; clean 
water; appetites restrained; passions controlled ; 
and that highest type of physical exercise, 
"going about doing good." 

It is not a surprising circumstance that 
Quakers live longer than any other people; 
longevity naturally results from simplicity of 
habits, quietness of demeanor, restraint of tem- 
per, control of appetite, and a systematic, even 
mode of life. It is by such funding of vitality 
that men occasionally outlast a century; by this 
means the Englishman, Pakr, lived to be 152, 
having married, hale and hearty, at 120! In 
this way Henry Jenkins lived to 1G9, dying 
in Yorkshire in 1670 — the most remarkable 
authentic instance of longevity. 

Yet it is no doubt true that 

" We live in deeds, not years ; in tbuuglits, not breaths ; 
In actions, not in figures on a dial !" 

and that the man has lived longest, whatever 
the number of his years, whose life-purpose has 
been the highest, and who has brought him.self 
to bear most effectively on mankind. In tliis 
view, Methuselah was doubtle.ss a mere in- 
fant when he died; and many have cheerfully 
changed worlds at forty whose work here was 
to be measured by centuries. 

Among one hundred individuals of each pro- 
fession in Germany, Dr. Caspar found that 
the number attaining the age of 70 was as fol- 
lows, respectively: Theologians, 43; agricul- 
turists, 40; politicians, 35; merchants, 35; mili- 
tary men, 32; Lawyers, 29; artists, 28; college 
professors and physicians, 27. 

The conclusions drawn from an English cen- 
sus give lawyers, doctors, and scholars a longer 
lease of life — more in accordance with facts. 
Literary occupations seem, on the whole, favor- 
able to long life. Many of the first litcrators 
of ancient and modern times, men the most 
distinguished for .severe application through- 
out long lives, have lived to a very advanced 
age — as Humboldt, Albert Gallatin, John 
Adams, and College Presidents Kouth, Josiah 
QuiNCY, NoTT, and Day. 

The man that dies youngest, as might be 
expecteil, perhaps, is the railway brakesman. 
Ills average Jige is only twenty-seven. Yet this 
must be taken with some allowance, from the 
fact that hardly any but young and active men 
are employed in that capacity. At the same 



776 



TOE CREAM OP FACTS: 



age dies the factory workwoman, through the 
combined influence of confined air, sedentary 
posture, scant wages, and unremitting toil. 
Then comes the railway baggage-man, who is 
smashed on an average at thirty. Milliners and 
dressmakers live but little longer; the average 
of the one is thirty-two, and the otlier thirty- 
three. The engineer, the fireman, the conductor, 
the powder-maker, the well-digger, and the fac- 
tory operative, all of whom are exposed to sud- 
den and violent deaths, die on an average under 
the age of thirty-five. The cutler, the dyer, the 
leather-dresser, the apothecary, the confectioner, 
the cigarmaker, the printer, the silversmith, 
the painter, the shoecnttor, the engraver, and 
the macliinist, all of whom lead confined lives 
in an unwholesome atmosphere, do not reach 
an average of forty. 

The musician blows his breath all out of his 
body at forty-two. Then come trades that are 
active or in a pure air. The baker lives to an 
average of forty-three, the butcher to forty-nine, 
the brickmaker to forty-seven, the carpenter 
to forty-nine, the furnaco-man to forty-two, the 
mason to forty-eight, the sailor to forty-three, 
the stonecutter to forty-three, the tanner to 
forty-nine, the tinsmith to forty-one, the weaver 
to forty-four, the drover to forty, t!ie cook lo 
forty-five, the innkeeper to forty-six, the fe- 
male domestic to forty-three, the tailor to forty- 
three, the tailoress to forly-one. Why should 
the barber live till fifty, if not to show the vir- 
tue there is in personal neatness and soap and 
water? Those who average over half a century 
among mechanics are those who keep their 
muscles and lungs in healthful and moderate ex- 
ercise, and are not troubled with weighty cares. 

The blacksmith hammers till fifty-one, the 
cooper till fifty-two, and the wheelwright till 
fil'ty. The miller lives to be whitened with the 
age of .sixty-one. The ropemaker lengthens 
the thread of his life to fifty-five; merchants, 
wholesale and retail, to sixty-two. Professional 
men live longer than is generally supposed; 
litigation kills clients sometimes, but seldom 
lawyers, for they average fifty-five. Physi- 
cians prove their usefulness by prolonging their 
own lives to the same period. The caulker 
averages sixty-four, the sailmaker fifty-two, 
the stevedore fifty-five, the ferryman sixty-five, 
and the pilot sixty-four. A dispensation of 
Providence that "Maine law" men may con- 
sider incomprehensible is, that brewers and 
distillers live to tlie ripe old age of sixty-four. 
Last and longest, come paupers, sixty-seven, 
and "gentlemen," sixty-eight! The only two 



classes that do nothing for themselves, and live 
on their neighbors, outlast all the rest. 

Facts in Physiology. — There are 518 bones in 
the human frame; 14 in the fiice, 32 teeth, 24 
in the ribs, 16 in the wrists, 38 in the hands, 
14 in the ankles, 38 in the feet, and 342 in other 
parts of the body. 

The muscles are about 500 in number. 

Tlie length of the alimentary canal is about 
thirty-two feet. 

The amount of blood in an adult is near 30 
pounds, or full one-filth of the entire weight. 

There are 600,000,000 cells in the lungs, that, 
if spread out, would cover a sur!'ace seven times 
as large as the human body, and the membrane 
lining the intestinal canal is thirty times as 
large. 

.The heart is six inches in lenjith and four 
inches iii diameter, and b<'ats 70 times per min- 
ute, 4,200 times per hour, 100,800 times per 
day, 36,772,000 times per year, 2,565,440,000 in 
three-score and ten, and at each beat two and 
a half ounces of blood are thrown out of it, 175 
ounces .per minute, 656 pounds per hour, seven 
and three-fourth tons per day. All the blood 
in the body passes through the heart every 
three minutes. This little organ, by its cease- 
less industrv, 



lifts the enormous weight of 360,700,200 tons. 

The lungs will contain about one gallon of 
air, at their usual degree of inflation. We 
breathe, on an average 1,200 times per hour, 
inhaling 600 gallons of air, or 14,400 gallons 
per day. The aggregate surface of the air-cells 
of the lungs exceeds 20,000 square inches, an 
area very nearly equal to the floor of a rooju 
twelve feet square. 

The average weight of the brain of the adult 
male is three pounds and six ounces ; of a 
female, two pounds and eight ounces. The 
nerves are all connected with it, directly or 
through the spinal marrow. These nerves, to- 
gether with their branches and minute ramifi- 
cations, probably exceed 10,000,000 in number, 
forming a "body guard " outnumbering by far 
the mightiest army ever marshaled ! 

The skin is composed of three layers, and 
varies from one-fourth to one-eighth of an 
inch in thickness. Its average area in an 
adult is estimated to be 2,000 square inches. 
The atmospheric pressure being about fourteen 
pounds to the square incli, a person of medium 
size is subjected to a constant pressure of 40,000 
pouiuls! 



FACTS OF HUMAN LIFE. 



n I 



Each square inch of sklii contains 3,500 
sweating tubes, or perspiratory pores, each of 
wliicli may be likened to a little drain-tile one- 
fourth of an inch long, making an aggregate 
length over the entire surface of the body of 
301,166 feet, or a tile-ditcli for draining the 
body almost forty miles long. 

Man is made marvelously. Who is eager to 
investigate the curious, to witness the wonderful 
wcn-ks of Omnipotent Wisdom, let him not 
wander tlie wid8 world round to seek tliem, but 
e.xanune himself. "The proper study of man- 
kind is man." 

There i.s iron enough in the blood of forty- 
two men to make a plow-share weighing about 
24 pounds. The skeleton of a man weighs from 
12 to 16 pounds, and the blood 28 to 30 pounds. 
The muscles of the liuman jaw exert a force of 
534 pounds, and those of mastifls and wolves 
far more. The human brain is the fortieth of 
the body, but in the horse but a four-hundredtb. 
A healthy liver weighs nearly 4 pounds, but 
diseased ones will sometimes weigh from 12 to 
15 pounds. 

One of the most inconceivable things in the 
nature of the brain, says Hall's Journal of 
Health, is that the organ of sensation should in 
itself be in.seiisible. To cut the brain gives no 
pain, yet in the brain alone resides tbe power 
of feeling pain in any part of the body. If the 
nerve which leads from it to the injured part 
be divided, it becomes instantly unconscious of 
suffering. It is only by eoniMiunication witli 
the brain that any kind of sensation is pro- 
duced, yet the organ itself is iiusensible. But 
there is a circumstance more wonderful still ; 
the brain itself may be removed — may be cut 
away down the corpus culium — without destroy- 
ing life. The animal lives, and performs all 
its functions which are neces.sary to simple vi- 
tality, but no longer has a mind; it can not 
think or feel. It requires that the food should 
be pushed into the stomach — once there, it is 
digested, and the animal will live and grow fat. 

The average height of babes, at birth, is gen- 
erally sixteen inches. In each of the twelve 
years after birth, one-twelfth is added to the 
stature each year. Between the ages of twelve 
aud twenty, the growth of the body is slower; 
and it is still further diminished after this, 
up to twenty-five, the period of a maSimum 
growth. 

In old age, the height of tlie body dimin- 
ishes, on an average, about two inches. The 
height of woman varies less than that of man 
in the different countries. The average weight 



of a male infant is aliout seven pijiinds; of a 
female, about six and a half pounds. The 
weight of an inl'ant decreases for a lew days 
after its birth, and it does not .sensibly com- 
mence gaining until it is a week old. At the 
end of the first year, the child is three times a.s 
heavy as when it was born. At the age of 
seven years, it is twice as heavy as when a year 
old. The average weight of both sexes at 
twelve is nearly the same; after that period, 
females will be found to weigh less than nudes 
of the same age. The average weight of men 
is about one hundred and forty poinuls, and of 
women one hundred and twenty pounils. In 
the case of individuals of both sexes, under lour 
feet four inches, females are somewhat heavier 
than men, and vice versa. Men attain their 
maximum weight at about forty, and women at 
or near fifty. At sixty, both se.xes usually 
commence losing weight, so that the average 
weight of old persons, men or women, is nearly 
the same as at nineteen. 

The Average Height. — The average height of 
conscripts, twenty years of age, taken from the 
whole of France, for renewing the imperial 
armies, is found to be only five feet three inches 
and a half. 

Young men in a good station in life are 
rather taller than those who have more priva- 
tions to bear. Of eighty Cambridge, England, 
students, between eighteen and twenty-three 
years of age, the average height was over five 
feet nine inches. It appears to be jji-etty cer- 
tain, from the average of a large number of 
instances, that the height remains constant only 
from the age of thirty to fifty ; a slight average 
growth until tbe former limit — a slight average 
diminution alter the latter. Among all the 
adults of all classes, measured by M. Quetelet, 
he found that fully developed and well-formed 
men varied from four feet ten inches, to six 
feet two inches, with an average of five feet six ; 
and fully developed and well-formed women 
varied from four feet seven to five feet eight, 
with an average of about five feet two. 

The Hairs of the Head Kmnbercd. — To number 
the hairs of the head has been in all ages ac- 
counted as impossible a feat as to count the 
sands of the sea-shore. The astonishing labor 
has, however, been gone through by a patient 
German profes.sor, who thus tabularizes tbe re- 
sult of his examination of four heads of hair : 

Blonde (number of hair,«) 140,400 

BiowQ " " 1U!I.J4I] 

Black " " ULMM 

Ittd " " W.710 

The heads of hair were found to be nearly 



778 



THE CREAM OF FACTS : 



equal in weight, and the deficiency in tlie num- 
ber of hairs in the black, bruwn, ;ind red colors 
was fully counter-balanced by a corresponding 
increase of bulk in the individual libers. Tlie 
average wciglit of a woman's liead of hair is 
about Iburteen ounces. 

Statistics of Man-iuye. — If we take one hun- 
dred to reijresent tlie wliole of a woman's 
chances of marriage between the ages of 15 
and 70, tlie proportional chances in each period 
of five yeais will be as Ibllows: 

Agi'. Cliauci'8 of Mairiuge. 



nd under 20 



From the table it appears: 

1. That one-.seventli part of all the females 
who marry in England, are married between 
the ages of 15 and 20, or one-seventh part of a 
woinaji's chances of marriage lie between those 
years. 

2. Tliat fully one-half of all the women who 
marry are married between 20 and 25, or one- 
half of a woman's chances are comprised within 
tliese five years. 

3. That between 15 and 25, precisely two- 
thirds of a woman's chances of marriage are 
exhausted, and only one-third remains for the 
rest of her life up to 70. 

4. That at 30 no less than 35 chances out of 
the 100 are gone, and 15, or about one-seventh, 
only remain. She has strong reasons now for 
improving her time. 

5. At 35, a fraction (a tenth) is all that re- 
mains to her — which is reduced to a twentieth 
at 40. 

6. At 45 her chances of marriage have sunk 
to one-fortieth; and at 50 to one-hundredth. 
At 60 there is still a glimmering of hope, ior 
it appears that among females about 1 marriage 
in 1,000 takes place at and beyond this age. 

The number of women married between 15 
and 20 is six times greater than the numbei 
of men. 

The immber of men and women married be 
tween 20 and 25 is very nearly equal, hut tin 
number of men married at all higher ages is 
greater than the number of i^omen. 

Occupations. — There is one farmer to every 
ten people ; one manufacturer to every sixty- 
five people; one merchant to every two hundred 
and fifty people; one physician to every six 



hundred people; one clergyman to every eight| 
hundred people; one lawyer to every thousand 
people. 

The Population of the Workl. — The population 
of the earth is rapidly increasing under the 
advancement of civilizalion and the compara- 
tive (irevalence of peace, and now numbers not 
less than 1,200,000,000, divided as follows; 



Alriiii 
Asia... 
Japan 



l<ailguagcs. — The least learned are aware 
that there are many languages in the world, 
but the actual number is probably beyond the 
dreams of ordinary people. The geographer, 
Bai^bi, enumerated StiO, which are entitled to 
be considered as distinct language-s, and 6,000 
which may be regarded as dialects. Adeldng, 
another modern writer on this subject, reckon.s 
up 3,064 languages and dialects existing, and 
which have existed ; of the.se, he assigned 587 
to Europe, 936 to Asia, 276 to Africa, and 1,264 
to America. 

Origin of the English Language. — Siip|)(>se the 
English language, .says Trench, to be divided 
into a hundred parts; of these, to make a rough 
distribution, sixty would be Saxon, thirty would 
be Latin, five would be Greek ; we should thus 
have assigned ninety-five parts, leaving the 
other five words, perhaps too large a residue, 
to be divided among all the other languages 
from which we have adopted isolated words. 
The Lord's Prayer contains sixty words, of 
which six only claim Latin origin — "tres- 
pass," "trespasses," ''temptation," "deliver," 
"power," "glory" — and Saxon words might 
ea.sily be substituted tor these. The Anglo- 
Saxon words in our language are those of 
greater primary necessity; because this was 
the aboriginal element, whereon the Latin ia 
a graft. All the joints of the language, its 
sinews and ligaments, its articles, pronouns, 
propositions, conjunctions, numerals, auxiliary 
and sm;dl verbs, the words, in short, which 
.serve as links to bind its sentences together, are 
Saxon; while its Latin words, whether adopted 
directly or obliquely through the French, are 
those which give elegance and variety, and ex- 
tend discussion in philosophy and theology, in 
abstruse themes and recondite sciences. It ia 
easy to form a sentence on any subject without 
a word of Latin derivation, while it is almost 
impossible to form a sentence without a Saxon 
word. 



THE UNIVERSE. 



779 



We should confidently conclude, continues 
Tkexch, that the Norman was the ruling race, 
from the noticeable fact that all the words of 
dignity, state, honor, and pre-eminence, with one 
remarkable exception, descend to us from them; 
sovereign, scepter, throne, realm, royalty, hom- 
age, prince, duke, count, chancellor, treasurer, 
palace, castle, hall, dome, and a multitude 
more. At the same time, the remarkable ex- 
ception of " king," would make us, even did 
we know notluBg of the actual facts, suspect 
tli.U the chieftain of this ruling race came in 
upon an old title, not as overthrowing a former 
dynasty, but claiming to be in the rightful line 
of its succession. 

And yet, while the stately superstructure of 
the language, almost all articles of luxury, all 
that has to do with the chase, with chivalry, 
witli personal adornment, is Norman through- 
out ; with the broad basis of tlie language, and 
tlierefore of the life, it is quite otlierwise. The 
great features of nature, sun, moon, and stars, 
earth, water, and fire; all the prime social 
relations, father, mother, husband, wife, son, 
daughter, these are Saxon. The palace and 
the castle may have come to us through the 
Norman ; but to the Saxon we owe the dearer 
names, the house, the roof, the home, the 
hearth. The implements used in cultivating 
and harvesting the productions of the earth, 
the plow, the sickle, the flail, the spade, are 
expre.ssed in his language ; so are the main 
j)rodncts themselves, as wheat, rye, oats, here, 
i. e. barley, and no less the names of domestic 
animals. 

Concerning tliese last, it is not a little char- 
acteristic to observe that the names of almost 
all animals, as long as they are alive, are thus 
Saxon, but when dressed and prepared for food 
they become Norman — a fact, indeed, which we 
might have expected beforehand; for the Saxon 
hind had the charge and labor of tending and 
feeding them, but only that they might appear 
on the table of his Norman lord. Thus, ox, 
cow, steer, are Saxon, but beef Norman ; calf 
is Saxon, but veal Norman ; sheep is Saxon, 
but mutton Norman; so it is severally with 
swine and pork, deer and venison, (owl and 
pullet. Bacon, the only flesh, perhaps, which 
ever came within the Saxon's reach is the single 
exception. 

Xmnbei' of Words in Use. — Professor Max 
MuLLEB quotes the statement of a clergyman 
that some of the laborers in his parish had not 
300 wot-ds in their vocabulary. A well-edu- 
cated person seldom uses more than about 3,000 



or 4,000 words in actual conversation. Accu- 
rate thinkers and close reasoners, who select 
witli great nicety the words that exactly fit 
their meaning, employ a much larger stock, 
and eloquent speakers may rise to a command 
of 10,000. Shakspeake, who displayed a 
greater variety of expresssion than probably 
any other writer in any language, produced all 
his plays with about 15,000 words. Milto:n's 
works are built up with 8,000, and tlie Old 
Testament says all that it has to say with 5,G42 
different words. There are now something like 
115,000 words iu the English language. 

Tlie Universe. — As a proof of what an 
immense book the heavens are, and also of the 
indefatigability of the student, man, in turning 
over its leaves. Dr. Nichol, in. his work de- 
scribing the magnitude of Lord Kosse's tele- 
scope, says that Lord Kosse has looked into 
space a distance so tremendous, so inconceiva- 
ble, that light, .which travels at the rate of 
200,000 miles in one second, would require a 
period of 250,000,000 of solar years to pass the 
intervenfng gulf between this earth and the 
remotest point to which this telescope has 
reached! How utterly unable is the mind to 
grasp even a fraction of this immense period ; 
to conceive the passing events of a hundred 
thousand years only, is an impossibility, to say 
nothing of millions and hundreds of millions 
ol^ years. 

The sun is ninety five million of miles dis- 
tant from the earth, yet a ray of light will tra- 
verse that immense distance in 480 seconds; 
long as the distance may seem to be passed in 
so short a time, what comparison can the mind 
frame between it and that great distance, which 
Drs. Nichol and RossE demonstrate, would 
require every second of time to represent more 
than 500,000 years ! And the study of astron- 
omy is not only useful to excite emotions of 
grandeur and .sublimity at such discoveries, 
but it is the basis of navigation and our note 
of time, and unites the strictness of our matlie- 
matical reasoning with the most certain calcu- 
lation. 

Number of Stars. — To our naked eye are dis- 
pjayed about 3,000 stars, down to the sixth 
magnitude. Thus far the. heavens were the 
same to the ancients that they are to ns. IJnt 
within the last two centuries our telescopes 
have revealed to us forty or fifty planets, and 
countless millions of stars, more and more 
astonishingly numerous the farther we are 
able to penetrate into space. The number of 



780 



THE CREAM OF FACTS : 



stars may be really infinite, says Sir John 
Hebschel, in the only sense in which we can 
assign a meaning to the word. 

Says Samuel Warren, "Fourteen thousand 
years of the history of the inhabitants of these 
systems, if inhabitants there be, had passed 
away during the time that a ray of their light 
was traveling to this tiny residence of curious 
little man ! Consider for a moment, that that 
ray of light must have quitted its dazzling 
source eight thousand years before the crea- 
tion of Adam !" 

Tlie Vusitnesi of Creation. — Faint white specs 
are visible, says Everett, even to the naked 
eye of the practiced observer, in dill'erent parts 
of the heavens. Under high magnifying pow- 
ers, several thousand of such spots are visible; 
no longer, however, faint white specks, but 
many of them resolved, by powerful telescopes, 
into vast aggregations of stars, each of which 
may, with propriety, be compared to the milky 
way. JIany of these nebnlic, however, resisted 
the power of Sir John Herschel's great re- 
flector, and were, accordingly, still regarded by 
him as ma.sses of unformed matter, not yet con- 
densed into suns. This, till a few years since, 
was the prevailing ophiion. But with the in- 
crease of instrumental power, the most insolv- 
able of these nebulas have given way ; and the 
better opinion now is, that every one of them is 
a galaxy, like our own milky Vay, composed 
of millions of suns. In other words, we are 
brought to the bewildering conclusion, that 
thousands of the.se misty specks, the greater part 
of them too faint to be seen with the naked eye, 
are not each a universe like our solar system, 
but each a "swarm" of univer.ses, of unap- 
preciable magnitude. The mind sinks over- 
powered hf the contemplation. AVe repeat the 
words, but they no longer convey distinct 
meanings to the understanding. 

The Solar System Illustrated. — In order to 
convey to the mind of the reader a general im- 
pression of the relative magnitudes and dis- 
tances of the parts of our system, "choose," 
says Sir John Hekschei,, "any well-leveled 
field. On it place a glolie two feet in diameter 
to represent the Sun; Mercury will be repre- 
sented by a grain of mustard-seed, on the cir- 
cumference of a circle 16-1 feet in diameter, for 
its orbit ; Venus, a pea, on a circle 284 feet in 
diameter; the Earth, also a |)ea, on a circle of 
430 feet ; Mars, a rather large jiin's head, on a 
circle of 654 feet; Juno, Ceres, Vesta, and 
Pallas, grains of sand, in orbits of from 1,000 
to l,'20O feet ; Jujuter, a moderate-sized orange, 



on a circle of half a mile; Saturn, a small 
orange, on a circle of four-fifths of a mile ; and 
Uranus, or Herschel, a full-sized cherry, or 
small plum, on the circumference ( f a circle 
more than a mile and a half in diameter. To 
imitate their motions. Mercury must describe 
its orbit in forty-one seconds; Venus, in four 
minutes and four seconds ; Earth, in sevea 
minutes; Mars, in four minutes and forty-eight 
seconds; Jupiter, in two hours and lifly-six 
minutes ; Saturn, in three hours and thirteen 
minutes ; Uranus, in two hours and sixteen 
minutes." Scarcely any notion can be had from 
drawings on paper, or those very childish toys 
called orreries. 

Le Verhier, the discoverer of the planet 
Neptune, wrote to Galle, of Berlin, saying: 
"This star no one has seen, but it exists. I 
have measured its distance; I have estimated 
its size; I have calculated its diajueter. It is 
there. Look for it, and you will find it." He 
looked — it was discovered from the Observatory 
of Berlin, on the 23d of September, 1846, just 
where the student, in his closet, had told the 
practical astronomer he would find it ! 

2'he Earth. — Of the age of the earth, Agas-. 
siz writes : " Among the astounding di.scoveries 
of science, is that of the immense periods that 
have passed in the gradual formation of tlie 
earth. So vast were the cycles of the lime pre- 
ceding even the appearance of man un the 
surface of our globe, that our own period seems 
as yesterday when compared with the epochs 
that have gone before it. Had we only the ev- 
idence of the deposits of rocks heaped on each 
other in regular strata by the slow accumulation 
of materials, they alone would convince us of 
the long and slow maturing of God's work on 
earth ; but when we add to these the successive 
population of whose life the world has been the 
theater, and whose remains are hidden'in the 
rocks into which the mud or sand, or soil of 
whatever kind on which they lived, has har- 
dened in the course of time — or, the enormous 
chain of mountains, whose upheaval divided 
these periods of quiet accumulation by great 
convulsions — or, the changes of a difTerent na- 
ture in the configurations of our globe, as the 
sinking of lands beneath the ocean, or the 
gradual rising of eonlinents and islands above; 
or, the slow growth of the coral reefs, whose 
wonderful sea walks raised by the little ocean 
architects, whose own bodies furnish both the 
building-stones and the cement that binds them 
together, and who have worked so busily dur- 
ing the long centuries that there are extensive 



THE UNIVERSE. 



781 



oouiitries, moiintain-cliains, isliinds, and 'lont 
lines of coast consisting solely of their re 
mains — or, tlie countless forests tliat have 
grown np, flourished, and deca_ved, to fill the 
ptorehcjusc of coal that feeds tlie fires of the 
linniaii race — if we consider all these records 
of the pa^l, the intellect fails to grasp a chro- 
nolojjy of which our experience furnishes no 
data, and time that lies behind us seems as 
nnich an eternity to our conception as the 
future that stretclies indefinitely before us." 

A railway train, traveling at twenty-five 
miles an Inuir, would require six weeks to go 
around the earlh. This globe weighs about 
six million billions of tons! 

The earth is believed to have not two mo- 
tions only, but three; one on its axis, a thou- 
sand miles an hour; another around the sun, a 
llionsaiid aiiles a minute, and the third with 
the solar system through space — for our sun, 
wiih his brood of planets, is moving with pro- 
iliuious velocity, at the rate of five hundred 
miles a minute, toward a particular point in 
the heavens, a star in the constellation Her- 
cules, perhaps, sweeping a measureless orbit 
around sojne remoter sun! 

The Aurora HoreaUs. — Scientific men have 
long felt that there was a strange secret hidden 
in the beautiful folds of the aurora. The 
magic arch, with its pointed streamers shiflinj 
silently but swiftly acro.ss the heavens, pulsa- 
ting mysteriously, as though illuminated by the 
fitfully changing glow of some concealed fur- 
nace, and rendered surpassingly beautiful by 
the biilliancy of its colors, had always had 
strange charms for men of thoughtful mind. 
And, gradually, a series of laborious researches 
has revealed the law which associates this 
beautifid apparition with disturbances affecting 
the economy of our whole earth, and not indis- 
tinctly connected with the habitudes of the 
solar system itself. 

Prof. LooMis, of Yale College, pronounces 
the auroral beams "simply spaces which are 
illumined by the flow of electricity through the 
upper regions of tlie atmosphere." He contin- 
ues: "They exhibit an endless variety of ap- 
pearances. In the United States an aurora is 
uniformly preceded by a hazy or slaty appear- 
ance of the sky, particularly in the neighbor- 
hood of the northern horizon. When the au- 
roral display commences, this hazy portion of 
the sky assumes the form of a dark bank or 
segment of a circle in the north, rising ordina- 
rily to the height of from five to ten degrees. 
This dark segment is not a cloud, for the stars 



are seen through it as tlimu-h a smoky atmos- 
phere, with little dimimition of brilliancy. 
This dark bank is simply a dense haze, and 
it appears darker from the contrast with the 
luminous arc which rests upon it. 

" The height of a large number of auroras 
has been computed, and the average result for 
the upper limit of the streamers is four hundred 
and fiftj' miles. From a multitude of observa- 
tions, it is concluded that the aurora seldom 
appears at an elevation less than about forty- 
five miles above the earth's surface, and that it 
frequently extends upward to an elevation of 
five hundred miles. Auroral arches, having a 
well-defined border, are generally less than one 
hundred miles in height. 

"Auroral exhibitions take place in the upper 
regions of the atmosphere, since they partake 
of the earth's rotation. All the celestial bodies 
have an apparent motion from east to west, 
arising from the rotation of the earth; but 
bodies belonging to the earth, including the 
atmosphere and the clouds which float in it, 
partake of the earth's rotation, so that their 
relative position is not affected by it. The 
same is true of auroral exhibitions. When- 
ever an auroral corona is formed, it main- 
tains sensibly the same position in the heaveps 
during the whole period of its continuance, 
although the stars meanwhile revolve at ths 
rate of fifteen degrees per hour. 

"The grosser part of the earth's atmosphere 
is limited to a moderate distance from the earth. 
At the height of a little over four miles, the 
density of the air is only one-half what it is at 
the earth's .surface. At the height of fifty 
miles the atmosphere is well-nigh inappi-ecia- 
ble in its effect upon twilight. The phenomena 
of lunar eclipses indicate an appreciable atmos- 
phere at the height of sixty-six miles. Tlie 
phenomena of shooting-stars indicate an atmos- 
phere at the height of two hundred or three 
hundred miles, while the aurora indicates that 
the atmosphere does not entirely cease at the 
heisht of five hundred miles. Auroral exhi- 
bitions take place, therefore, in an atmosphere 
of extreme rarity; so rare indeed that if, in ex- 
periments with an air pump, we could exhaust 
the air as completely, we should say that we 
had obtained a perfect vacuum." 

The London Spectnlor for October, 1809, an- 
nounces the results of more recent experiments. 
Spectroscopic analysis, that strange and power- 
ful mode of research which has revealed so 
many unlooked-for facts, has show-ed that the 
aurora, instead of being a rainbow-colored 



782 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 



streak of liglit, such as wonKl have appeared 
if it were due to tlie existence of particles 
excited to luminosity by electrical action, ^fas a 
single line of colored light. This proves that 
the light results from the incandescence of 
some gas, through the agency of electricity. 
What this gas is, is now the problem. The 
savans of Germany have approached its solu- 
tion so far as to demonstrate that the ray seen 
in the spectrum of the aurora is the same as 
that resulting from the zodiacal light; and it is 
believed tliat the tails of comets have an origin 
in common witli both. 

Differences of Climate. — Isothermal 

lines, as traceil on a map, are imaginary lines 
connecting all points having the same mean 
temperature the year round. Xear the equator 
the isothermals exhibit no great or sudden diver- 
gence ; but as we recede from the equator, north- 
wardly or southwardly, their deflections become 
remarkable, sometimes ranging, in their circuit 
of the globe, through twenty or thirty degrees 
of latitude. 

Judge J. G. Knapp, of Wisconsin, has pre- 
sented to the Legislature a valuable report on 
Forest Trees, from which we make a citation: 
"People are apt to look upon the climatical 
zones of the earth as identical with the zones 
of latitude, or but slightly varied from that re- 
lation. Hence we often hear the expression of' 
one place lying in the same latitude as another, 
as meaning that the two have a similar clima- 
tology. This is only true when all other rela- 
tions are identical, and not otherwise. Two 
countries on the same parallel, equally elevated, 
equally distant from the sea, on the same side 
of a continent, exposed to wind of the same 
character for temperature and aridity, and 
influenced by the same kind of ocean currents, 
will have an identical climatology; so two 
islands in the same mid-ocean, as in the great 
Pacific, will be alike in climate. But change 
any of these conditions and the whole clima- 
tology is changed. 

"The annual isotherm of forty-five degrees 
of temperature passes nearly east and west 
through Portage City, Wisconsin, and Concord, 
New Hampshire, making but slight deflections 
from a .straight line, on account of the influence 
of the great lakes, and the mountains of New 
York, Vermont, and New Hampshire. 

"The isotherm of forty-five degrees, during 
the Spring months, enters the continent at Bos- 
ton, passes Albany along the south shore of 
Lake Ontario, through Detroit, around the 



south' end of Lake Michigan, through Portage 
City, and thence by St. Paul to the valley of 
the Saskatchawan river. This line is spread 
out some seventy miles wide, as it passes over 
New York, and is very crooked, showing in a 
remarkable degree the efiect of high lands and 
the cool lakes. On the west of us, it passes 
twice above the fiftieth parallel of latimde, 
and once, in New Mexico, it goes below the 
parallel of thirty -six and a half. 

"The isotherm of .seventy degrees in Summer 
passes through Wisconsin in about the same 
direction as that of the Spring line of forty-five 
degrees, except running farther east in Wis- 
consin, but it reaches the south end of Lake 
Michigan from Harrisbnrg and Pittsburg, in 
Pennsylvania, and near the line of the Fort 
Wayne Railroad. The isotherm of forty-eigh). 
degrees in the Fall must be drawn from Coppei 
Harbor, on Lake Superior, through Green Eaj 
and Fond du Lac, thence west by Portage Cit; 
to the Mississippi river." 

So, also. Great Britain, which is in the lati- 
tude of the lower part of Hudson's Bay, has tha 
mean temperature of New York, while that city 
is in the latitude of Spain .and Italy. The 
isotherm that traverses Lake Michigan deflects 
thence to the northwestward up the Pacific 
coast till it touches Alaska, also strikes north- 
eastward down the St. Lawrence, through Hali- 
fax, and up the Atlantic, passing near the coast 
of Iceland and the Arctic circle as far north aa 
Greenland. The northern shore of Lake Supe- 
rior has about the same annual cold as Behring's 
straits — an average of thirty-t.wo degrees Fah- 
renheit, the freezing point! 

There is no doubt that a vast amount of heat 
is transported from the tropical to the temperate 
and frozen regions of the earth by the great 
oceanic currents. The Gulf stream in the 
Atlantic constantly sweeps from the West Indies 
northeastward against the British islands and 
western Europe, lending to them something of 
the fervor of the Caribbean sea; and through 
the Pacific rushes a similar stream, sending the 
isothermal lines northward across the Aleutian 
isles. 

Sir John Herschel estimates the Gulf 
stream as equal to a current thirty miles wide, 
two thousand two hundred feet deep, and flow- 
ing at the rate of four miles per hour. This 
gives 7,359,900,000,000 cubic feet per hour, and 
as ihe temperature of the water in the tropics 
is comparatively high (86° Fahrenheit), the 
influence of such a stream in the distribution 
of the heat of the globe must be enormous. 



DIFFERENCES OF CLIMATE. 



783 



But this is probiibly only one of several equal to that of Quebec. Could we protect such 
causes of tlie deflection of the lines of tempera- ' trees by covering, as we do grape vines, there 
ture. The late expeditions to the Arctic seas would be no oll\er difficulty in producing tlieir 
indicate, if tliey do not [irove, the existence of . fruits. 

two north poles of cold, which are also mag- Tlierefore, talcing the annual and perennial 
nelic poles, near the northern coasts of the vegetation as our guides, there is no great ditfi- 
Eastern and Westeru continents, a tliousand ! culty in determining the lines of temperature, 
miles apart, with the geographical pole midway I But t.aking them as guides we shall be siir- 
between. The Asiatic pole of cold is located prised to see how those lines will cross each 
by K.^EMTZ just off the coast of Siberia, and ' other in this St.ate, at almost riglit angles. We 
the American pole to the west of Eaflin's bay, should find tliat the Summer isotherm of seventy 
about the region where Sir John Fhanklin's ' degrees, or that of B.altimore, tlie liue of tlie 



crew perished. These are made the centers of 
cold, and the prime causes of the dip of the 
isothermal lines into the continents and their 
sudilen rise in the great oceans between. 

Zones of Vegetation. — Again we have recourse 
to tlie report of Judge Knapp: "Something 
almost amounting to definiteness may be deter- 
mined in relation to our isothermal lines, with- 
out anj' reference to the thermometer, by the 
vegetation of the countrj'. Some vegetables 
require a certain amount of heat to bring them 
to perfection; and others are destroyed by the 
depression of the thermometer to a certain 
point. In some instances these conditions are 
found in the same plant: Indian corn, the 
cucurbitacese, tobacco, and some others are 
examples of plants requiring a liigh tempera 
ture to bring them to perfection. 

"Indian corn will not ripen in England, oi 
at the mouth of the Columbia river, in Oregon! 
though the annual isotlierm of both places i; 
much above that of Jfadison, Wisconsin. The 
various species of melons, squashes, cucumber 
and others of the same natural order, will not 
there form sets unless under glass, and aided 
by bottom heat, although the plants can remain 
in the open air, in a growing condition, for 
eight months in tlie year. Varieties of the 
corn and melons mark very faithfully the dif- 
ferent Summer isotherms. Thus, though the 
annual temperature of Madison corresponds 
with Portland, JIaine, yet our Summer permits 
the corn and melons of the District of Columbia 
to ripen well at this place. 

On the other hand, the Winter i.sotherms are 
to be determined by perennials : Thus, we find 
that some trees and shrubs that thrive well at 
Albany, New York, are killed here in Wiscon- 
sin by the excessive cold that pauses to us from 
the great wind gap. So the peach tree will 
live at Portland, Maine, but requires a wall to- 
ripen its fruit; while the fruit would ripen by 



dent corn and black Spanish watermelon, tra- 
verses Wisconsin, rmining northwest to St. 
Paul, while that of twenty degrees in Winter, 
the extreme limit of the chestnut, riuis north- 
east to Green Bay. This changeability of lines 
is in a large degree owing to t!ie influence of 
the great lakes." • 

Where the Cold Comes F)-om.- — We take the 
following from the Scientifie Annual: "Our 
ob.servations of the cold terms for several years, 
show that the icy wave comes down over the 
central portion of this continent, .striking our 
Western States, and passing over to the ocean 
in a southeasterly direction. The cold wave 
does not affect the Pacilic shore; it comes down 
from the Arctic regions upon the Kocky moun- 
tains, and then turns eastward, so that the first 
news we have of it, days before it reaches here, 
is from Minnesota, Nebraska, and Utah. It 
follows the valleys and the course of the waters, 
and spends itself over the Gulf streams, where 
it warms again, and rising as it expands, is 
wafted back in the upper atmosphere. The 
cold-air current is just the opposition to the 
warm-water current which we call the Gulf 
stream. That comes from the torrid zone west- 
erly, and is turned northwardly by the con- 
figur.ation of the lands, as the cold-air wave is 
eastward when it strikes the mountains, and 
thence runs along our coast, affecting the cli- 
mate of the lands near it, till it loses itself in 
'the Northern ocean and ice." 

The Moon's Influence on the Weather. — Igno- 
rance and superstition liave attributed to the 
moon's occult fnfluence more importance than 
science and enlightened observation a.ssign to 
it. Not only in rast ages, but at tliis present 
moment, millions believe tluat the moon pos- 
sesses a mysterious and most awful agency, to 
bless or ban, to invigorate or blight ; and that 
her celestial favor is propitiated by fir.st behold- 
ing her over the right shoulder, and by treni- 



our Summer heat without such aid, but t!ie tree blingly obeying the laws which tradition has 
is often killed here by a Winter temperature | preserved. 



r84 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 



According to vulgar belief, our satellite jire- 
pidesover liunian maladies; and the plienoniena 
of the sick chamber are govenifd h_v the lunar 
phases; nay, the very marrow of our bones, and 
the weiglit of our bodies, suflisr increase or 
diminiitiiiM by its influence. Nor is its impu- 
ted pciwer confined to physical or organic 
efl'ects; it notoriously governs mental derange- 
ment. Some successful gardeners still rigidly 
oh.serve the rule of planting ac'cording to the 
changes of the moon, declaring that all vegeta- 
bles of the vine kinds, as beans, peas, potatoes, 
etc., hear more luxuriantly if planted in the 
tirst three or four days after full moon ; and 
that corn planted on the ilecline of the moon 
will make heavier oars than if planted at any 
other time. 

The angry Red Moon is hostile to all vegeta- 
ble life ; tlie waxing moon .smiles upon standing 
fore.sts, but smites with worms and rot all that 
is felled; oysters and clams .shrivel up and 
diminisli in size, during the wane — an emacia- 
tion probably caused by sadness at the fading 
of the luminary; the full moon changes the 
complexion; the new moon withers wheat, so 
that the seller is cheated in the measure — for 
these miraculous effects are attested by such 
distin.miished munesas Pliny, Plut.vrcii, and 
LuciLLius! 

Philosophers long ago began to question the 
alleged phenomena themselves, as well as the 
lunar dcilnotions. "Truly," says M. AR.iC.O, 
the eminent French scientist, "we have need 
of a robust faith to admit without proof that 
the moon, .it the distance of one hundred and 
forty thousand miles, shall in one position act 
advantageously upon the vegetation of beans, 
and that in the opposite position, and at the 
same distance, she shall be propitious to lentils." 
The moon may have an effect upon the 
weather, but it is so small as to be scarcely dis- 
oernable, and afic)rds apparently no ground for 
the lunar theories put forth by the woather- 
projihels. E. P. CnASE, of Philadelphia, after 
a earel'ul examination of the weather reconls 
of forty-three years, kept at the Pennsylvania 
Hospital, five years kept at Girard College, 
and seventeen years keiit by Professor Kirk- 
PATMCK, has come to the conclusion that " the 
position of the moon has a perceptible tliough 
slight eflect on the weather. In other words, 
that there is an atmospheric, tidal wave pro- 
duced by the moon which corresponds to the 
ocean wave." Whether this " slight effect " is 
unfavorable to vegetation is not known, but as 



it must appear in its worst form once every 
day, the damage is certainly not great. 

It is also stated as a scientific fact, that radia- 
tion is carried on rapidly on bright moonlight 
nights; in con.sequenee ofwhii'h, dew is plen- 
tifully desposited on young plants, which 
conduces to their growth and vigor. This 
influence, however, can not be very important. 

The Italian philosopher, Meli.oni, has prov- 
ed, to his own .satisfaction, that the rays of the 
moon do give out a slight degree of heat. But 
the nicest experiment of otiier savans have 
failed to .show that the presence and light of 
the moon are attended by the slightest ch.ange 
of temperature. 

Many observations have been m.ade with a 
view of testing the effect of the changes of the 
moon on the weather. Professor Pilgram, of 
Vienna, extended his observations through the 
long period of fifty-two years; and he found 
that in a hundred changes at new moon, there 
were fifty-eight changes of weather, while in 
forty-two it was settled; at the full, there were 
sixty-three changes, and thirty-seven settled ; 
the same also at the quarters. Dr. Hokseley 
made observations with very similar results. 

The late Mr. Mkrriam, of New York, who 
watched the weather very closely, and made 
more observations for over thirty years than 
probably any other man, declared that in all 
his experience he was never able to perceive 
that the moon has the least influence upon the 
weather. 

And yet, to what multitudes in this enlight- 
ened age and country, is this rank heresy? 
How many run to the almanacs to see when 
the moon is "new," when it "quarters," and 
when it is " full," and predict changes in the 
weather at these points. The fact i.s, the moon 
is new, or quarters, or is full, once a week, the 
year round ; and in our American climate, the 
weather changes often — as often as once a week, 
when it does not remain unaltered for weeks; 
and so if a change in the weather takes place 
nywhere near the change in the moon, she is 
vulgarly referred to as the author of the change. 
Even educated men will sometimes clingttjKthis 
notion, and instil it into the minds of their 
children. The number and variety of super- 
stitions which still linger and burrow in the 
world, is far larger than most people suppose. 

Bainy Days in a Year. — In general, the num- 
ber of rainy days is the greatest near the .sea, 
and decreases the farther we penetrate into the 
interior. On the eastern side of Ireland it 



DIFFERENCES OF CLIMATE. 



rains two Ininclred and ei'glit days dining the 
year; in the Netherlands, one hun(]red and 
seventy ; in England, France, and tlie North of 
(iermany, and in the Gnlf of Finland, from 
one hundred and fifty-two to one hundred and 
llfty-five days; while on the plains of Volga, at 
Kapan, it rains on ninety days, and in the 
interior of Siberia, only on sixty days in the 
year. In Western Europe it rains on twice as 
many days as in Eastern Europe ; in Ireland, 
on three time3*as many days as in Italy and 
South of Spain. Along tlie line of the Tropic 
of Cancer is a belt where rain is almost un- 
known, including a part of northern Mexico, 
the desert of Sahara in Africa, and a region of 
country in Asia extending from Arabia to 
China. The other extreme is found just above 
the equator, where there is a belt around the 
globe of almost constant rain. This includes 
l*anama. 

The Farmer's Baromder. — Take a common 
glass pickle bottle, wide-mouthed; fill it within 
three inches of the top with water; then take a 
common Florence flask — a narrow-necked wine 
bottle — invert it and plunge the neck of the 
flask into the bottle as far as it will go, and tlie 
barometer is complete. In fine weather, the 
water will rise into the neck of the tiask even j 
higher than the mouth of the pickle bottle; 
and, in wot, windy weather, it will fall to within 
an inch of the mouth of the fla.sk. Before a 
heavy gale of wind, tlie water has been seen to 
leave the flask altogether, at least eight hours 
before the gale came to its height. 

Leech Barometer.- — Take an eight-ounce phial 
jnd put it in three gills of water, and place in 
it a healthy leech, changing the water in Sum- 
mer once a week, and in Winter once in a fort- 
night, and it will most accurately prognosticate 
the weather. If the weather is to be fine, the 
leech lies motionless at the bottom of the glass, 
and coiled together in a spiral lonii ; if rain 
may he expected, it will creep up to the top of 
its lodgings and remain there till the weather 
is settled ; if we are to have wind, it will move 
through its habitation with amazing swit'tness, 
and seldom goes to rest till it begins to blow 
hard ; if a remarkable storm of thunder and 
rain is to succeed, it will lodge for some days 
before almost continually out of the water, and 
discover great uneasiness in violent throes and 
convulsive-like motions; in frosty, as in clear 
Summer-like weather, it lies constantly at the 
bottom ; and in snow, a.s in rainy weather, it 
pilches its dwelling in the very mouth of the 
50 



jilual. The top should be covered over with a 
piece of mnslin. 

Weather fiigns. — By the common consent of 
all civilized people, tlie state of the weather is 
one of the primary topics of conversation. It 
is considered as always in order to allude to 
the disagreeable weather of yesterday, or the 
propitious skies of to-day. So universal in- 
deed is this custom of appealing to the ele- 
ments, that it has come to be widely used as a 
familiar salutation; nntil the asservation that 
it is "a pleasant day," does not necessarily con- 
vey to the mind of the hearer any definite 
comment upon the condition of the atmos- 
phere. In most cases, the formula merely 
indicates the slate of the speaker's mind. It is 
a popular demulcent — a medium in which is 
conve_ved from friend to friend the politeness 
of common life. 

If we could look a little farther into this 
meteorological millstone, our dialogues about 
the weather might become significant. If, for 
instance, when we meet upon the sidewalk, and 
have nothing else to say, we could congratulate 
each other that to-morrow morning there would 
certainly be excellent skating; or, if during an 
awkward chasm in the talk at an evening 
party on Monday night, we could consult some 
infallible "weather record for the week," and 
make our appointments for a ride on Wednes- 
day morning at nine, to meet our friends at the 
lake ; and a walk for Thursday afternoon at 
three, to return at six and miss the thunder- 
storm due over our village at that hour ! Here, 
indeed, would be pleasure and profit in turning 
to the weather as a topic of talk. And why 
may not science sometime bring to the world 
this knowledge of its physical forces? 

Meteorology is yet in its infancy, and the 
ignorant know almost as much of next week's 
weather as the learned. On this subject w'e can 
all be oracular; none of tis can be wise. "It 
will be fair weather to-day, for the sky is red," 
is an indication generally trusted in all na- 
tions — but where is the guide for to-morrow? 
The Pharisees were reminded that they could 
"discern the face of the sky," but could not 
discern "the signs of the times." If the facts 
were known more definitely,'it ivould probably 
appear that they could discern the face of the 
sky about as much to the purpose as the alma- 
nac-makers who warn us to "look — for — rain — 
about — tliese — days." 

There are undoubtedly many weather signs 
that may be trusted for the general guidance ; 



786 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 



but these are mixed in the popular mind with 
a thousand others which are the ofl>i>ring of 
fancy or superstition, and no scientific observer 
has yet succeeded in eliminating tlie worthless 
ones, and reducing the trustworthy ones to an 
intelligible system. The science of physical 
geography, comparatively new, will doubtless 
undertake this task with success. 

Some of the familiar warnings of rain have 
been thrown into rhyme by Dr. Jenner, and 
given by him as an excuse for not accepting an 
invitation to dinner: 

'* Tlie boUow winds begin to blow, 
The cloud» look black, the glass is low. 
The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, 
And spiders from their cobwebs creep. 
Last night the suu went pale to bed, 
The moon in halos bid her bead. 
The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, 
FoV see ! a rainbow spans the sky. 

■ The walls are damp, the ditches smell ; 
Closed is the blue-eyed pimpernel. 

•' Hark I bow the chairs and tables crack ; 
Old Betty's joints are on the rack ; 
Her corns with shooting pains torment her, 
And to her bed untimely send her. 
The smoke from chimneys right ascends. 
Then spreading, hack to earth it bends. 
The wind, unsten^ly, veers around. 
And settling in the south is tound. 

" Lend quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, 
The distant hills are low and nigh. 
How restless ate the snorting swine; 
The busy flics disturb the kine. 
Low o'er the grass the swallow wings. 
The cricket, too, liow loud it sings ! 
J*uss on the health, with velvety paws, 
Sits smoothing o'er her whiskered jaws. 
Through the clear stream the fishes rise, 
And nimbly catch the incautious flies; 
The sheep were seen at early light. 
Cropping the meads with eager bite. 

" Thou!:h June, the air is cold and chill ; 
The mellow blackbird's voice is still". 
Tlie glow-worms, nuuu'rous and bright. 
Illumined the dewy dellj.ast night; 
At dusk, the squalid toad was seen. 
Hopping and crawling o'er the green. 
The frog has lost his yellow vest. 
And in a dingy suit is dressed. 
The leech, disturbed, is newly risen. 
Quite to the summit of bis prison. 

"The whirling wind the dust obeys. 

And in the rapid eddy plays; 

Jly dog, so altered in his taste. 

Quits mutton-bones, on grass to feast ; 

And yonder rooks, how odd their flight I 

They imitate the gliding kite. 

Or seem precipitate to f.ill, 

As if they felt the piercing ball. 

•Twill snrely rain; I see. with sorrow. 

Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow." 
• 
There is a tradition that the next day was 
unusually fair, and that the poetical doctor 
stayed at home pondering on the fallibility 
of hum:in prophecy. 



We add some rules, many of them reason- 
able and others, probably, fanciful, compiled to 
suit all weathers: 

For Fine and Dry Weulher of Long Continu- 
ance. — If the wind be north, northwest, or east, 
then veer to the northeast, remain there two or 
three days without rain, and then veer to the 
south without rain, and if thence it change 
quickly, thougli perhaps with a little rain, 
to the northeast and remain there — such fine 
weather will last occasionally for two months. 

If spiders, in spinning their webs, make the 
terminating filaments long, we may, in propor- 
tion to their length, conclude that the weather 
will be serene, and continue so for ten or twelve 
days. 

Spiders generally alter their webs once in 
twenty-four hours; if they do this between six 
and seven in the evening, there will be a fine 
night; if they alter their web in the morning, 
a fine day ; if they work during rain, expect 
fine weatlier; and the more active and busy tlie 
spider is, the finer will be the weather. 

If near the full moon there be a general mist 
before sunrise ; or 

If there be a sheep-sky, or white clouds 
driving to the northwest, it will be fine for 
some d.ays. Also if there he a heavy dew. 

For Fine Weather of Shorter Duration. — If at 
sunrise many clouds are seen in the West, and 
then disappear. 

If, before sunrise, the fields be covered with 
a mist. 

If the clouds at sunrise fly to the West. 

If at sunrise the sun be surrounded by an 
iris, or circle of white clouds. 

If there be red clouds in the West at sunset 
it will be fine; if they have a tint of purple it 
will be very fine ; or if red, bordered with black, 
in the southeast. 

If there be a ring or halo rolind the sun in 
bad weather. 

If the full moon rise clear. 

If there be clouds in the East in the evening. 

If the wind change from southeast, south, or 
southwest, through the west to the north, with- 
out storm or rain. 

If there be a change of damp air into cloudy 
patches, which get thinner. 

If a layer of thju clouds drive up from the 
northwest under other higher clouds driving 
more south. 

If many gnats are seen in Spring, expect a 
warm Autumn. 

If gnats fiy in compact bodies in the beams 
of the setting sun there will be tine weather. 



PIFFERENCES OF CLIMATE. 



7S7 



If spiders work in the morning early at their 
weba, there will be a fine day. 

If bats flutter and beetles fly about, there will 
be a fine morrow. 

If there be lightning without thunder, after 
a clear day, their will be a continuance of fair 
weather. 

If the mists vanish rapidly, and do not set- 
tle upon the hills. 

If a north, wind remain steady for two or 
three days. 

If it rain before sunrise, there will be a fine 
afternoon. 

If a white mist, or dew, form in the evening 
near a river, and spread over the adjoining 
land, there will be fine weather. 

If in the morning a mist rise from over low 
lands, it will be fine that day. 

For Continued Showers. — If the garden spiders 
break and destroy their webs and creep away. 

If there be, within four, five, or six days, two 
or three changes of the wind from the north 
through the west to the south, without much 
rain and wind, and thence again through the 
west to tiie north with rain and wind, expect 
continued showery weather. 

For Foul or Wet Weather. — If the sun rise 
pale, or pale red, or even dark blue, there will 
be ram during the day. 

If the clouds at sunrise be red, there will be 
rain the follomlng dnij. 

If the sun rise covered with a dark spotted 
clnud ; rain the same day. 

If the sun set in dark, heavy clouds, rain 
ne.Kt day. 

If the sun set pale or purple, rain or wind 
the following day. 

If at sunset there be a very red sky in the 
east, wind; if in the southeast, rain. 

If there be many fallinp;- stars on a clear 
evening in the summer, thunder. 

If the sun burn and carry a halo during fine 
weather, wet. 

If it rain and the sun shine, frequent .showers. 

If the full moon rise pale, wet. 

If the full moon rise red, wind. 

If the stars appear large and flicker, rain 
or wind. 

A fleecy sky, unless driving northwest, indi- 
cates wet. 

If clouds at diflerent heights float in differ- 
ent directions. 

If clouds at the same height drive up with 
the wind, and gradually become thinner, and 
descend. 



If clouds form high in air, in thin white 
trains like locks of wool, they portend wind, 
and probably rain. When a general cloudiness 
covers the sky, and small black fragments of 
clouds fly underneath, they are a sure sign of 
rain, and probably it will be lasting. Two cur- 
rents of clouds always portend rain, and, in 
Summer, thunder. 

If their forms are soft, undefined, and featliery, 
the weather will be fine; if the edges are hard, 
sharp, and definite, it will be foul. Generally 
speaking, any deep, unusual lines betoken wind 
or rain. 

If there be rain about two hours after sun- 
rise, it will be followed by showers. 

If there be a damp fog or mist, accompanied 
with wind; wet. 

If there be a halo round the moon, in fine 
weather ; and the larger the circle, the nearer 
the rain. 

If the fields in the morning be covered with 
a heavy, wet fog, it will generally rain within two 
or three days. 

" .\ rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's 
warning." 

If the leaves of the trees move without any 
perceptible wind, rain may be expected. 

If there be a west and southwest winii in 
July and December, much rain. 

If there be a north wind in April ; rain. 

If there be an abundance of hoar-frost; rain. 

If there he in May a southwest wind; gimiid 
showers. 

If mists rise and settle on the hill-tops ; rain. 

If tlie sky, after fine weather, becomes wavy, 
with small clouds; rain. 

If, in Winter, the clouds appear fleecv, witlv 
a very blue sky, expect snow or cold rain. 

If the wind blow.between north and east, or 
east, with clouds, for some days, and if clouds 
be then seen driving from the south, high up, 
rain will follow plentifully, sometimes forty- 
eight hours afterward. If, after or during the 
rain, the wind goes to the south or southwest; 
better weather. 

If there be a continuance of rain from the 
south, it will be scarcely ever succeeded by set- 
tled weather before the wind changes, either to 
the west or to some point of the north. 

If rain fall during an east wind, it may be 
expected to last twenty-four hours. 

If old and rheumatic people complain of 
their corns and joints, and limbs once broken 
ache at the place of their union. 

If the smoke from chimneys blow down ; or 



788 



THE CREAM OP FACTS : 



if soot take fire more readily than usual, or 
fall down the chimney into the grate; expect 
ram. 

If the marigold continue shut after seven in 
the evening ; rain. 

If the convolvulus and cliickweed close, there 
will he rain. 

If asses shake their ears, bray, and rub 
against walls or trees. 

If cattle leave off feeding, and chase each 
other in their pastures. 

If cats lick their bodies and wash their faces. 

If foxes and dogs howl and bark more than 
usual; if dogs grow sleepy and dull; also, if 
they eat grass. 

If swine be restless, and grunt loudl)'; if 
they sfjueak and jerk up their heads, there will 
be niHch wind; whence the proverb — "Pigs 
can see the wind." 

If moles cast up hills; rain; if through 
openings in the frozen turf, or through a thin 
covering of snow, a change to open weather 
may be expected. 

If horses stretch out their neck.s, and snitT 
the air, and assemble in the corner of a field, 
with their heads to leeward; rain. 

If peacocks and guinea-fowls scream, and 
turkeys gobble; and if quails make more noise 
than usual. 

If sea-birds fly toward land, and land-birds 
to sea. 

If the cock crow more than usual, and earlier. 

If swallows fly lower than usual. 

If the crow makes a great deal of noise and 
flies round and round. 

If birds in general pick their feathers, wash 
themselves, and fly to their nests. 

If bees remain in their hives, or fly but a 
short distance from them. 

If fish bite more readily, and gambol near 
the surface of the streams or ponds. 

If gnats, flies, etc., bilesharper than usual. 

If worms creep out of the ground in great 
nnmbei's. 

If frogs and to^ds crnak more than usual. 

If the sun be seen double, or more times 
reflecled in the clouds, expect a heavy storm. 

If the odor of flowers be unusually penetra- 
ting, and the sound of distant bells and railway 
trains plainer than usual. 

If a pig carries straw in its mouth. 

For Fro$t. — If the wind shift from south to 
southeast in Winter. 

If birds of passage arrive early in the Fall 
from colder climates. 

If the cold increase while it snows. 



If the ice crack much, expect colder weather. 

If the mole dig his hole two feet and a half 
deep, expect a venj severe Winter; if one foot 
deep a mild Winter. 

If water-fowl or sparrows make more noise 
than usual ; also, if robbins approach nearer 
houses than usual ; frost. 

If there be a dark gray sky, with a south 
wind. 

If there be continued fogs. 

If the fire burn unusually fierce and bright 
in Winter, there will be frost and clear weath- 
er ; if the fire burn dull, expect damp and rain. 

It seldom freezes with a west wind; not much 
with a north. 

Weather Days. — The Inst three days of Feb- 
ruary are said to be the indicators for the three 
Spring months respectively — as the wind is on 
those respective d.ays, so will be the prevailing 
winds of the months to which they refer. 

If the first day of March is pleasant, the 
closing part of the month will be rough and 
stormy; and if the first day is stormy, the 
close of the month will be pleasant. 

The three days of the Spring equino.^ — 
March 20 — are held to indicate respectively 
the character of the Spring and season— if the 
prevailing wind should be north or northwest, 
look out for a cold season; if in the south 
expect mild and growing weather. 

The Wonders oTiVadirnl History. 

The rescarclies of naturalists are day by day 
adding to our stock of reliable information on 
the interesting subject of the numbers, varie- 
ties, and economy of the animal creation. Eay, 
who wrote in 1690, set down the number of 
beasts, as he called them, including serpents, at 
150; saying, "not many of any considerable 
bigness in the known regions of the world had 
escaped the cognizance of the curious." BrF- 
FON said at a later date, "All the four-footed 
animals may be reduced to 250 pairs, and the 
birds to a .still smaller number." Instead of 
the 150 of Bay, we have over 1,500 ; and the 
500 of Bdffon exceed 9,500 individual species, 
over 8,000 being birds. 

Of reptiles, there are about 1,500 already 
known. Neither toads, snakes, nor ophidian 
reptiles of any kind are found, it is said, in 
Ireland. 

Fishes are much more numerous in varieties 
than any olher vertebrate animal, exceeding 
ten thousand. 

Of the invertebrate, the varieties are almost 
countless. In -one class of tliese, the insects. 



TUE WONDERS OF XATUllAL HISTORY. 



rs9 



more than 100,000 species liave been preseiveil 
in cabinets, and more than 200,000 aie known 
lo natnralists. Tlie actual numbei', probably, 
exceeds half a inilliuii! 

Besides these, we have themollusconsclasse^', 
sliell fish, cuttle fish, snails, etc.; the articulated, 
such as leeches, lobsters, crabs, earth worms, 
and the like; the radiata, such as the starfish, 
p(dypi, coral, madrepores, sponges, etc. 

How creatiaii expands upon intelligent re- 
search 1 AVhether viewed by the telescope or 
microscope, we behold increasing worlds be- 
yond our natural vision. The former brings 
successive strata of nebulae to view, each formed 
of myriads of distant suns, the probable centers 
of systems like our own ; the latter finds sue 
eessive myriads of insects, constantly deereas 
ing in magnitude. How innumerable the yet 
unexplored varieties of these may prove, future 
naturalists may appro.'cimately determine, but 
we can hardly appreciate. 

Aije of Anhiudi. — A bear rarely exceeds 20 
years ; a dog lives 20 years ; a fox, 14 or 15 ; 
lions are long-lived — Pompey lived to the age 
of 70; the average of cal5 is 14 years ; squirrels 
and hares 7 or 8 years ; rabbits 7. Elephants 
have been known to live to the great age of 400 
year-s. When Alexander the Great had con- 
quered PORCS, king of India, he took a great 
elephant, which had fought very valiantly for 
the king, named him Ajax, dedicated him to 
the sun, and let him go, with this inscription, 
" Alexander, the son of Jupiter, has dedi- 
cated Ajax to the sun." This elephant was 
found 354 years after. Pigs have been known 
to live to the age of 30 years ; the rhinoceros to 
20 ; a horse has been known to live to the age 
of 02, but averages 20 to 25 years ; camels some- 
times live to the age of 100 years; stags are 
long-lived ; sheep seldom exceed the age of 10 ; 
cows live 18 years. Cuvier considers it proba- 
ble that whales .sometimes live to the age of 
1000 years. Doliihins and porpoises attain the 
age of 30. An eagle died at Vienna at the age 
of 104. ^iRavens have frequently reached the 
age of 100. Swans have been known to live 
360 years. Pelicans are long-lived. A tortoise 
has been known to live-to the age of 107 years. 

Vegetable Reproduction. — Plants have male 
and female organs of generation, which may be 
observed bv the naked eye. The pollen is pre- 
pared and preserved in certain vessels called 
anthers. Its finest part penetrates through the 
stigma, an opening in the female part, through 
the pistil to the ovary and fructifies the eggs 
lying there. With most plants, both sexes are 



united in one flower ; with a few they are sepa- 
rated. The former are called perfect flowers; 
the latter male and female. The two latter 
either stand on one stem or belong to diflerent 
plants. Where the two sexes are entirely sepa- 
rated, fructification takes place only when the 
two plants, of different sexes, stand near enough 
for the male pollen to be carried to the female 
by the wind or by insects. If this or artificial 
fructification does not take place, the germ 
either falls off or it forms a fruit which is in- 
capable of germin.ating. 

Wonderful, indeed, are the means by which 
nature effects the fructification of these plants ! 
Within the flower are generally glands which 
exude a honey attractive to insects ; but, in 
order to obtain thi.s, they must powder them- 
selves in the male flowers with the pollen. 
Visiting, afterward, a female flower w'ith the 
same object, they must deposit the pollen on 
the pi.stil. In some other plants, where the 
male and female parts in perfect flowers are so 
placed as not to be able to reach each other, 
little flies are attracted by the honey, but im- 
mediately upon their entrance the fiviver clo.ifs, 
and the imprisoned insects crawling about are 
forced to fructify it before they are released I 

A Vegetable Animal. — The boundary line be- 
tween the vegetable and animal kingdoms, is 
quite as indistinct and doubtful as that between 
the mineral and vegetable; and the most 
learned in natural history find it difficult to 
define an animal, and to draw the scientific line 
of denuircation which shall be sufliciently com- 
prehensive and, at the same time, sufficiently 
exclusive. Like animals, plants have the power 
of contraction, irritability, the power of fornui- 
tion, the power of reproducing their species 
through organs somewhat similar, the power of 
sleep, the power of turning to the light, the 
power of breathing, and the power of seeking, 
lelecting, and receiving nutrition. Some of 
them seem also to have the power of sensation, 
and of limited motion. Certain species of 
plants seem to have almost as»niuch voluntary 
motion as the lowest order of animals. 

The sponge has firm roots and was formcrlv 
supposed lo be a vegetable ; then it was be- 
lieved to be a vegetable at first, and after- 
ward an animal ; now it is known to be an 
animal. Indeed, the French government is 
making an effort to acclimate spot?ges in its 
own waters. The sponge business has become 
a prominent department of industry in the 
Bahama Islands. It is almost entirely the 
growth of the last twenty years, and nets annu- 



790 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 



ally about bveiKy tlioiisand ilullars. The sponge 
is fished and raked from the sandy bottom of 
llie ocean, at the depth of twenty, forty, or sixty 
feet. It belongs to a very low order of animal 
lile, organization hardly being detected. Tt is 
said to be covered in its living state with a 
kind of scmi-Unid thin coat of animal jelly, 
snsceiitible of a slight contraction or trembling 
on being touched ; which is the only symptom 
(if vitality displayed by the sponge. When 
first taken from the water it is black, and 
becomes exceedingly offensive from decompo- 
sition. It is so poisonous in this condition 
that it almost blisters the flesh it happens to 
touch. The first process is to bury it in the 
sand, where it remains for two or three weeks, 
in which time the gelatinous animal matter is 
absorbed and destroyed by the insects that 
swarm in the sand. After being cleansed, it is 
compressed and packed in bales like cotton. 

A nuirvelous instance of the apparent com- 
bination of the animal and vegetable, is that 
said to e.xist in the insect cigara in Brazil, 
the large tree, japecarga, sometimes growing 
upright out of its body. The cigara makes an 
incessant chirping on the t»ee, and, as the say- 
ing is, chirps till be bursts and falls to the 
ground. A young japecarga then sprouts and 
grows out of its back, the roots seeking contact 
with the earth by growing down its legs. 
Reliable travelers vouch for this circumstance. 
The explanation is that the insect feeds upon 
the japecarga seeds, which, under favorable 
circumstances, germinate and cause the death 
of the insect, the germ shooting up through the 
softest part, and sending rootlets down the only 
outlets, the legs. 

Animakula. — If some hay be placed in a 
glass of rain-water, and allowed to soak for a 
few days in a sunny place, and if it be then 
removed, the water will be found, under a 
powerful microscope, to contain many very 
a;nall movinganimalculae, which are also called 
infusoria, from their being protluced after 
infusing the hay. 

These microscopical beings are also develop- 
ed in milk, urine, vinegar, and many other 
fluids, after standing a while. Dip the point 
of a pin in blood, and the small drop thus 
taken will contain an active, living, moving 
population of three millions of beings. It has 
been calculated by men who have demonstrated 
the foregoing facts, that twenty millions of 
these animate beings are formed, live, and per- 
ish in a single person in a few moments of 
time, or perhaps iu a single pulsation of the 



heart. Can yon realize that you have dancing, 
swimming,and frolicking, beings within you, in 
numbers almost infinitely beyond the human 
population of the globe? Yet sucli is the fact. 

Dr. Ehkenbubg demonstates that the small- 
est forms of animalcules, called monads, are 
colorless and transparent as crystal, having as 
perfect an organization as is possessed by much 
larger creatures. The parent .spontaneously 
divides itself into two or more parts, and these 
parts become parents by their spontaneous di- 
visions, and so they continne-to multiply alter 
their origin is perfected. These little fellows 
form the limit of our acquaintance with ani- 
mated nature. The End Monad must be mag- 
nified one hundred and sixty thousand times in 
surface before it can he seen. Make an infusion 
of spider-wort, and they will spring into being 
on its surface in such numbers, that many mill- 
ions may be taken up on the head of a pin, or 
you may put two hundred and twenty billions 
into an ordinary thimble. 

One would hardly suppose their little bodies 
could evolve thoughts, or manifest Instinct or 
sagacity. Dr. Thomas Dick informs us that 
Mr. Baker put some hair-like animalcules 
into a jar of water; one part went to the bot- 
tom, while the other part floated on the top. 
They grew weary of camp life and determined 
to march. Both armies set out at the same 
lime. As their advancing columns approached 
each other, tli8 ascending army opened to the 
right and left, and continuing on in two col- 
umns, completely flanked the position evacu- 
ated .at the top; while the descending column 
passed through, proceeding majestically to the 
bottom in as perfect order as though marshaled 
by the greatest military genius of the age. 
These wonderful creatures have been confined 
in minute drops of water and between two con- 
cave glasses, when they evinced the greatest 
uneasiness and desire to escape, searching IVom 
point to point, and carefully examining every 
apparent opening. 

The shape of animalcule is infinitely diver- 
sified — one is a long slender eel, another is 
coiled up like a serpent; some are circniar, 
elliptical, or globular; others resemble a tri- 
angle or a cylinder; others, .still, a tunnel or a 
bell. Their motions are equally remarkable. 
Several species chiefly stand upon their heads 
and gyrate like a top! Others progress by 
leaps or .somersaults; some swim with the ve- 
locity of an arrow ; some drag their bodies like 
sloths; others seem not to move at all. Many 
species prey upon each other. 



AMUSEMENTS, TUZZLES, ETC. 



791 



Toads. — In consequence of the instincti\i 
appetile of the toad for living insects, a rapid 
digestion and capacious membranous stomach 
capable of remarkable distention, toads are 
incalculably useful to the gardener, by protect- 
ing his under vines from the nocturnal depre- 
d;iiors. Both loads and frogs ca'ch their own 
prey with the point of their tongue. It is a 
marvelously-constructed organ— occupying but 
little room at ike end of the gullet — appearing 
like a small Heshy eminence on prying open 
the jaws; it is singularly elastic, and may be 
projected at the pleasure of the animal, six or 
eight inches, and perhaps more. The projec- 
tile force is exerted with tlie tjuickness of a 
Hash of light. An extremely tenacious secre- 
tion exudes from it so sticky that the slightest 
touch with the object at which it is thrust holds 
it firmly; and the contraction of the fibers in- 
stantly delivers the struggling captive exactly 
at the opening of the fauces, where it is taken 
o9', as our teeth detach a morsel from the tines 
ol a fork. No wonder, then, that gardeners 
about Paris buy toads and pay a given sum per 
dozen, as they do, to put in their gardens. 
The French people were the fir.st to learn and 
proclaim the great utility of birds to both 
farmers and gardeners, and to advocate their 
protection against sportsmen, who too often 
shoot them merely to gratify a love of what 
they call sport. 

Ants as Food. — The Africans eat ants stewed 
in butter. The Swedes distil them with rye, to 
give a peculiar flavor to brandy. Pressed ant 
eggs yield a mixture resembling chocolate with 
milk, of which the chemical composition re- 
sembles ordinary milk. The large termites. Or 
white ants, which are so destructive to houses 
and furniture, are roasted by the Africans in 
iron pots, and eaten by the handfuls as sugar- 
plums. Tljey are said to be very nourishing, 
and taste like sugared cream, or sweet almond 
paste. As for locusts, the Africans, according 
to Dr. Phipson, far from dreading their inva- 
sions, look upon a dense cloud of locusts as we 
should upon so much bread and butter in the 
air. They smoke them, or boil them, or stew 
them, of grind them down as corn, or salt them, 
and get fat on them. 

Anls as Stare-Holders. — It is a remarkable 
fact in natural history, to which there is no 
other at all analagous, that the Amazon ant is 
a slave-holder; and the circumstance maybe 
thought still more curious, that these kidnap- 
pers are red or pale colored, while the ants they 
subject to bondage are jet black. The Amazon 



ant is not furnished with jaws capable of per- 
forming the work that usually falls to the lot 
of neuters, or enslaved ants ; but the length 
and sharpness of the mandibles which unfit it 
for work, render it eminently capable of war- 
fare. Hence an army of Amazons set off in 
martial array on a slave-hunting expedition ; 
the vanguard, which consists of eight or ten 
only, continually changing. On arriving at the 
nest of the negro ants, a desperate conilict en- 
sues, which ends in the defeat of the blacks; 
when the conquerers tear open the now defence- 
less ant-hills with their powerful mandibles, 
and bear away in their jaws large numbers of 
the unconscious young. When these pupae are 
hatched into insects of the helot or worker 
class, they immediately take on themselves tlie 
menial labors of the nest. 

The Amazon ant seems to be utterly incapa- 
ble of work ; and, in one instance, a number 
of them were confined in a glass case, together 
with some pupa;, and were not only unable to 
rear tlie young, but conid not even feed them- 
.selves, so that the greater number died from 
lunger. At this juncture a single slave ant 
was introduced into the case, which at once 
undertook the whole care of the family, fed 
the still living Amazon ants, and took chaj-ge 
of the pupje until they were developed into 
perfect insects. The labors of these little slaves 
do not seem to be arbitrarily forced on them, 
but they engage in them from instinct, and do 
not realize their slavery an^' more than dogs, 
iiorses, or cattle do, who have never enjoyed 
freedom. 

Aniuseiiieufs, Puzzles, Etc.— We 

have tried to yruiip uniier this head a choice 
selection of those simple amusements which 
may assist intelligent people to a pleasant even- 
ng's entertainuient. 

The Piano Kaleidoscope. — Tliis is one of tlie 
prettiest surprises imaginable. Any lady, witli 
a particle of ingenuity, by following these sim- 
ple directions, can transform an ordinary-shaped 
piano-forte into a mammoth kaleidoscope, much 
superior, in all respects, and not the least on 
account of its novelty, to the toy of that name, 
invented by Sir David Bkewster: 

The front portion of the top of the piano is 
turned back on its lunges over the main por- 
tion, to an angle of si.xty degrees or less, and 
supported in that position by placing behind it 
a book, or other suitable prop; and the cloth 
cover is then placed over the whole of the top 
which is thus thrown back, in such manner as 



792 



THE CREAM OF PACTS: 



close the opening beliind it. A triangular tube 
of the whole length of the piano is thus formed, 
the por;:o"R of the top forming the bottom and 
front sides and the cloth cover forming the 
third or rear side of the tube. The polished 
Burfiices form the reflectors of the kaleidoscope. 
A small table or any other convenient stand is 
placed close to one end of the piano, and two 
candles or small lamps are placed upon it, one 
on each side of the mouth of the tube, in such 
positions that their lights are not visible through 
the opposite end of the tube. Any article hav- 
ing any gay colored figures upon it, such as a 
piece of carpet, a shawl, a quilt, a piece of col- 
ored embroidery, or a bunch of bright-colored 
ribbons, is then held up near the light.s, in such 
manner that they shine upon that side of it 
which is toward the tube, and is moved about 
in as great a variety of directions as possible ; 
and a person looking through the tube from 
the opposite end will see an almost infinite va- 
riety of beautiful figures, such as are seen 
through an ordinary kaleidoscope, only on a 
very much larger scale. The cxiiibition may 
be auuisingly varied by a person presenting his 
face to the lights and moving his head about 
and grimacing, or by two or three persons mov- 
ing their liands and fingers at the lighted end 
of the tube. Almost any article or object moved 
about at the lighted end of the tube will pro- 
duce an effect which, if it be not positively 
beautiful, will be, at least, very grotesque or 
amusing. 

It might be supposed that only a new or 
or newly-polished piano would be suitable for 
this exhibilioh, but even with an old instru- 
ment, on whieh tlie polish has lost much of its 
brilliancy, a very beautiful e.xliibition may be 
obtained. 

The entertainment may be enlivened by the 
playing of the piano during the exhibition, 
and moving the object in time with the music. 
The astonishment of the spectators will be in- 
creased if they be shut into an adjoining room, 
and permitted to look into the end of the piano 
between the folding-doors, slightly ajar, all the 
machinery of the exhibition being skillfully 
concealed from them. 

The JSolian Harp. — An excellent seolian harp 
can be made by observing these directions : 
Procure a white-pine board, say six inches wide 
and half an inch thick — (raiist be planed). 
Let the length be governed by the width of the 
window in which it is to play, making it to 
slip in easily. Next make the bridges out of 
the same thickness of stuff. Let them be about 



' seven inches long, two inches wide at one end 
and half an inch at the other. Now dj.vide 
each end of your board with a saw into elwVen 
or tw-^lve equal parts, placing a tack at each 
divisio'- on the under side. Procure common 
sewing-sii*. (spool silk) and let the first string 
be composed if but one strand, the .second two, 
the third three, ;,:id so on up to the eleventh or 
twelfth string, which should be composed of as 
many strands. Twist the silk well together, 
and let them be thorongbly waxed. Tie the 
strings to the tacks, drawing them tight. Now 
take your bridges, and having slipped them 
between the board and .strings, draw them grad- 
ually to the extremities of your board, and you 
will have a harp which will give satisfaction. 

To apply it to the window let it rest upon the 
sill, half in and half out, keeping it level by 
placing small blocks or feet upon the under 
side. Braw the window down to within an 
incli of the top string, and create a draft liy 
opening an opposite door or window. We have 
tried all .sorts of wood, and all shapes, for 
these harps, and find nothing equal to tlie 
above. 

Charades- — There is nothing pleasanter for a 
part of an evening's entertainment than acted 
charades. They are growing more and more 
fashionable, and there is no obstacle to their 
becoming entirely popular with all classes, 
except the fact that there ai'e so few in any 
party who feel themselves capable of officiating 
snccessfully as the dramatis personce. Out of 
every ten persons there are five who could, if 
they would, present charades in good style; 
there is less lack of ability than lack of ccmfi- 
deiice. No genius is necessary ; the chief re- 
quisites are amiability, a glibness of tongue, 
and an unconsciousness of the presence of an 
audience. 

A charade, we need hardly explain, is an 
enigma based upon a word, whose syllables may 
be represented in difTercnt acts. There is usu- 
ally in a charade one act for every syllable, 
and one for the whole word. The actors are 
expected to turn their conversation and acting 
in the direction of the syllable in hand, so as 
to suggest it to the company if they be ingeni- 
ous. Puns on syllables are, of course, allowa- 
ble; indeed, these furnish the chief source of 
amusement. To be efficient in charades is 
quite an accomplishment; the young should 
practice, for they may thus, with little trouble 
and no expense, be enabled to contribute much 
to the enjoyment of their companions AVe 
append a table of words that admit of being 



A.MUSE3IENTS, PUZZLES, ETC. 



793 



acted in charades — the representation being 
generally based upon the sound of the syllables, 
rather than upon their orthography : 



Dog-ma. 

Pul-pit. 

Fat-riot-tic. 

Brig-a-dier. 

Sent-i-nient. 

Knight-hood. 

j\I.ir-ti-ty. 

Tree- son-able. 

Incom-pair-ible. 

Ad-mir-able. 

Bag-dad. 

In-tel-Ii-gent. 

Jliss-under-stand. 

Inil> penny-tent. 

C'on-teniple-ate. 



Car-ri-age. 

A-nieri-ca. 

(A-merry-key.) 

Eand-hox. 

Bar-ba-cue. 

In-no-cent. 

Cat-a-logue. 

C:iptive-i-ty (tea.) 

Mas-qiier (ctir)-ade. 

Incom-pat-ible. 

Hand-ker-chief. 

Baok-bite-ers. 

Charity (Chair-i-tie.) 

Jtai-den-aunt. 

Drani-ated. 



Indeed, a large proportion of the words in 
the dictionary will admit of being charades, by 
ingenious actors before an intelligent, discern- 
ing company. For such a party there is no 
way to spend an occasional evening more enter- 
taining or more improving than to recruit a 
company for impromptu charades. 

Anagrams are formed by the transpositions 
of the letters of words or sentences, or names 
of persons, so as to produce a word, sentence, 
or verse of pertinent, or of widely-different 
meaning. They are very difficult to discover, 
but are exceedingly striking when good. The 
following are some of the most remarkable : 



Transposed 

Astronomers 

Catalogues 

Elegant 

Impatient 

Immediately 

Masquerade 

JIatrimon)' 

Melodrama 

Midshipman 

Old England 

Parishioners 

Parliament 

Penitentiary 

Presbyterians 

Badical Reform 

Kevolution 

Sir Robert Peel 

Sweetheart 

Telegraphs 



No moT'e stars. 
Got as a clue. 
Neat leg. 
Tim in a pet. 
I met my Delia. 
Queen as mad. 
Into my arm. 
Made moral. 
Mind his map. 
Golden land. 
I hire parsons. 
Partial men. 
Nay I repent. 
Best in prayer. 
Rare mad frolic. 
To love ruin. 
Terrible poser. 
There we sat. 
Great helps. 



IIoui to Learn a Luihfa Aye. — The following 
table will help you. Just hand the table to 



the lady, and ask her to tell in which of its 
columns her age is contained. Then add to- 
gether the figures at the top of the columns 
designated, and }'ou have the great secret. 
Suppo.se an age to be seventeen. You will find 
the number seventeen only in two columns, 
viz.: the first and fifth; and the first figures at 
the head of these columns make seventeen. 
Here is the magic table : 



Fiist. 


Secoiul. 


Third. 


Fourth. 


I'ifth. 


Sixth. 


1 


2 


4 


8 


16 


32 


3 


3 


5 


9 


17 


33 


■5 


6 


6 


10 


18 . 


34 


7 


7 


7 


11 


19 


35 


9 


10 


12 


12 


20 


36 


11 


11 


13 


13 


21 


37 


13 


u 


14 


14 


22 


38 


1.5 


15 


15 


15 


2* 


39 


17 


IS 


20 


24 


24 


40 


19 


19 


21 


25 


25 


41 


21 


22 


22 


26 


26 


42 


23 


23 


23 


27 


27 


43 


2.5 


2(5 


28 


28 


28 


44 


27 


27 


29 


29 


29 


.45 


29 


30 


30 


30 


30 


46 


31 


31 


31 


31 


31 


47 


33 


34 


36 


40 


48 


48 


35 ■ 


35 


• 37 


41 


49 


49 


37 


38 


38 


42 


50 


50 


39 


39 


39 


43 


51 


51 


41 


42 


44 


44 


52 


53 


43 


43 


45 


45 


53 


53 


45 


46 


46 


46 


54 


54 


47 


47 


47 


47 


55 


55 


49 


50 


52 


56 


50 


5 1) 


51 


51 


53 


57 


57 


57 


53 


54 


54 


68 


58 


58 


65 


55 


55 


59 


59 


59 


57 


58 


60 


60 


60 


60 


59 


59 


61 


61 


61 


01 


61 


62 


62 


62 


62 


62 


63 


63 


63 


63 


63 


63 



Occular Illusion. — Here is a row of ordinary 
letters and figures, 

SBS8xxxxzzzz33338888 

They are such as are made up of two parts 
of similar shapes. Look carefully at these, and 
you will perceive that the upper halves of the 
characters are a very little smaller than the lower 
halves — so little that an ordinary eye will de- 
clare them to be of eqnal size. Now turn the 
page upside down, and, without an3' careful 
looking, you will see that this difference in size 
is very much ex.aggerated — that the real top of 
the letter is very nmch smaller than the bottom 
half — a curious example of the inaectfracy uf 
the untrained eve under certain circumstances. 



794 



THE CREAM OF FACTS : 



Pazzle. 
I am constrained to plant a grove, 
To please the lady that I love; 
This ample grove is to compose 
Kineteen trees in nine straight rows, 
And in each row five trees must place 
Ere I can hope to see her face; 
Ingenious friend, pray lend your aid 
To satisly this curious maid. 

A)isiver. 
If you your skill aspire to prove, 
To plant the complicated grove, 
As a shy maiden did propose, 
Of nineteen trees in nine straight rows, 
So in each row live trees shall be, 
Or her fair face despair to see — 
Be guided by the following rule. 
And show you are no lady's fool: 

Six equidistant points mark round 
A circle drawn upon the ground; 
Three lines from every point then trace. 
To points most distant cross the space ; 
At every junction plant a tree; 
Then pleased this curious maid will be. 
Her beauteous face to let you see. 

This answer is illustrated in the accompany- 
ing cuts. The second engraving exhibits an- 
other way to do the same thing. 




Ice in a li^d-Hol Cmcihle. — Place a platina 
crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it at a 
red heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, 
though tlie most volatile of bodies at a common 
temperature, will be found to be completely 
fixed in the hot crucible, and not a drop evap- 
orates — being surrounded by an atmosphere of 
its own, it does not in fact touch the sides. A 
few drops of water are now introduced, when 
the acid immediately coming in contact with 
the heated sides of the crucible, flies off in sul- 
phurous acid vapor, and so rapid is its progress 
that the caloric of the water passes off with it, 
which falls into a lump of ice at the bottom ; 



by taking advantage of the moment, before it 
is allowed to remelt, it may be turned out a 
lump of ice from a red-hot vessel. 

2'Ae Fire-King. — A few years ago, a man who 
called himself "The Fire-King," went through 
the country performing to wondering spectators 
his remarkable feat of walking into a fiery 
furnace, and emerging unscathed. The e,\peri- 
ments of jugglers have proved that, under cer- 
tain conditions, the hand can be immersed with 
impunity in melted metal. Little more is re- 
quired than to rub tlie hands with soap so as to 
give them a polished surface, then to plunge 
them into a cold solution of water and sal-am- 
moniac, and afterward to put them into a liquid 
iron, lead, bronze, or other metal, moving them 
rapidly through it, though not too rapidly. 
The explanation of this curious fact is this : 
When the hand is plunged into melted metal 
the skin is not in contact with the metal, and 
therefore the heat incident upon the skin can 
arise only from that which is radiated from the 
metal. The moisture of the skin passes inlo 
the spheroidal state, and reflects the radiating 
caloric, so that the heat is never at the boiling 
point. 

1' he Disappearing Dime. — Provide yourself 
with a piece of India rubber cord about twelve 
inches long, and a dime with a hole on the 
edge; attach the dime to the cord with a piece 
of white sewing silk, and, after having done 
this, sew the cord to your coat-sleeve lining, 
but be very careful and ascertain that the end 
upon which the dime is attached does not ex- 
tend lower than within two inches of the ex- 
treme end of the sleeve when the coat is on. 
It is better to have the dime in the left arm 
sleeve. Having done this, bring down the 
dime with the right hand, and place it between 
the thumb and the index finger of the left hand, 
and showing it to the company, tell them that 
you will give the coin to any one present who 
will not let it slip away. You must then select 
one of the audience to whom you proffer the 
dime, and just as he is about to receive it, you 
must let it slip from between your fingers, and 
the contraction of the elastic cord will make 
the coin disappear up your sleeve, much to the 
astonishment of the person who thinks he is 
about to receive it. This feat can be varied 
by pretending to wrap the coin in a piece of 
paper, or a handkerchief. Great care should 
be taken not to let any part of the cord be 
seen, as this would of course discover the trick. 
This is one of the most surprising feats of leg- 



AMUSEMENTS, PUZZLES, ETC. 



795 



erdfiiiain, and its cliief beauty consists in its 
extreme simplicity. 

To Put an Eg(j in a Bottle.'— Soak the egg in 
strong vinegar until its sliell becomes soft, 
when it muy be extended lengthwise without 
Ijreaking ; then put it through the neck of a 
small bottle, and by pouring cold water upon 
it, it will speedily reassume its former figure 
and hardness. Should the vinegar not be 
strong enough to soften the shell sufficiently, 
add a little strong acetic acid. To one not ac- 
qnainted with this trick, it is inexplicable. 

Hold a Eed Hose over the blue flame of a 
common match, and the color will be discharged 
wlierever the fumes touch the leaves of the 
flower, BO as to render them beautifully varie- 
gated, or entirely white. If it be then dipped 
into water, the redness, after a time, will be 
restored. 

Maijic. Inks. — Dissolve oxide of cobalt in 
acetic acid, to which add a little niter; write 
with this solution; hold the writing to the-fire, 
and it will be of a pale rose color, which will 
again disappear on cooling. 

Dissolve equal parts of sulphate of copper 
and muriate of ammonia in water; write with 
the solution, and when dry, hold to the fire, 
the warmth of which will bring out the wri- 
ting, which will again disappear on becoming 
cold. 

The Lead Tree. — Put in a large pint phial 
about half an ounce of sugar of lead, and fill 
it to the bottom of the neck with rain water. 
Then suspend by a bit of silk fastened to the 
cork, a piece of zinc wire two or three inches 
long, so that it may hang nearly in the center. 
Place the phial where it will not be disturbed, 
and beautiful branching crystals of lead will 
form all round the zinc. 

Tlie Tin Tree.— Tins is produced in the same 
■way; only, instead of the sugar of lead, use 
three drams of muriate of tin and ten drops of 
nitric acid, and let them dissolve well before 
you put in the zinc wire. The tin tree is more 
brilliant than the lead. 

The Silver Tree. — Put four drams of nitrate 
of silver and one ounce of mercury, into a 
phial of rain water, and suspend the zinc wire; 
let it remain very quiet. Tliis is sometimes 
called the tree of Diana. The close affinity, 
or attraction, between the metals used in these 
experiments, is the reason they separate from 
the water, and cling around the wire. Chil- 
dren should be encouraged in making these 
beautiful experiments. 



The Three Jealous Husbands. — Three jealoUH 
husbands with their wives, having to cioss a 
small stream, find a boat without an owner, 
which is only large enough to carry two per- 
sons at a time. Wanted to know — how the six 
persons can transport themselves over the river 
in pairs, so that no woman shall be left in com- 
pany with any of the men, unless her husband 
be present. 

Answer. — At first two wives cross the river, 
then one returns and takes over the remaining 
wife, after which she recrosses and stays with 
her husband, and the other two htisbands cross 
over to their wives. Then a husband and wife 
come back, and the two husbands cross. Then 
the wife returns and takes over one of the 
others, and, lastly, the husband of the remain- 
ing one conies back for his wife. This may 
be demonstrated with checkers of two colors. 

To Find the Quotient. — It is required to name 
the quotient of five or three lines of figures- 
each line consisting of five or more figures — 
only seeing the first line, before the other lines 
are even put down. Any person may write 
down the first line of figures for you. How do 
you find the quotient? 

Answer. — When the first line of figures is 
set down, subtract 2 from the last right-hand 
figure, and place it before the first figure of the 
line, and that is the quotient for five lines. 
For example, suppose the figiu'es given are 
86,214, the quotient will be 286,212. You may 
allow any person to put down the two first and 
the fourth lines, but you must always set down 
the third and fifth lines, and in doing so always 
make up 9 with the line above, as in the follow- 
ing example: 

Therefore in the annexed diagram 
86,214 you will see that you have made 9 
42,680 in the third and filth lines with the 
57, .319 lines above them. If the person 
G2,S.i4 desired Jf> put down the figure, 
37,145 should set a 1 or for the last 

figure, you must .oay we will have 

Qt. 286.212 another figure, and another, and 

so on until he sets down something 
above 1 or 2. 

In solving the puzzle with three 
67,856 lines, you subtract 1 from the last 
47,218 figure and place. it before the first 
52,781 figure, and make up the third line 

yourself to 9. For example: 

Qt 167,855 67,856 is given, and the quotient 

will be 167,855, as shown in the 
above diagram. 



796 



THE CREAJr OP FACTS: 



To Tell Any Number Thought 0/';— This is a 

very ingcniDiis puzzle, and causes inucli 18 

astotiisluiient until its iiietliod is (lis- 1 

covcicd. AsIc a peison to tliink of a — 

number; then tell him to subtract 1 17 

from that nnml)er; now tell him to 2 

multiply the remainder by 2; then — 

request him again to subtract 1, and 34 

add to the remainder the number be 1 
first thought of and to inform you of 

the total. When lie has done this, 33 

you must mentally add 3 to that total, 18 

and then divide it by 3, and the (jno- — 

ticiit will be the number first thnufiht 51 

of. We present an examide of this 3 

puzzle, which will render the method — 

))lain and show the reason of the re- 3)54 

suit. — 

18 

An equally pleasing way to tell tlie number 
tho^ught of, withoui being informed of the total, as 
in the preceding, is to ask a person to think of 
a number, then to double it, then add to it a 
certain figure mentioned, now halve the whole 
Bum, and finally to .subtract from that the num- 
ber first thought of You are then to tell the 
thinker what i.s the remainder. The key to 
this lock of figures is, that half of whatever 
sum you require to be added during the work- 
ing of the sum is the remainder. Any amount 
may be added, but the operation is simplified 
by giving only even numbers, as they will 
divide without fractions. We have no room 
for an example; it is so simple that one trial 
will explain it. 

A Curious Problem. — A and B, two country- 
men, come to the New York market with 30 
geese each. A sells his 30 geese at the rate of 
TWO for SI, and B sells his 30 geese at the rate 
of THREE for $1, at which rate the purchaser 
seems to get five geese for S2. ' Tlie net pro- 
ceeds of the sales, however, amounted to $25. 
Subsequently A and B have another lot of 30 
geese each for the market, but as A is sick, he 
gets B to sell his lot, who conies to the market, 
and believing that he was selling liis geese on 
the same terms as before, offers them at the rate 
of FIVE for S2. When he returns home, he 
finds, in making up Ids account with A, that he 
only netted §24 for the sixty geese, and is out 
SI, but can not account for the deficiency. In 
the first instance, the sixty geese brought $25; 
in the second, only $24, and yet he has apiia- 
rently sold them on the same terms — five for 
$2, as they, sold them in the first place thbeb 



for $1, and two for $1— five for $2. Can our j 
readers account for the deficiency of 51 on the] 
second sale? 

Answer. — The solution of the problem of the 
geese is *ery simple. It is true that the buyer 
of the geese from A, at two for $2, and from B 
at three for $1, obtains five for §2. But when 
B has sold all of his geese, having received $10 
for his 30, A has only .sold 20 for the same 
money, and has 10 left at the rate of two for 
$1. Thus, when A has sold only 20, the rate 
of five for !?2 ceases; being two for SI, or four 
for §2, for the remaining ten belonging to A. 
Therefore this accounts for the diflTerence of SI 
between the two sales. 

How Much is a Billinn? — Do you know how 
many things it takes to nuike a billion? A 
million of millions, by English enumeration, 
any schoolboy will tell you. But docs that 
same .schoolboy know that, if he could count 
for twelve hours every day, at the rate of 200 a 
minute, it would take him 19,p25 years? A 
()uadrillion is a billion of billions, and can be 
easily represented thus: 1,000,000,000,000,000,- 
000,000,000. But to count a quadrillion :it the 
above rate, would take all the inhabitants of 
the globe to count incessantly for 19,025,875 
yea r.s ! 

These large numbers are of little practical 
use, and have their chief place in the fancy 
of arithmeticians. 

Curious Properties nf the Figure Kine. — The 
figure 9, in its combination with other figures, 
po-ssesses properties which may well cause 
amazement, and would excite awe if mathema- 
ticians were ever superstitious. Thus: 

Any number multiplied by 9 produces a sum 
of figures which, added together, continually 
make 9 or its multiple. For example, all the 
first multiples of 9, as 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 03, 72, 
81, sum uj/ 9 each. Each of them, multijdied 
by any number whatever, iiroduces a similar 
result; as 8 times 81 are 048; these figures, 
added together, make 18; 1 and S are 9. Mul- 
tiply 048 by itself, the product is 419,904; the 
sum of these digits is 27; 2 and 7 are 9. The 
rule is invariable, also, when any number is 
multiplied by a multiple of 9 ; as 17X18=306 ; 
6 and 3 are 9; 117X27=3,159; these figures 
sum up 18, and 8 and 1 are 9. Again, 
87,303X54 = 4,7.17,422; added together, the 
sum is 27; 2 and 7 are 9, and so alway.s. 

Once more, if any row of two or more figures 
be reverst'l and subtracted from itself, the 
figures composing the remainder will, when 



FACTS FOR THE CCRIOrs. 



797- 



added horizontully, be a multiple of 9. Ex- 
amples : 

75 942 1871 

57 249 1781 

18=9X2 693=77X9 90=9X10 

Agnin ; if the digits 12345679 be mul- 
tiplied by any multiple of 9 not exceeding two 
figures, the result will, curiously enough, be 
expressed in a constant succession of that figure 
which is the otlier factor of the multipliei-. 
For instance, suppose we multiply by 36, the 
product of 4 and 9 — then the result will be a 
succession of fours. Let us see : 
12345679 
36 

74074074 
37037037 



444444444 
Multiply by 18 and the result will be exclu- 
sively in twos; by 27 in threes; by 72 in 
eights ; and so on. Notice also the curious com- 
binations of figures in the product of each mul- 
tiplication — the repetition of 74 and 37 above. 
Set four nines in such a way that they will 
express 100. Ans.—99 9-9. 

To subtract 45 from 45, and leave 45 as a re- 
mainder, see below : 

9+8-f7+6 f 5-f4-f 3-f 2-f 1=45 
1-f 2+3-1-4+5+6+7-1-8+9=45 

8+6+4+1+9+7+5+3+2=45 
Arrange the figures 1 to 9 in such order that, 
by adding them together, they amount to 100. 
15 
36 
47 

It is done thus : 98 



100 

Subtract from six one-third of itself and 
leave nine. An^. — rub out the letter s of course, 
wliicli leaves ix. 

Facts for the Cui-ious.— Under this 
head, we shall group striking facts on a variety 
of interesting topics that defy more compact 
arrangement : 

Amount of Gold in the World. — It is estimated 
that all the gold in the world amounts to 
$5,950,000,000— about twice our national debt, 
if melted together, it would make a lump of 
si.x hundred and sixty cubic yards; in other 
words, it could all be pat into a room twenty 



seven feet square, and there would be consider- 
able room not occupied 1 The annual average 
product of gold at the commencement of the 
Christian era is estimated at §8,000,000 ; at the 
discovery of America this product had dimin- 
ished to S100,000; in 1600, it had increased to 
$2,000,000; in 1700, to 55,000,000; in 1800, to 
515,000,000; in 1843, to $34,000,000; in 1850, 
to $38,000,000 ; in 1853, to 8236,000,000. There 
was a subsequent falling off, so that in 1860 the 
product was only $210,000,000. The average 
annual lo.ss by the wear of coin is estimated at 
one-tenth of one per cent. If beaten out into 
gold leaf, all the gold in the world would cover 
an area of about ten thousand .square miles — a 
tract a little less than the State of Vermont, 
and nearly equal to a fifth of either New York 
or Pennsylvania. 

Freaks of Currency. — Many things have been 
used at diiferent times as money — cowrie-sheila 
in Africa; wampum by the American Indians; 
cattle in ancient Greece. 

The Carthaginians used leather as money, 
probably bearing some mark or stamp. 

Frederick II, at the siege of Milan, is.sued 
stamped leather money. 

In 1360, John the Good, king of France, also 
issued leather money, having a small silver 
nail in the center. 

Salt is the common money in Abj'sslnia, and 
cod fish in Iceland. 

" Living Money " — slaves, and oxen — passed 
current with the Anglo-Saxons in payment of 
debts. ^ 

Marco Polo found, in China, money made 
of the bark of the mulberry tree, bearing the 
stamp of the sovereign, which it was death to 
counterfeit. 

Tobacco was generally used as money in 
Virginia up to 1560, fifty-seven years after the 
foundation of that colony. 

Coon skins were formerly money in Ten- 
nessee. 

In 1641 the Legislature of Massachusetts 
enacted that wheat should be received in pay- 
ment of all debts. 

The Convention of France, during the Eevo- 
lution, on the proposition of Jean Bon Saint 
Andree, long discussed the propriety of adopt- 
ing wheat as money, as a measure of value of 
all things. 

Platina was coined in Russia from 1S2S to 
1845. 

Herodotus says the Lydians were the first 
people known to have coined gold and silver. 
They had gold coin at the close of the ninth 



■798 



THE CREAM OP FACTS: 



century B. C. The Romans first coined silver 
2S1 B.C., and gold 207 B. C. 

The Oldest Tr.-r in the World.— Th^ Oldest 
Tree, the age of which is historically deter- 
mined, is the sacred fig iree oS Anarajupoura, in 
Ceylon. It was planted by Divinipiatissa, 
in the year 288 B. C; and its history from that 
date is preserved by a mass of documentary 
and traditional evidence. It was described by 
the Chinese traveler, Fa Hiam, in the year 
414, and by the earliest Europeans who visited 
it. It still flourishes, and is an object of wor- 
ship to the Buddhists. 

Milloii'g Mulberry Tree. — The principal object 
of attraction at Christ's College, at Cambridge, 
England, is a mulberry tree planted by John 
Wilton, when lie entered as undergraduate in 
1033. Tlie fact that it was planted by the 
great poet has been religiously handed down 
from his own time, in one unvarying tradition 
among the fellows of the college. This memo- 
rable and ancient tree, which stands on a small 
grass plot at the extremity of the garden, has 
been preserved with the greatest care, the stem, 
portions of whicli are encrusted with a covering 
of slieet lead, is banked up with a mound of 
earth covered with grass, and the branches are 
supported by strong props. It has weathered 
many a tempest. Every spring it puts forth 
its leaves in all the vigor of youth, and in 
Autumn nothing of the kind can be more de- 
licious than its fruit. 

The Large.'.t Trees in the World. — There is no 
doubt that the mammoth pines of California are 
the largest trees in the world. They are con- 
fined to a narrow basin of two hundred acres, 
and are owned by Mr. Lapiiam. Measure- 
ment sliows that one of the largest is ninety- 
four feet in circumference at the root. Another, 
which has fallen from old age, or has been up- 
rooted by a tempest, is lying near it, of which 
the length from the roots to the top of the 
branches was four hundred and fifty feet. A 
great portion of this monster still exists, and 
at three hundred and fifty feet from the roots 
the trunk measured ten feet- in diameter. By 
its fall, this tree has overthrown another not 
less colossal, since at the origin of the roots it 
is forty feet in diameter. "This one, "s.ays a 
traveler, "which appeared to me one of the 
greatest wonders of the forest, and compared 
with which man is but an imperceptible pfguiy, 
has been hollowed, by means of fire, through- 
out a considerable portion of its length, so as 
to form an immense wgoden tube of a single 
piece. Its size may be imagined when it is 



known that one of my companions, two years 
ago, rode on horseback in tlie interior of this 
tree for a distance of two hundred feet, with- 
out any inconvenience. My companions and 
myself have frequently entered tliis tunnel and 
progressed some sixty paces, but have been 
arrested before reaching the end by masses of 
wood which had fallen from the ceiling. Near 
these overthrown giants others still are stand- 
ing, not inferior to them in size, and of which 
the height astonishes the beholder. I can men- 
tion three particularly, which, entirely isolated, 
grow near each other so systematically as to ap- 
pear to have been planted purposely to produce 
the effect. A fourth is remarkable in having, 
between fifty and one hundred feet from the 
ground, its trunk divided into three enormous 
branches of the same size and nearly parallel, 
extending to a distance of more than three hun- 
dred feet. 

"If tlie largest of the.se were cut up for fuel, i\, 
would make at least thi-ee thousand cords, or an 
much as would be yielded by sixty acres of 
good woodland. If sawed into inch boards, it 
would yield about three million feet, and fur- 
nish enough three inch-plank for thirty miles 
of plank road. This will do for the product 
of one little seed, less in size than a grain ot 
wheat. 

" By counting the annual rings it appears that 
some of the oldest specimens have attained au 
age of three thousand years. If this compu- 
tation is correct, and we see no reason to doubt 
it, they must have been as large as our best 
forest trees, in the times of Homer and the 
prophet Elijah; and venerable and towering 
giants during the Carthaginian wars. In other 
words, 'The Konian Empii-e has, begun and 
ended' since they commenced growing." 

Yo-semite Falls in California. — In the deep 
valley Yo-semite, are several falls far surpass- 
ing in height the Falls of Niagara. At the 
lower end of the valley is the cascade called 
tlie Bridal Vail, the water pouring over the 
rocky wall a distance of nine luindred feet. 
Two or three miles beyond are the Yo-seniite, 
where the water falls in three plunges, a dis- 
tance of two thousand eight hundred feet, the 
first leap being nearly one thousand eight hun- 
dred feet, the next four hundred, and the last 
six hundred feet. In looking from the bottom 
of the gorge at the immense height from wliioh 
the water descends, the stream, which is eighty- 
seven feet in breadth at the top, seems to be 
only a foot and a half wide. The Yo-semite 
falls are considerably higher than the famous 



FACTS FOR THE CCRIOCS. 



799 



cataracts of Tullulah, in Goorgia, wliicli plunge 
a thousand feet down tlirougU a wild gorge of 
the Blue Ridge, forming tlie most picturesque 
water-fall scenery of tlie Atlantic slope. 

A City on a Baft. — One of the most wondes- 
ful cities in the world is Bankok,the capital of 
Siam. On either side of the wide, majestic 
stream, moored in regular streets and alleys, 
extending as far as the eye can reach, are up- 
wards of seventy thousand neat little houses, 
each house floating on a compact raft of bam- 
boos, and the whole intermediate space of the 
river is one dense mass of ship-junks, and 
boats of every conceivable shape, color, and 
eize. 

Enterprise in Africa. — In the great desert of 
Sahara, in the year 1S60, five artesian wells 
were opened, around which vegetation thrives 
luxuriantly. Thirty thousand palm-trees and 
one thousand fruit trees were planted, and two 
thriving villages established. At a depth of 
little over five hundred feet, an underground 
river or lake was struck, and from two wells 
live fish have been thrown up, showing tliat 
there is a large quantity of water underneath. 

The Xulional Capital. — The dome of the cap- 
ital at Washington is the most ambitious struct- 
ure in America. It is a hundred and eight 
feet higher than the Washington Monument at 
Baltimore, sixty-eight feet higher than that of 
Bunker Hill, and twenty-three feet higher than 
the Trinity Church spire of New York. It is 
the only considerable dome of iron in the 
world. It is a vast hollow sphere of iron 
weighing 8,200,000 pounds. How much is 
that? More than four thousand tons, or about 
the weight of seventy thousand full grown peo- 
ple; or about equal to a thousand laden coal 
cars, which, holding four tons apiece, would 
reach two miles and a half. Directly over 
your head is a figure in bronze, "America," 
weighing 14,985 pounds. The pressure of the 
iron dome upon its piers and pillars is 13,477 
pounds to the square foot. 

Speed. — The velocity of a ship is from 8 to 12 
miles an hour; of a race-horse, from 20 to 30 
miles; of a bird, from 50 to 60 miles; of the 
clouds in a violent hurricane, from 80 to 100 
miles; of sound, 823 miles; of a cannon-ball, 
as found by experiment, from 600 to 1,000 
miles (the common estimate is much too low); 
of the earth round the sun, 68,000 miles (mor^ 
than a hundred times swifter than a cannOT- 
ball); of Mercury, 105,000, and of light, about 
800,000,000 miles, passing from the sun to the 
earth, 95,000,000 miles, iu about eight minutes. 



or about a n]iIlioii times swifter than a can- 
non-ball; and the exceeding velocity of the 
thoughts of the human mind is beyond all pos- 
sible estimate. 

Durability of Wood. — The piles under the 
London bridge have been driven five hundred 
years, and on examining them in 1845, they 
were found to be little decayed. They are prin- 
cipally elm. Old Savoy Place, in the cily of 
London, was built six hundred and fifty years 
ago, and the wooden piles, consisting of oak, 
elm, beech, and chestnut, were found, upon 
recent examination, to be perfectly sound. Of 
the durability of timber in a wet slate, the piles 
of the bridge built by Emperor Trajan over 
the Danube, aSbrds a striking example. One 
of these piles was taken up and found to be 
petrified to the depth of three-fourths of au 
inch ; but the rest of the wood was not difTer- 
ent from its former state, though it had been 
driven sixteen hundred years. • 

A Wonderful Clock. — A clock has been com- 
pleted for the cathedral of Beauvais, France, 
which far surpasses all the existing specimens 
of the clockmaker's art. It contains no less 
than ninety thousand wheels, and indicates, 
among many other things too numerous to 
recite,, the days of the week, the month, the 
year, the signs of the zodiac, the equation of 
time, the course of the planets, the phases of 
the moon, the time at every capital in the 
world, the movable feasts for a hundred years, 
the saints' days, etc. Perhaps the most curi- 
ous part of the mechanism is that which gives 
the additional day in leap year, and which con- 
sequently is called into action only once in four 
years. The clock is wound up every eight 
days. The main dial is twelve feet in diame- 
ter, and the total cost exceeds fifty thousand 
dollars. 

Liijhtning Statistics. — M. Baudijt presented a 
paper to the French Academy of Science, giv- 
ing some curious statistics of accidents by light- 
ning, from which it appears that from 1835 to 
1863, the number of persons killed on the spot 
was 2,238. From 1854 to 1863, out of 880 suf- 
ferers from lightning, only 243 were females, or 
a little over twenty -six percent; in England 
only a little over twenty-one per cent. In 
many cases the lightning falling in the midst 
of groups of persons of both sexes, struck men 
in preference to women, whom it spared more 
or less. ■ laa great number of cases the elec- 
tric fluid killed whole herds, upward of one 
hundred strong, whether horned cattle, pigs, or 
sheep, and yet sparing the shepherds, though 



800 



THE CREAM OF FACTS. 



tliey were in the midst of llie herd. Of the 
viclinis liy liglitning at least one-fourth were 
Btruclc wliile standing under trees. 

Number to tlie Square Mile. — A curious bird's- 
eye view of the political and social slate of En- 
rope is afibrded by a heavy Blue-book, pub- 
li.slied by our government, under the title of 
" Statistical Tables Kelating to Foreign Coun- 
tries." First, as to density of population, we 
find that while in England and Wales tliereare 
S52 inhabitants living in one square mile, in 
Kussia there are only 10; in Norway, 12; in 
Sweden, 22; in Greece, 56; in Spain, 89; in 
Poland, 91; in Moldavia, 100; in Portugal, 
104; in Denmark, 119; in Switzerland, 161 ; 
in Prussia, 165; in France, 176 ; in Brunswick, 
194, and in Holland, 280 persons to the square 
mile. There are only 'wo countries in Europe 
at tins moment possessing a denser population 
than Eiijrland and Wales, namely, the kingdom 
of Wustembeig, in which there are 373 inhab- 
itants to the square mile, and Belgium, with 
393 persons on the same space of ground. 
America averages 17 persons to the square mile. 

Taxes of Different Countries. — The greatly va- 
rying sums which tlie different nations of the 
world pay for their government, form very in- 
teresting points of comparison. Great ^ritain, 
it is hardly necessary to say, stands at the head 
of all nations in this respect, the public revenue 
amounting to £2 13s. per head of the popuha- 
tion. Xe.\t in the list stands Holland, the best 
taxed country of the Continent, with £2 9s per 
head ; and then follows France, with £2 Os. 8d. 
Tlie inhabitants of Hanover have to pay JEl'lls. 
Id. each for being governed ; while the subjects 
of King Leopold di.sburse £1 6s. 3d., and those 
of Queen Isabella £1 5s. 4d. per head for the 
same. In Prussia, despite its large standing 
army, the taxation does not amount to more 
(ban £1 2s. 3d. for each individual; while the 
revenue of the other states of tlie Confedera- 
tion varies from £1 3s. to £1 per head of the 
l«iinilalinn. In all the remaining countries of 
I2urii])e, the burden on public taxation amounts 
to considerably less than £1 per head. The 
Danes pay 19s. 8d.; the Portuguese, 17s. 4d.; 
the Greeks, 16.s. Sd.; the mixed races inhabiting 
the Austrian Empire, 16. 4d.; the Norwegians, 
13s. lid.; the Swedes, 9s. 2d.; and last of all the 
Swiss, only 6s lOd. per head. 

IVtin Sheets of Iron. — When a letter was 
written from Pittsburg to England on a sheet of 



iron paper, so thin that it required one thou- 
sand of them piled on one another to make an 
inch in thickness, and only twice the weight of 
ordinary writing paper, and about as flexible, it 
s«t the English manufacturers to making ex- 
periments in tliat direction, which have resulted 
in producing a sheet so thin that four thousand 
eight hundred of them are required to make an 
inch in thickness — by far the thinnest ever seen 
by mortal eye. The thinnest ti.ssue paper on 
sale mea.sures the one-twelve-hundredth part 
of an inch ; fancy, then, a sheet of iron but 
one-fourth as thick, and, neverthele.ss, perfect 
throughout ! A sheet of Belgian iron, sup- 
posed hitherto to have been the thinnest yet 
rolled, is the one-six-hundred-and-sixty-sixlh 
part of an inch thick, while the thickness of 
an ordinary sheet of note paper, is about the 
one-four-hundredth part of an inch. 

Eccentricities of Great Men. — Tycho BkAhb 
the astronomer, changed color and his legs 
shook under him on meeting with a liai'e or 
a fox. Dr. Johnson would never enter a room 
with his left foot foremost; if by mistake it did 
get in first, he would step back and place his 
right foot foremost. Julius CjESAR was almost 
convulsed by the sound of thunder, and always 
wanted to get in a cellar or under ground to 
escape the dreadful noise. To Queen Eliza- 
beth the simple word "death" was full of 
horrors. Even Talleyrand trembled and 
changed color on hearing the word pronounced. 
Marshal Saxe, who met and overthrew oppo.s- 
ing armies, fled and screamed in terror at the 
sight of a cat. Peter the Great could never 
be persuaded to cross a bridge, and, though he 
tried to master the terror, he failed to do so; 
whenever he set foot on one he would shriek 
out in distress and agony. Byijon would never 
help any one to salt at the table, nor would he 
be helped himself; if any of the article hap- 
pened to be spilled on the table, he would 
jump up and leave his meal unfinished. 



STATLSTICS OF AMERICAN FARMS. 

The following interesting table is compiled 
from the Census Report of 1860. It gives the 
total national area ; the amount of land in 
farms; and the number of inhabitants to the 
square mile in each State: 



STATISTICS OF AMERICAN FAIi.MS — OUll EXPORTS. 



801 





AcEES or Land in Faems. 


Eg 


r "^ 


II? 




Improve,]. 


Unimproved. 


Ill 


Alabama 

Arkansas 

Calif,, nii;, 

Cc.iiii,,li,nt 

Pclauai. 

Kluii.l, 


6,3.<.'i,724 

I,«i,313 

2,4r>«,(i:l4 

I,83ll,S07 

ItiT.llOo 

651,213 

8.062.7.iS 

13,ll'J6,:i74 

»,242,l.s3 

3,792,792 

40.i,4lo 

7,i;44,2ll,S 

2.707, ms 

2,704,133 

3,002, 2fi7 

2,].»,.M2 

3,47f.,2!l.i 

.'i.i6,2S0 

6,06.5,755 

fi,246,s71 

2.3ii7.034 

1,<1I4,441 

14.3.')S, 103 

6,.'il7,2*l 

12,62.'.,a94 

«<I6,414 

10,4r.3,296 

:i3.i,12S 

4,.'>72,IHjO 

■ 6,795,337 

2,65n,7.<I 

2,1*23,1.57 

11,437,821 

3,7411,167 


12,718,821 
7„5'.lll,:i93 
0,262,11111) 
67.1, 4.>7 
,1il7,2.10 
2,266,1115 

1.>!,5.S7,732 
7,.-1.7,6l5 
8,146,109 
6,277,115 
1,372,932 

11,519.1153 
6,:-.91,46s 
3,U2.'!,.'.;w 
1,.<.^1,3II4 
1,183,J12 
:>,:>:,4,:i3S 
2.I:V).71S 

10,773,92;l 

13.737,'.C9 
1.377,.-)91 

J,":w.iisi 

6,616,.V,.j 
17,2t5,IM 
7,H-l,-,,-47 
1,16I,U'5 
6,51S,SI4 

ll,62:s,'sf.9 
l:i.«73,S2< 
22,,iffi,2t7 

1,4. -.1,2.57 
19,679,215 

4,I47,4.'0 


13,357..535 
23,83:1,1114 
112,217,^6 
.535,766 
3J?,305 
3.5,01 1,292 
10,469,510 
11,55(),411 

5,249,468 
25,168,893 
50,1'65,120 

4,951,939 
17,162,864 
li;,672.329 

2,2.s3,7j9 

1.6.53,276 

5o'.747!'872 
14,:MI1,I.56 
2I,S39,190 
2.191,575 

2.:141,275 

9,105,012 
6,6S7,.591 
5,104,819 
5S,9I4,,<2I 
12,-12?..s60 
314.616 
5,:56 1,061 

1.5l)l213'sl'2 
2,. '61, 266 
8,118,214 
26,,;i7.773 


32,462,080 
' 33,106,720 
120,947,840 
3,1140,000 
1,3.'.6,.<00 
37,931,520 
37,120,0110 
35,462,400 
21,637,760 
35,22S,.soO 
.52,043.5:0 
24,115,200 
26,461,440 
22.400,000 
7,1I9.3„0 
4,992,1«X) 
36,128,610 
.53,459,,S40 
30,179,840 
4 1 ,824,000 
5,9.39.200 
5,.324,-IIO 
30,080,000 
32,4.50,:5i;o 
25..576,960 
60,97.'..;»iO 
29,1 10,000 
8:!5,840 
21,7,JI,OI,0 
29,181,111111 
17.5,5-7,.MO 
6,.-,35,.;,v0 
39.2,i5.2Ml 
31,511,360 


19 

8 
2 

'2 


lUii,,..- 

Iii,l,.,',i 

Iowa 

Kai,,-„- 

KlM.I,,, i., 

Ma,>] :i,l 

jii'^in'-. ,',','.''!' './::::::::::::::;::;:;::;:::;::::::::. :::::::::;::;:::: 

Miiij,. ...i., 

M'SM -,,,., 

Mis.s,,,,,, 

Ni'W II-,,,,, -Ml,- 

N-" .1 ,-> 

Kciv V--ik 

Koitl, , ;,,,,|i,i„ 

Ohio 

(lr,-u.,,, 

Pl-1,1,-- U,,i,i,, 

Kll,„l-- 1-1:, Ml 

South 1 :,l,,|ii,a 

^'/^:;;^n-:::::::::::::;;:::::;:::::;:::::::;:;::;z:::::::.::::; 


.30 

T2 

30 
17 
17 
61 
157 

2 
12 
IS 
35 

19 
58 

0.5 
1.3 

133 
20 
24 
2 
311 
26 


ToiTitoi-ies, iuluiliiig District of Columbia 


162,649,818 
46U,S72 


241,94.3,671 
2,158,147 


7.30,191,121 
769,2.33,141 


1,154,784,610 
771,852,160 


17 


Total States and Tenitories 


163,110,721) 


244,101,818 
















Our Exports.— The United States Agri- 
cultural Report for 1868 reveals the fact, 5vhich 
accords with tlie public impression, that we are 
steadily growing richer in every section of the 
emintry. In the export of produce, our ante- 
war condition se^ms to be fully restored. 

To besin with cotton. The following table 
shows the value of cotton e.xports — raw ma- 
terial and manufactured goods — for the last 
thirteen vears: 







V 


line of cotton 




Value of rotton 




naiiufiicturcs 




exports. 




■xpoite.l. 


In56 


$123,382,3.51 




S.;,9r,7,:ai9 








e' .i'l'vy. 


1n59 




]«l« 


l.'l -o,i ■,■,'. 






1861 


,-I n',| ,-■; 






1862 








1863 






-' <iiii; 11 1 


1-64 


M ^','. .<", 1 






1865 








1..-66 






1 "-ii'iTi 


1867 








1868 


152,820,7:13 




■1,.>7I,I)51 



Even the South is richer in this one article 
since the war than before — a fact which it 
seems hard to impress on most people. 

We pass on to the breadstuffs, and present a 
51 



table showing the total value of these exported 
during the last thirteen years: 



Flour. 



829,275.148 
25,8s2,3l6 
19,328,.-;84 
14,4:13.591 
15,44.1,507 
24,615,849 



310,010,219 
23'.562JI9 



Now for corn, the next great staple, we have 
a tiihle showing the value for the same period 
of the exports of corn and cornmeal: 



Total valu 

S,^,79s. 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 





SS?T;£§JiBSS;^SS=I=!5:^S«SS5;St.'2gS5iS52:£'S5t?5 
















mmwrnMntmrmmmmiumMim 
























"^ 




* 


r- 






^ 












J 




































-<= 






















;sazi^t.oS^?;a-jOP=,-<:SPH-' 



3o?!?«mM>!; I 



INTEREST TABLE — THE NAMES OF DAYS. 



803 



Interest Table, 
Showing the Interest from SIO to S5,000, for fifteen daj'S, one month, and one year, at seven 

per cent. 



Dollars. 


15 days. 


I Month. 


1 Tear. 


Dollars. 


lo Days. 


1 Month. 


1 Tear. 


S 10 


SO 03 


SO 00 


SO 70 


S 200 


SO 58 


61 17 


S\4 00 






12 


1 40 




S.i 


1 75 


21 («) 


30 


09 


IS 


2 11] 


4iNt 


1 IS . 


2 33 


28 00 


40 


12 




2 NO 


SAI 


1 44 


2 92 


35 10 


.'jO 


H 


20 


3 50 


10110 


2 «S 


5 83 


70 00 






3.5 




•^(HIO 


5 75 


11 fi7 


11000 


70 


20 


41 


4 90 


31 II If] 


S « 


17 50 


210 OO 


SO 


- U23 
" 3li 




5 60 


4IHI0 


U 51 


22 33 


iSO 00 


M 


-.3 




51J0U 


14 3S 


29 17 


350 OO 


100 


29 


5S 


7 00 











Interest per Day. 











S20(X» 

311(10 


SO sa 

5S ■ 








U4 

06 

(1 OS 




















17 


.'>iOil 


9ii 






20.000 













The IVames of Days. — The idols 

which onr Saxon ancestors worshiped — from 
which tlie days of tlie %vee!< derive their names 
— were various, and were tlie principal mo- 
lives lo their adoption. 

'I'he Idol of the Sun. — This idol, which repre- 
Benled the glorions luminary of the day, was 
(he chief object of their worship. It is de- 
scribed as the bust of a man upon a pillar, 
with a face like the sun, liolding, with out- 
p'retched arms, a burning wheel before his 
breast. The first day of the week was espe- 
cially dedicated to its adoration, which they 
termed the Sun's Dceg, hence is derived the 
word Sunday. 

The Idol of the Monn. — The next was the idol 
of the moon, Worshiped on the second day of 
the week, called by them Jt/ijoji's Dceg; and 
since by us Monday. The form of this idol is 
intended to represent a woman habited in a 
short coat and a hood, having two long ears. 
Tbe moon which she holds in her hand repre- 
sents the quality. 

The Idol of Tuisco. — Ttlisco was first deified 
as the father and ruler of the Teutonic race, 
but in course of time he was worshiped as the 
son of Earth. From this came the Saxon word 
Tuisco's Dceg, which we call Tuesday. He is 
represented as .standing on a pedestal, an old 
venerable sage, clothed in the skin of an animal, 
holding a scepter in his right hand. 

The Idol of Woden, or Odin. — Woden, or 
Odin, was the supreme divinity of the North- 
ern nations. Tbis hero is supposed to have 
emigrated from the East, but from what eounti-y, 
or at what time, is not known. His exploits 
form the greater part of the mythological creed 



of the Northern nations, and his achievements 
are magnificent beyond all credibility. The 
name of the fourth day of the week, called Iiy 
the Saxon's Woden's Dag, and by us Wednes- 
day, is derived from this personage. Woden 
is represented in a martial attitude, with a 
broadsword uplifted in his right hand. 

The Idol Thor. — Thor, the eldest and bravest 
of the .sons of Woden and Fkiga, was, after 
his parents, considered the greatest among tbe 
Saxons and Danes. To him the fifth day of 
the week, called by them Thor's Dceg, and by 
us Thursday, was consecrated. Thor is repre- 
sented as sitting upon a throne with a crown of 
gold upon his head, adorned with a circle in 
front, wherein were set twelve bright, burnished 
gold stars, and with a regal scepter in his right 
hand. 

The Idol Friga, or Frea. — Frig A, or Fkea, 
was the wife of Woden, or Odin, and next to 
him, the most revered divinity among the hea- 
then Saxons, Dane.s, and Northern nations. 
In the most ancient times, Friga, or Feea, 
was the same with the goddess Hertha, or 
Ea&th. To her the sixth day of the week 
was consecrated, which by the Saxon's was 
written Friga's Dceg, corresponding with our 
Friday. Feiga was represented with a drawn 
sword in her right hand and a bow in her left. 

The Idol Seaier. — The idol Seater is repre- 
sented on a pedestal, whereon is placed a percli, 
on the sharp prickled back of which lie stood. 
His head was uncovered, and his visage lean. 
In his left hand he held up a wheel, and in his 
right hand was a pail of water, wherein were 
flowers and fruits ; and his dress consisted of 
a long coat, girded with linen. The appella- 



804 



THE CREAM OE PACTS: 



tioii given to the day of his celebration is still 
retained. The Saxon's named it Sealer's Dag, 
which we call Satnrday. 

JN'ames of the Months. — The names of the 
months were given by the Romans. 

January was named from Janus, an ancient 
king of Italy, who was deified after his death, 
and derived from the Latin word Junuarius. 

February is derived from tlie Latin word 
Febnw, to purify; Iience Februarlus — for this 
month the ancient Romans offered up expiatory 
sacrifice for the purifyins; of tlie people. 

March, anciently the first month of the year, 
is derived from the word Mars, the god of war. 

April is so called fronr the Latin Aprilus, 
i. e., opening; because in this month the vegeta- 
ble world opens and buds forth. 

May is derived from the Latin word Majores, 
so called by RoinJLtrs in respect for the sen- 
ators ; hence. Mains or M.iy. 

June, from the Latin word Junius, or the 
youngest of the people. 

July is derived from the Latin word Julius, 
and so named in honor of Julius Cesar. 

August was so called in honor of Augustus, 
by a decree of the Roman senate. 

September, from the Latin Septem, or seventh 
month from March. 

October, from the Latin Octo, eighth month 
from March* 

Is'ovember, from the Latin word yovem, nine; 
being the ninth month from March. 

December, from the Latin Decern, ten; so 
called' because it was the tenth montli from 
March, which was formerly tlie manner of 
beginning. 

Curious Facts of History- — The 

earliest known chronicles are those of the Chi- 
nese, Hindoos, and Jews. The Chinese record 
an eclipse in the year 2S00 B. C, and a con- 
junction of the planets in 900 B. C. The Hin- 
doos claim still to have observations recorded 
three thousand one hundred and eighty years 
before the Christian era — some seven or eight 
hundred years before Moses' deluge; and these 
reported observations agree with the most accu- 
rate modern tables. The Persians also describe 
the position of stars in the equinox, 3000 B. C. 
Of course these nations wrote their observa- 
tions; therefore, it is probable tluit Cadmus, 
the Phoenician, who is called' tlie inventor of 
letters, brought his knowledge from the East. 

On the tomb of a Phoenician, found during 
the reign of James I, it is stated that "he and 
his wife are with the blessed in Elysium." 



It seemed to have been engraved about 170 
B.C. 

Julius Caesar usurped the supreme power 
of Rome about 48 B. C, and from that time to 
475, there were sixly-four Roman emperors, 
forty-five of whom were monsters of vice and 
crime. Before the year 400 A. D., forty-foui 
of these had been assassinated, murdered, or 
publicly burnt at the stake ; one had been 
struck by lightning, one had been drowned, and 
three had committed suicide! What a picture 
of depravity 1 What a lesson to that ambition 
that seeks to ride upon the people's necks I 

Before the art of printing crept from China 
into Europe, books were of an incredible price. 
It required the labor of two years of a faithful 
copyist to transcribe the Bible, and hence copies 
of it were very costly. Plato, who was not 
rich, paid 10,000 denarii, or about SI, 600, for 
three books of PiiiLOLAUs, the Pytiiagorean ; 
and Aristotle paid tliree Attic talents, nearly 
S3,000, for a few books which had belonged to 
the philosopher Speusippus. Pliny refused 
what was equivalent to about 516,000 for his 
common-place book — Electorum Commentarii. 
When publicly exposed, books were frequently 
protected by chains, and in some ancient libra- 
ries, they are chained to this day ; they were 
subjects of grave negotiation ; and wer§ only 
loaned to tlie higher orders, upon ample pledges 
of deposit for their safe return. We are told, 
that even so late as 1471, Louis IX was com- 
pelled by the faculty of medicine at Paris, to 
deposit a valuable security, and give a respon- 
sible indorser, in order to obtain the loan of the 
works of Rhasis, an Arabian physician. It ia 
not strange, therefore, that the solemn injunc- 
tion was often, in former ages, written upon 
the fly leaf, " Cursed be he who shall steal, or 
tear out the leaves, or in any way injure this 
book." The materials uijon which the earliest 
books were written were paper made of the 
Egyptian papyrus plant, the inner bark of 
trees, skins, palm leaves, wood, stone, ivory, 
lead, and other nietal.s. 

Several centuries after Charlemagne, who 
died early in the nintli century, the German 
tribes considered no knowledge of use, but that^ 
of managing the lance and the steed. The bar- 
barism was so great, that most of the laity, even 
the most distinguished, could scarcely read or 
write. He who was instructed in thee w:is 
considered a distinguished scholar, and he 
who obtained more knowledge, particularly in 
mathematics or natural science, e.^cposed him- 
self to the danger of being burnt as a sorcerer. 



STATISTICS OP THE BIBLE. 



805 



Frnm the sixth to the thirteenth cendirv iiiAiiy 
bishops could not read, and kings were sc;iroely 
able to sign their names. Macaui<AY lells lis, 
that in the twelfth or even in the fourteenth 
cenlury, there was, through the greater part of 
Europe, very little knowledge, and that little 
was confined to the clergy. Not one man in 
tive hundred could have spelled hi.s way 
through a psalm. In the time of Charles THE 
Second, few English country squires could 
write their names — the peasantiy, none of them. 
Of the wits about his court, few or none could 
spell with decent correctness; and the great 
Duke of Marlborough, we know, could scarcely 
spell at all. 

By the Salic law of France, no female can 
succeed to the throne. Kings have alwaj's 
ruled the realm — but women have generally 
ruled the kings. 

In the reign of Elizabeth, a house, in a 
country town, rented for about $2 per annum, 
and could be purchased for S30. Wheat was 
twenty cents a bushel ; oats, fourteen cents; an 
ox, $6 ; and a fat sheep fifty cents. Labor was 
five cents a day. 

The Saxons were so called from their battle- 
axes, or seaxis. 

The British peasantry were so often sold as 
slaves in the Saxon-Norman times, that chil- 
dren were sold in Bristol market for expor- 
tation. 

Edmond Ironside and Canute settled their 
quarrels as all kings ouglit. They met to fight 
in single combat with swords, in the isle of 
Alney, and after a few blows, they shook hands 
and agreed to divide the subject of contest (the 
kingdom of England), Edmund taking the 
south and Canute the north. 

The ancient English kings of the Tudor line, 
used to keep minstrels and jesters for entertain- 
ment; James I converted them into poets- 
laureate. 

Villain, in ancient times, meant merely a 
country laborer. 

At the time of the violent dissolution of 
the religious houses by Henry VIII, estates 
left to them m Irusl, by pious persons, for the 
poor and other objects of charily, worth a 
million pounds per annum (now worth fifty 
millions per annum), were confiscated by the 
king and divided among his servile parliament, 
noblemen, and courtiers, and their descendants 
still enjoy the money. 

Esqnires were the shield-bearers among the 
Greeks and Romans ; now the title is conferred 
on all who wear a clean shirt. 



The following old rhymes, still current in 
England, serve to assist in remembering the 
names of the monarchs. The line begins with 
the Norman conquest: 

" First William tho Normiin, then Willum his sod, 
Henky, Stephen, and Henry, and Richard, and John ; 
Next Henry the Tliird, Edwards one, two, and thrc, 
And again, after Richard, tliree Henrys we see. 
Then followed two Edwards and Richard the le-^s. 
Two Hexeys, Sixth Ei'WARD, Queen Uaky, Queen Bes; 
Then Jauie the Scotchman, and Charles, wliom tluy 

slew, 
And agMin, after Cromwell, another Charles too. 
Then .Iajies the Second ascended the throne ; 
Anil William and Mary together came on. 
Queen Axne; Georges four. King William now past ; 
Then comes good Victoria— may she long be the hist I'' 

Statistics of tlie Bible.— The Biljle 
has been translated into 148 languages and dia- 
lects, of which 121 had, prior to the forination 
of the British Foreign Bible Society, never 
appeared in print. And twenty-five of these 
languages existed without an alphabet, in an 
oral form. Upward of 43,000,000 of these copies 
are circulated among not less than 600,000,000 
of people. 

The first division into chapters and verses is 
attributed to Stephen Langton, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, in the reign of King John, in 
the latter part of the twelfth century or the 
beginning of the thirteenth. Cardinal Hugo, 
in the middle of the thirteenth century, divided 
the Old Testament into chapters, as they stand 
in our translation. In 1661, Athias, a Jew ot 
Amsterdam, divided the sections of Hugo into 
verses — a French printer had previously (1561) 
divided the New Testament into verses as they 
are at present. 

The entire Bible contains 66 books, 1,188 
chapters, 31,185 verses, 774,692 words, 3,556,480 
letters. The name Jehovah, or Lord, occurs 
6,555 times in the Old Testament. The shortest 
verse in the Bible is John 11:35. The 19th 
chapter of 2d Kings and Isaiah 37 are the 
same — probably the error of some early tran- 
scriber. In the 21st verse of the 7th chapter 
of Ezra are all the letters of the Alphabet, 
I and J being considered as one. 

There is a Bible in the library of the Uni- 
versity of Gottingen written on 5,476 palm 
leaves. 

A day's journey was 33 1.5 miles. A Sab- 
bath day's journey was about an English mile. 
Ezekiel's reed was about eleven feet, nearly. 
A cubit is twenty-two inches, nearly. A hand's 
breadth is equal to three and five-eiglits inches. 
A finger's breadth is equal to one inch. A 
shekel of silver was about 50 cents. A shekel 



80G 



THE CUEAM OF FACTS: 



of gold was $8.09. A talent of silver was S51G.32. 
A talent of gold was §13,809. A [liece of silver 
oi' a penny wis thirteen cents. A farthing was 
lliree cents. A gerah was one cent. A mite 
was one and a half cents. A homer contains 
' seyentv-five gallons and five pints. A hin was 
one gallon and two pints. A tirkin was seven 
pints. An omer was six pints. A cab was 
iliree pints. A dog was one-half pint. 

The divisions of tlieOld Testament are four: 
1. The Penlateucli, or the Five Books of 
Jloses. 2. The historical books, comprising 
Joshua to Esther, inclusive. 3. Poetical or 
doctrinal books, from Job to Songs of Solomon, 
inclusive. 4. Prophetical books, from Isaiali 
to Malachi, inclusive. 

The New Testament is usually divided into 
three parts: 1. Historical, containing the four 
Gospels and Acts. 2. Doctrinal, comprising all 
the epistles from Komans to Jude. 3. Pro- 
phetical, being the book of Revelations of St. 
John. 

The commemorative ordinances of the Jews 
were: Circumcision, the seal of the covenant 
with Abraham; the Passover, to commemorate 
the ]irotectiun of the Israelites, when all the 
tirsjt-born of the Egyptians were destroyed; the 
Feast of the Tabernacles, instituted to per- 
petuate the sojourning of the Israelites for forty 
yeais in the wilderness; the Feast of Pentecost, 
which was appointed fifty years after llie Pass- 
over, to commemorate the delivery of the Law 
from Mount Sinai ; Feast of Purim, kept in 
memory of the deliverance of the Jews from 
the wicked machinations of Haman. 

In 1272 it would have cost a laboring man 
thirteen years of labor to purchase a Bible, 
as his pay would be only IJd. i>er day, while 
the price of a Bible was £20. 

The Apocrypha of the Old Testament con- 
tains 14 books, 183 chapters, and 15,081 verses. 

Uistory of the Bible. — The apocry- 
phal books of the Old Testament generally 
stand by themselves after the canonical books, 
in early editions of the Bible. From recent 
Protestant editions they are generally omitted, 
as the Protestant Church holds the opinion of 
I lie Hebrews, that tlie.se books were not inspired. 
But at the Council of Trent, 1545, the Cath- 
olic Church, which body always regarded the 
apocryphal books with favor, formally pro- 
nounced them to be canonical — that is, of full 
inspiration — and adopted them as a part of 
the Catholic Bible— the Vulgate. Some of 
them, like the three books of the Maccabees, 



are of great historical value, but it is thought 
by Jews and Protestants that they were written 
after the period of inspiration was declared to 
be closed — that i.s, about the time of Daniel. 

No such strict views as are now entertained 
seem to have prevailed in the early ages of the 
Church. The different collections of Scripture 
writings did not agree, and there was nonethiit 
was deemed of supreme authority. The right 
of private judgment was permitted and encour- 
aged, and we find the most distinguished theo- 
logians, from the second to the sixteenth cen- 
tury, deciding for the mselves what books were 
inspired, and constructing catalogues of their 
own. HlLAKY, who was canonized for his zeal 
in defense of orthodoxy against Arianism, as- 
signed as a reason for adding the apocryphal 
books of Tobit and Judith to the Greek Bible, 
that the Jews had twenty-two canonical books 
because they had twenty-two letters in their 
alphabet; and, therefore . because the Greeks 
had twenly-four letters they should have twen- 
ty-four canonical books. Saint Jerome, who 
prepared a famous Latin version of the New 
Testament, seems to have taken the same view. 

The Canon of the New Testament — that i.-*, 
the approved list of inspired books — was very 
slow in forming. For a century, the early 
Christians had no Bible, except the Old Tes- 
tament, which they had received troin the 
Hebrews. The letters of the Apostles, and at 
least two of tlie Gospels, were read publicly 
from time to time, and were listened to with 
profound respect. Gradually, such epistles as 
were addressed to neighboring churches were 
gathered together in small collections ; and 
later, other works of an historical or a poetical 
character, which miglit recommend themselves 
by their intrinsic worth or their reputed iiuthor- 
sliip, were received and used by such churches 
as came in possession of them. The duplicates 
were few, and the scribes exhibited a care and 
vigilance now unknown to copyists. 

The earliest trace of a collection of New 
Testament books is found in that which Mar- 
ciox — a Gnostic in religious belief — had in the 
middle of the second century, consisting of ten 
Epistles of Paul, and a Gospel supposed to have 
been Luke's. Half a century later, the prin- 
cipal Christian teachers made a more complete 
collection. In this, the Kevelation was in- 
cluded under protest : there was also a differ- 
ence of opinion respecting Philemon, Jude, 2d 
John, and the Epistle to the Hebrews. 

An ancient canon, constructed about the year 
200, omits James and Hebrews. OiilGEN (in 



HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



807 



240) tliought the Shepherd of Hermas (one of 
the books included in the present Apocryphal 
list) to be "divinely inspired," but was in some 
doubt about Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 
John, and Jude. Edsebius, tlie father of 
Church liislory, assigned to these books about 
the same place. Jerome, speaking of the let- 
ter to the Hebrews, says: " It is no matter who 
wrote it, for it is the production of an ecclesi- 
astical man, ann is daily distinguished by being 
read in the churches." For the same reason, 
he would admit the Apocalypse, then regarded 
with general disfavor. The Council of Hippo, 
in 393, and the Council of Carthage, in 397, 
decided, by a vote of the bishops, on the inspi- 
ration of the different Kew Testament books, 
and arranged those which were adopted, as we 
now find ihem ; and Pope Innocent confirmed 
their catalogue by a decree. This finished the 
canon of the New Testament. 

The apocryphal books of the New Testament 
rejected by the Council of Hipjjo as not in- 
spired, are now seldom seen except by antiqua- 
rians. They consist of numerous writings, 
partly historical and partly doctrinal, attributed 
to Jesus Christ and his apostles, and their 
disciples and companions; the latest of them 
originating probably as early as the second or 
the third centuries. They bear the name of 
Acts, Epistles, Revelations, etc.; the most im- 
portant are the pseudo-gospels. 

At the Reformation, difl'erences of opinion 
about the genuineness of certain books of the 
Bible broke out again. Being no longer re- 
strained by an infallible papal decree, scholars 
ventured once more to subject the Scriptures lo 
the rules of philological criticism. . Martin j 
LcTHEB raised a doctrinal test, and insisted i 
that it should exclude Hebrews, James, Jude, 
and the Apocalypse. The book last mentioned, 
called tlie Revelation of St. John the Divine, 
according to the theory that it was written by 
that Apostle in his youth, has always been the 
theme of much controversy, not only as to its 
origin, but its meaning. By some it is supposed 
to be a poem ; by others a prophecy ; and it 
has been made the foundali<iu of most of the 
grotesque religions of the world. But a critical 
examination of the genuineness of certain 
books has never produeed any change of the 
Canon as adopted by tlie Council of Hippo, and 
ratified by the Papal manifesto. 

The Bible now generally used by Protestants 
was translated by forty-seven of the most dis- 
tinguished scholars.of England, under the pat- 
ronage of King James, in the early part of 



the seventeenth century. Ten at Westminster 
were to translate to the end of II Kings; eight 
at Cambridge were to finish the remaining his- 
torical books and the hagi'ographa (the books 
following Psalms) ; at Oxford, seven were en- 
gaged on the Propliets. The four Gospels and 
the Acts, and Apocalypse, were allotted to a 
company of seven at Westminster, and the 
Apocryphal books were assigned to a company 
at Cambridge. The wllole class then compared 
all the translations, and adopted the readings 
agreed on by the majority. The Book thus 
finished was sent to each of the other classes; 
and the whole was finally revised by a select 
committee of six in London. 

It is to be remarked, however, that at the 
time of the King James' translation, the ear- 
liest existing Greek manuscripts of the New 
Testament had not been discovered; and tliat 
version was necessarily made from copies writ- 
ten after the tenth century. Since the adjourn- 
ment of the Forty-seven translators, several 
manuscript copies of the New Testament of a 
nuich earlier period haive come to light, seem- 
ing to exhibit some inaccuracies in their com- 
pleted work. 

Twenty years after the translation was fin- 
ished, the Codex Alcxandrinus, a Greek manu- 
script, supposed to have been written about A. 
D. 450, was presented to King Charles. In 
1828, scholars were for the first time granted 
access to the Codex Vaticanus, a Greek manu- 
scripf in Rome, bearing evidence of having 
been written as early as A. D. 350. Both 
copies are imperfect, having los't several books. 

In 1844, Constantine Tischendoep dis- 
covered, in a monastery on Mount Sinai, :i 
Greek manuscript of the New Testament com- 
plete, without a leaf missing. In 1859 he suc- 
ceeded in transferring the copy to the Emperor 
Alexander, of Russia. It bears evidence of 
a very early origin, and scholars decide that it 
was written as early as A. D. 350 — perhaps 
even earlier than the Vatican manuscript, with 
which it nearly agrees. 

These two manusciipts are doubtless consid- 
erably older than any other manuscript of the 
New Testament in existence, and their anterior 
origin gives them authority in cases where the 
text of the King James' version has a difi'erent 
reading. 

In January, 1SG9, there was puhlished in 
London an Englisli New Testament of tlie 
King James' edition, "with an introduction 
and various readings from the three most cele- 
brated manuscripts of the original Greek text, 



8u3 



THE CRKAM OF FACTS: 



by CONSTANTINE TisCHENDORF." The " vari- 
ous readings" are conlaineil in notes at tlie but- 
loni of the page. 

The Catholic Church teaches not only the 
infallibility of the Bible, but the infallibility 
of tradition in transmitting it, and the infalli- 
bility of the Church in interpreting it. For 
this latter purpose, Councils of ecclesiastical 
dignitaries have been convened, by Emperor or 
I'ope, from time to time, believed lobe presided 
over per.-onally by the Holy Gliost. Among 
the.se the most remarkable are: 1, The Council 
of Xice, in 325, by wliich the dogma afiirmin 
the deity of the Son of God was adopted ; 2, that 
of Constantinople, 381, by which the doctrine 
<'onoerning the Holy Ghost was decided and 
proclaimed ; 3, that of Carthage, 307, by the vote 
of which it was delerinini.'il what books were 
niiracnluusly in.<piicd; 4, that of Ephcsus, 
431 ; and 5, that of Chahedon, 451, in which 
two last the doctrine of the virginity of Mary 
and tlie union of the divine and human nature 
in C'JiRisT were more precisely set forth. These 
Councils are called CEcunieniial, and their deci- 
sions in matters of faith were held to be in- 
fallible. 

Auiei'ica liefore Columbus. — Amer- 
ica is, historically, the New World ; but natu- 
ralists lell us that it is geologically the oldest 
world ; and they still trace a ridge of granite 
from the ocean to thegre-tt lakes which "in the 
beginning," was the first to spring above the 
molten globe, destined to become the resting- 
]dace of fauna and flora, and at last the foot- 
stool of num. Of the first peopling of tl\e oon- 
linent, nothing is now known ; the problem is 
left to conjecture. 

Earliest European Discoveries. — Before the last 
quarter of a century, it was generally suppo.sed 
that Columbus was the first European who set 
foot on this continent; but it is now admitted 
by scholars that the Northmen (or Normans) 
(jf Scandinavia, had previously made five or six 
voyages hither, andeflTected settlemenlsat dill'er- 
eut points on the coast of what is now the United 
States, liundreds of years before. Now that the 
exploit of the Norwegians is attested by docu- 
mentary evidence and generally acknowledged, 
it seems just what might have been expected. 
They were enterprising far beyond their con- 
temporaries. They pos.sesscd the best nautical 
skill of the age. They knew how to build sub- 
stantial ships and how to navigate them. They 
were hardy and bold — akin to the stock whence 
the Anglo-Saxon race is sprung. 



Northmen m Greenland. — Iceland was made 
known to the Northmen in 860 by a Swede 
named Gardar, and four years later by the 
pirate Nadodd, who named it Snowland. The 
island was settled in 875, by a Norwegian jarl 
driven away from home by a tyrannical king. 
In 982, Eric the Red, who had been outlawed 
for manslaughter, built and manned a stout 
ship and pushed boldly out from Iceland "in 
search of the land lying in the ocean at the 
West." He found a great peninsula, which he 
explored during his exile of three years, when 
he returned and announced the discovery of a 
beautiful land, which he called "Greenland," 
in order, he said, to attract settlers by the 
pleasing name. 

Remaining a year with his countryjuen, ha 
sailed once more to Greenland, in 9SG, with a 
fleet of thirty-five ships, only fourteen of which 
reached their destination. Many colonists fol- 
lowed, however, and the best parts of the west 
side of the peninsula were soon settled. In the 
year 1000, Leip, son of Eric, made a voyage 
to Norway, where he embraced Christianity, 
anil returned to Greenland accompanied by a 
number of priesi,«. The new religion made 
rapid inroads upon paganism. Eric and Thor- 
iiiLD, his wife, were converted — Eric, appa- 
rently, much against his inclinations — ^aiil 
TuoRHlLD built a church, known far and wide 
by her name. Other churches were built, and 
their ruins remain to this day. In 1112, Eric 
GxDPSON, of Iceland, was sent to Greenland 
as bishop of that flourishing colony. He was 
followed during the ne.xt three hundred years by 
seventeen bishops successively, the last of whom 
was consecrated in Norway, in 1408, and was 
never heard of after going away. 

At last, probably before COLU.MBUS was born, 
the colony in (Jreenland perished. To the 
present day numerous monuments and ruins 
attest its existence and prosperity. The ruins 
of the Cathedral of Gardar are fifty-one feet 
long and twenty-five wide, and its stone walls 
are four feet thick. The following Knuic de- 
scription found on a stone is one of the most 
interesting relics of the early pioneers: " Eb- 
LING SiGHBATSON and BlORN ThoRDARSON 
and ElNDBlD Oddson, on Saturday before 
Ascension week, raised the.se marks and cleared 
ground, 1135." Thus, after an occupation of 
Greenland for more than three hundred year.s, 
the American colony of Swedes became utterly 
extinct. 

OtUer Discoveries Soulhwcu'd. — During the life 
of the Greenland colony, explorations and set- 



AMEKICA liEFORE COLUMBUS. 



809 



flements had been made at diffeienl points 
along the coast of jSToi-th America in the tem- 
perate zone. The record of tliese voyages and 
discoveries still exists in the original manu- 
script — the Norland Sages, written more than 
a century before the age of Columbus. 

Greenland seems, naturally enough, to have 
been the starting-point of the brave voyagers 
who so early e.xplored the coast of what is now 
the United ^tates ; and the leaders in every 
e.xiieditiori were the descendants of Eric, the 
Ked, or comrades who had caught their daunt- 
less spirit. 

In the ancient manuscripts referred to, begun 
in 1100, and finished in 1400, are narratives of 
eight f oyages to the main laild of North Amer- 
ica—the first, that of BtAKNE Hebiulfson in 
986, and the last, that of Adalbrand in 1225. 
Tliere are given two versions of the voyage 
of BlARNE, which concur in representing that 
he was sailing for Greenland to join his father 
in 986, when he was driven away southward 
by a storm; he sailed many days enveloped in 
a fog, ajid knew not whither he was going, for 
lie could not distinguish the quarters of the 
sky ; at last he made land "covered with wood 
and small hills inland." He kept off, and 
sailed other days and saw land again " flat and 
covered with trees," but no snow moimtauis 
like those he was in search of. Finally, the 
sky cleared, he turned his prow, discovered a 
snowy land, which, however, was not Green- 
land, and, after a tedious voyage northward, 
made Greenland, and found his liither with 
Eric. None of the party had left the ship. 

Fourteen years later, in the year 1000, Leip, 
son of Eric, who, as a youth, had brought the 
priests to Greeidaiid, sailed southward to find 
the land which Biakne saw. He sailed in 
Biakne's vessel, which he had bought, and 
manned with tliirty-five men. They first came 
to the land which Biarne had last discovered, 
and Leik, saying that the people at home 
should not taunt him, as they had his prede- 
cessor, in finding a land but not venturing to 
put his foot on it, went upon the snowy and 
barren shore, and called it Helluland. This is 
now known as Labrador. He [iroeeeded, and 
next came upon aflat country, with a low, level 
appearance, which he named Markland, sup- 
posed to be Nova Scotia. Again he pressed 
on, and in two days, with a fair wind, saw land 
again, and it being warm and attractive, the 
party went ashore to wait for a favorable return 
wind. They anchored in a lake, took their 



beds ashore, and set up their tents. Here they 
found salmon and game; also, to their great 
delight, grapes. The next Spring they built 
houses; but during the year they loaded the 
ship with fodder and timber, and returned to 
Greenland. The new land was named Vinland, 
and is supposed to have been the eastern shore 
of Cape Cod. 

The next year, 1002, Thoevald, another 
son of Eric (who died this year), took the 
vessel of Leif and went to Vinland, where he 
and his crew dwelt in the huts already built, 
and lived by fisliing. They remained two 
years, when the)' proceeded northward around 
the cape, and after some mishaps, moored the 
vessel at a woody point of land across the bay, 
now regarded as Point Alderton, below Boston 
harbor. Thorvald exclaimed: "Here it is 
beautiful; here will I set up my abode." At 
a little distance they saw three inverted skirl 
boats with three sleeping savages under each, 
and immediately begun their intercourse with 
the people on whose land they were trespassers, 
by falling upon them with axes and killing all 
but one, who escaped. The same day a retal- 
iating band of Indians caught them asleep in 
turn and assailed them with bow and arrow — 
one of the missiles entering Thorvald's side 
and causing his speedy death. They buried 
him on the spot he had selected for his abode, 
and returned to Greenland with vines and 
grapes. ThorV-\.ld does not seem to have 
added greatly to previous discuveries; but he 
had inaugurated the Indian policy of America, 
and his original method of making overtures 
with a battle-axe has since been generally fol- 
lowed. He lived eight hundred years too soon, 
however; what an Indian Agent he would have 
made for the Great Republic in these days! 

In 1005, Thorstein, still another son of 
Eric, started for Vinland with a stout ves.sel 
and an able crew, to recover his brother's body ; 
but " they drove about the ocean all Summer 
without knowing where they were," and finally 
landed again in Greenland, remote from Erics- 
fioril, where Thorstein died. 

But the most remarkable of these expeditions 
was made by Thorfisn Karlsefke, an Ice- 
lander of distinguished ancestry. In 1006 he 
went to Greenland, wliere he married Gudrid, 
widow of Thorstein. Accompanied by his 
wife, who urged him to the undertaking, he 
sailed to Vinland in the Spring of 1007, with 
three vessels and one hundred and sixty men. 
They explored the coasts of Massachusetts, 



810 



THE CREAM OF FACTS: 



Eliode Island, and probably Connecticut, witli 
tlie islands ofi' shore. On Mount Hope Bay 
they built a little yillage and stockaded it. 
They I'liund grnpe.'?, corn, salmon, halibut, and 
cider ducks in abundance. "There were beasts 
on the land, eggs in the island, and iish in the 
sea." In the company were two Scots, who 
were slaves, presented by the king of Norway — 
the iirst slaves in New England. Kaklsepne 
and his comrades explored a bay, probably 
Narragansett, fished, hunted, and prepared their 
little settlement for defence. Tlioy traded with 
the Indians and got the best of it; and, not 
being satislied with that, fought with them and 
got the worst of it. Moreover, the little com- 
munity had other troubles, not peculiar to 
ancient days, for the record says : "At this time 
they had much contention among themselves, 
and the unmarried women vexed the married." 
So Kaklsefne, seeing the savages belligerent 
and aggressive, and the women turbulent, con- 
cluded that it was inexpedient to tarry longer, 
and returned to Greenland in 1010, having 
spent three years in New England. 

The same Summer that Kaklsefne and liis 
comrades returned to Gi'eenland, Fkeydis, a 
daughter of Ekic and a sister of the enter- 
[)rising bi'others who had discovered Vinland, 
led another expedition with two ships to the 
houses that Leif had built. She had previ- 
ously accompanied one of her brothers on the 
voyage. She had inherited her father's blood- 
thirsty spirit, and had learned her brother's 
Indian pulley; and the company had not long 
been at Vinland when Freydis, with her hus- 
band and a few followers, fell upon her chief 
captains and their crews while they slept and 
slew them all, Feeydis killing five women with 
her own hand. She remained a year in Vin- 
land, and returned to Greenland in 1011 with 
her own ship and the ship that had belonged to 
the captains, laden heavily with timber and furs. 
She seems to have been a mere pirate. 

There are, in the Norland manuscripts, a few 
scraps of history which speak of a voyage of a 
Bishop Eric to Vinland, in 1121, but there is 
nothing farther in regard to any persistent set- 
tlement there. Allusion is also made to the 
re-discovery of Little Helluland (Newfound- 
land) in 12S5, and of a voyage in 1.347 to 
Markland (Nova Scotia), whither the North- 
men came to cut timber. 

A number of minor narratives likewise 
exist. The first refers to a visit of Are Mab- 
SON in 983, to a country far to the southwest of 



Ireland, called Great Ireland or Hvitramanna- 
land (whiteman's land), where he was driven 
by a storm. De Costa, in his pre-Columbian 
di.scovery of America, thinks this land was 
perhaps the Azores; but Professor R.\FN in his 
work on American Antiquities, and Smith, in 
bis Dialogues, agree in thinking that it was 
Florida or the Isthmus of Darien. BlOEN 
Asbrandson is supposed to have gone to the 
same place in 999, and GuDLiEF in 1027. 

It can not be doubted that America was dis- 
covered by the Norlhmcn five hundred years 
before Coi-umbus sailed from Palos. Such a 
mass of concurrent testimony as the ancient 
Norland manuscriiits present can not be im- 
peached. The old stone mill at Newport, 
Rhode Island, has been supposed by Professor 
Rafn and other scholars to be the ruins of a 
place of Vinland worship, but it seems to be 
too modern ; and, althou'gb its origin is un- 
known, the hypothesis of Professor Rafn can 
hardly be sustained. Dighton Rock, covered 
with chiseled inscriptions, near Taunton, Mas- 
sachusetts, is far likelier to be a monument of 
Kaulsefne's picture-writing. But without 
any remains or ruins the manuscript prcjof is 
ample. 

Subsequently to the discovery of .\nierica by 
the Northmen, and prior to the voyage of 
Coi.TJMBUS, our shores were probably visited, 
either intentionally or accidentally, by other 
Europeans 

In the year 1170, Prince Madoc, of Wales, 
leaving his brothers to quarrel over the heritage 
of the 'principality, is said to have fitted out a 
small fleet and "sought advenliires by sea, 
sailing wes(, and leaving the coast of Ireland so 
far north that he came to a land unknown, 
where he saw many strange things." Mauoc is 
supposed, by those who credit the .story of the 
voyage, to have reached f^lorida or Virginia. 
He was so delighted with the country, as com- 
pared with the barrenness of Wales, that he 
returned home and "prepared a number of 
ships (ten sails), and got with him such men 
and women (300) as were desirous to live in 
quietness ; and, taking leave of his friends, took 
bis journey thitherward again." AVe quote 
Hakluyt, who wrote in 1580. This is the 
last that was ever heard of Madoc's party. 
Palfrey, in his history of New England, says : 
"The story is not without important corrobora- 
tion, furnished by recent okservations of trav- 
elers among Indian tribes." 

Some late writers have adduced the circum- 



AMERICA BEFORE COLUMBUS. 



811 



stance ihat a language resembling the Welsh 
was spoken by a tribe of Indians in North 
Carolina, and that it is still used by a nation 
beyond the Mississippi. We have the story 
of Kev. Morgan Jones, that the Tuscaroras 
understood his preaching in "the British 
tongue" about 16C0; and the statement of 
'■one Oliveu Humphreys" respecting na- 
tives somewhere near Florida who spoke Welsh 
and had Welstofealures and complexion. Ben- 
J.VMIN SnrroN, a captive in 17G6, stated that 
lie had been with the Choctaws to an Indian 
town, a considerable distance from New Orleans, 
whose inhabitants were of lighter complexion 
tlian tlie other Indians, and who spoke Welsh, 
and that they had a book among them wrapt in 
skins but could not read it; and that some of 
them spoke Welsli with one Lewis, a captive 
Welshman. 

The remarkable account given by Captain 
Isaac Stuart, in 17S2, is substantially as fol- 
lows: Eighteen years belbre he was taken pris- 
oner by the Indians and carried to the Wabash. 
After two years of bondage, he and a Welsh 
fellow-captive named John David, were re- 
deemed by a Spaniard, and accompanying him 
to the Eed River, they traveled up that river 
seven hundred miles, when they came to a 
nation of Indians "remarkably white, with 
hair of reddish color." The day after their 
arrival, the Welshman, David, declared his 
intention of remaining with tliat people, as he 
undci'slood their language. Stuart's curiosity 
lieing excited he questioned the chiefs, and 
learned from them that their forefathers came 
from a foreign country and landed beyond the 
Jllssisslppi, tlie chiefs describing particularly 
the country of Florida. In proof of their story 
they exhibited rolls of parchment carefully tied 
up in otter's skins, on which were large charac- 
ters written in blue ink, which the Welshman, 
being Ignorant of letters, was unable to read. 

The following is given in Filson's Kentucky, 
published before Captain Stuart's narrative: 
"Of late years the Western settlers have re- 
ceived frequent accounts of a nation, inhabiliug 
at a great distance up the Missouri, in manners 
and appearance resembling the other Indians, 
but speaking Welsh, and retaining some cere- 
monies of the Christian worship; and at length 
this Is universally believed to be a feet. 

"Captain Abraham Chaplain, of Ken- 
tucky, a gentlemen whose veracity may be en- 
tirely depended upon, assured the author that 
in the late war, being with his company in gar- 



rison at Kaskaskia, some Indians came there, 
and speaking the Welsh dialect, were perfectly 
understood, and conversed with two Welshmen 
in his company." 

Charlevoix says, that in 1721, some Indians 
whom he calls the Aiouaz (probably the lowas), 
informed him "that the Omans, three days' 
journey from them, had white skins and fair 
hair, especially the women."* Carver also 
heard of a nation, about the heads of the Mis- 
souri, " ratlier smaller and whiter than the 
neighboring tribes." This testimony — and 
much more to the same purport might be ad- 
duced — agrees with Mr. Catlin's account of 
the Mandans — a people whom Schoolcraft 
describes as having "blue and light brown 
ej'es," and "much fairer than the surrounding 
tribes." 

Some of M.4.D0c's jieople may also have 
found their way to Mexico, for in their ancient 
history the Aztecs claim to have arrived in 
1178, eight years after Madoc is said to have 
left Wales. 

But none of these discoveries, from Eric to 
Madoc, left any permanent impress on the con- 
tinent, unless indeed, Madoc was the royal 
predecessor of Montezuma. None of them 
formed a direct coimecting link between the 
America of the red man, and the America of 
the white man. The voyagers had ambition, 
sagacity, enterprise, heroic courage, but the 
thick darkness of the middle ages j-et enveloped 
Europe, and the old \forld was not ripe for 
the appropriation of the new. 

The well-attested discovery of America by 
the Northmen, detracts in no wise from the 
fame of Columbus, even when it is understood 
that he visited Iceland in 1477, and possibly 
heard there of the bold excursions and settle- 
ments far in the West, beyond tlie Ultima 
'Thute. For it was still virtually an Unknown 
Land, and the Vinland colony had become ex- 
tinct, when the illustrious Genoese, executing 
his well-matured scheme of opening the eastern 
portals of the gorgeous Indies, brought to this 
virgin continent the religion of his .sovereign 
and the enlightenment of his rare. 

The rest of our story is known. We need 
not recapitulate the narratives of the bold voy- 
agers who succeeded Columbus, or of the brave 
pioneers who succeeded them ; of, the planting 
and settlement of the colonies in tl»e .face of 
every hardship and peril ; of the achievement of 
independence, under the matchless leadership 
of George Washington along the Atlantic 



812 



THE CREAM OF FACTS. 



border, and of George Eogers Clakk in 
the ccntr;il valleys; of the territorial expan- 
sion to five times the original domain, and the 
increase of population from three millions in 
1776, to fifty millions in 1876. These marvels 
are familiar. And we need not attempt to 
forecast the day when the j'oung Republic shall 
have reached maturity; when, from ocean to 
ocean, its fields, under the touch of a better 
husbandry will carry a population as dense as 



Holland; when, made wholly peaceful by an 
enlightened economy, made truly free by a 
growing self-respect, made systematically right- 
eous by a quickened conscience, and wise by a 
fearless investigation, made charitable by the 
contact of many religions, and strong by a 
mingling of the blood of all the world, we 
may, without conceit, extend our hand to the 
oppressed, and without arrogance show our 
sister nations TuE Better Way. 



NDEX OF 



T 



OPICS 



Aches OP land usdeb cultivation, 26. 
^EoLiAN HARP, liow to nuike, 792. 
Agrhti.ti-rk, first fniin in, 14: 



risin and 



Ague and fever, 739. 

Ague in the face, 715, 748 

Air, chemical coniiin?ition of, 14; surrounding 
the pnrth, 7":'. 7n3; respirafion of. 70J-7O1 ; hot, unwhole- 
Him';ii-'-s o\ 7ni ; iiiipuritii-s of, 7(M ; rules for breathing 

Alcoholic stimulants, 701, 712, 734. 

Alcohol, substitution of wine for, 283. 

America, discovered before Columbus, 808. 

Ammonia as a fertilizer, 15, 39. 

Amusements, 714, 791-797. 

An.vgrams, 793. 

AncxELica, 18G. 

Animalculje, 790. 

Animals, in tlie world, number of, 788; maxi- 

imiin iigo of, 7S'.t; lowest orders of, 769, 790. 

Anise-seed, raising of, 186. 
Ants, protection from, 318, .596; as slave- 
holders, 7;)i. 
Aphis, protection from, 310, 311. 
Appetites and passions, indulgence of, 701. 
Apple borer, and apple worm, 307: canning 

and prvsrviiiL'. id I ; jniis J'lli.s. iiiurMi;ihldes, and 

Apples, In-,.. !■> .... L'i7;' i .• i ii -i :'ihir-s of, 219; 



Apricot, origin and culture of, 217, 250. 

Army -n-ORM, 308, 318. 

Aquariums, 582, 600. 

Architecture op the homestead, 480; 

dillen-nt stylos of, 4S1. 

Artichoke, culture and cooking of, 177, 671. 
Ashes as a fertilizer, 16, 18, 39, 78. 
Asparagus, culture and cooking of, 176, 178, 

Asthma, 715. 

AtmosI-here, surrounding the earth, 702, 703 — 

Aurora boreahs, 781. 

Ax-helves, how to toughen, 527. 

Axes, how to sh.irpen, 529 ; how to hang, 551. 

Bacon, curing, 624. 
Bags, directions I'oi- marking, 551. 
Baldnes-S, 592, 715. 

Balloon frames, how to construct, 485. 
Balm, 186. 

Bankok, a citv on a raft, 799. 
Barley, chemical analysis of, 63, 66; weight 
per UubUcl by States, 6.3; rapid inereiise in product, liS. 



th and West, comp.ared, 
proper loeatien and size of, 
..f. 495: to estimate the ca- 



1 for, 505; of Pennsylva- 



BAK(i^ii:Ti:K, 7^-). 

Bathing, nece.s.sity of frequent, 592, 701, 702; 

ilirections for, 702. 

Be.ans, culture of as a field crop, 66, 67 ; garden 
culture of, 176, 179; pickled. fil9; methods of cooking, 671. 
Bed-bugs, defense against, 596. 
Beds, materials for filling, 578 ; feather, how 

to wash, 590. 

Beef cattle, improvement in, 350; how to 

cut and pack. ■'i't9, 6"il; to keep fresh, (.24; to re.^tore 

when tainted. 61'>; various mod's of cookin3, 661-66.'.. 

Beer, ginger, lemon, corn, 606 ; molasses, root, 

Bees, description and care of, 444; three cla.sses 

of, in every hiv.', <4.i : fertilife of the qiiren, Hfi ; pro- 



Beet.s, as a licld erup, ciiluirc of, 0,, (18; gar- 
de. i eultnreof, 176, l.MI-see ie.jur. 

Benne plant, 186. 

Beverages, 604, 676-679. 

Bible, statistics of the, 805; history of the. 

Bilious complaints, 716. 
Bird c.\ges, to protect from vermin, 631. 
Biscuit and buns, how to make, 648, 649. 
Blackberries, culture and varieties of, 299; 

will.' from, 60.-.. 

Blackberry jam, 610. 

Blacking, and shoe dressing, 604. 

Black vomit, 741. 

Bleeding, to check, 716. • 

Blistering from lye, 716. 

Blood, impurities of, 702. 

Blood-ves.sels, number of, 702. 

Bloody flux, 735. 

Bodily' carriage, 705. 

Boils. 716. 

Bones as a fertilizer, 39. 

Book farming, 23, 5-54, 556. 

Boots and shoes, care of, 604. 

Borax for cleansing, 584, .594. 

Bowel complaints, ripe fruit good for, 219; 

remedies lor, 71'9, 731— 'iee JUm-rhi^a ami Dj/nemtyi/, 

Brain, conge.'^tion of, 730. 
Br-AIn-work, proper conditions for, 713. 

m-3-) 



81-4 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



Bkead, methods of making, 641 ; wheat, &ra- 

li:iui, corn, iUid rye, 6ll-r.4S; sw.-i-t potnto iiml puiiifkiu, 
Ml. m:,; to IVcBhra stale, iU5; uiiferiiie„t.-.l. r.K,. __ 
BuEAXaiXG NIGHT AIR, liealthful, iUo, (04. 

Broccoli, culture of, 17G, 181. 

Bronchitis, 717. 

Broom corn, culture and yield of, 68, 69. 

Brushes, cnre of, 601. 

Brussels sprouts, culture of, 176, 181. 

Buckwheat, culture of, for food, 69; as a 

tii-.-.ii lujuiiir.-, IS. 70; cikes, t^. 

Bulbous flowers, 205. 

Bulls, scrub, \vorthles.sness of, 351; necessity 

lit purl! bl.io.led, .154; a tax on BUg-'ested. 3o.i. 

Burns and burnniq, remedies for, 717. 
Bushel, pounds for, in difl'ereut States, 564. 
Bushes, best season to cut, 568. 
Butchering, 569. 
Butter, total ]irnduct of the country, 464 ; 

HdVillit.i- "' tli W,-t IM', Ifi--: -viir^^ to LO.il milk 



Chajrades, directions for, 792. 
Charcoal, as fuel, 347. 
Cheerkuln-i-.ss, ussfiitial to health, 701. 

Clll.i-i:, nr.ul,,,., ,,i li„. r,.,n,l,y, -it;:;. 464 



^ 



etlloli^ ■■ 

Cherries 



1 keep ill good i 



, 1)26 ; 



ftolT, 171, ts ; I.„i salt, h..« t" lr.-sh.„, 471 ; haw to make 
yellow, 474 ; tubs lor packing, 474 ; cleanliness mdjspen- 
salile 474; to Uurden iu Summer, 027 i to keep sweet tor 
years', 627. 

Cabbage, for food, value of, 70; varieties and 

eultnr.' 71, 17'''. Isl, I'd ; protection from insects, 71, 31S; 

k. . 1111- iu Wiiiler, 71 : rooking, {'.72 ; jiickling, i.lS. 

(;ak!;<, liaiur— -ii<Ulle, Iritters, watiles, etc., 
( ALII oKNiA, l.arluv crop of, 66; semi-tropical 
( M,-, I ~. ic r.liiv,; and management of, 369. 



CA.N'ALS, Mi.'). 

Canary birds, seeds for, 631; to protect from 

Cancer, 718. 

Candles, how to make, 603. 

Candy, molasses and sugar, 609. 

Cane — sec Stir/ar, 

Canker, 718. 

CANKER Worm, 308. 

Canning Fruit, process of, 612. 

CARAWAY, 186. 

Caudoon, culture of, 182. 

Carpets, suggestions concerning, 576 ; wash- 

iu:; anil cleansing, 67S, 567. ^ 

Carrots, varieties and culture of, 72, 176, 181 ; 

as food lorhoises, 3!W. 

Carving, the art of, illustrated, 694. 
C.4.ST0R Bean, culture of, 72. 
Catarrh, 718. 

CATERPILLAR, 308, 311, 319. 

CATSUP, tomato, walnut, oysters, etc., 609. 
CATTLE, iiuroduct.ion ot to America, 348; dif- 

r,.,-,.„t I,,,.,, I- ,,f :,-.: Ilmlni.,. d..~cri|.t mn ..(. ii'.i.; 1' 



I Jniture of, 217, 250 ; in-/«^'» 
Cherry jams and preserves, 611, 614; ■ 

sweet pickled, r.l9, 

Chicken, methods of cooking, 668 ; direetioiw 

lor carving, tiyii— see FoivU, . c ^ p- i 

Chiccory, varieties and culture ot, 86, 6/9. 
Chilblains, 742. '"v 

Children, cooking for, 691 ; benefited by sun- -jr 

of, 714; convulsions of, 7a); to relieve 
,i.\,s|iepMa. ,„T,. ^ 

Chimneys, con.struction and management ol,- 

4sj; to e.\linaniali fires in. CIO. 

Chloroform, antidote for, 729. 
Chlorosis, or green sickness, 730. 
Chocolate, 680. 
Cholera, precautions, symptoms, and treat 

ment of, 725-729. 

Cholera morbus, 734. 
Chow-chow, 018. 

C'HROMO-LrrnOGBAPHY', 582. 

Chufa, culture of, 184. 

Churns, preferred kinds, 470, 550. 

Cider, apple and cherry, 607; best without 

straw, «)S; cliani|iagne, bow to make, 60S; bow to keej 
sweet, I.U.S; portable press lor, 54'J. 
Cisterns, plans of, illustrated, 510; how to 
e.*tiiiiaie ciipaeitv uf, 510 ; protection of from frost. 51 1 ; 

bow to cleanse, 513. 

Citron, culture of, 184; how to preserve, 61a. 

Cive or chive, 184. 

Cleansind, bora.-c for, 584, 594; kid gloves, 

• • • --• '•- -i.:,-h featberi, 

i, 5110 ; hair 
paint, 5<.>S; 
i, 5113 ; sil- 



i.ill) ; saddle 



513, 



Cl 



1 of trees on, 325; indicated by 



rs2. 



for, bow to Obt: 
-iloes it pay ! 3sil, -I 
.-0 L'rfiliuij ; cruell 



Cauliflower, culture of, 176, 182; pickling, 

liis; coking, r.72. 
Celery, culture of, 176, 183. 
Ce.ment, fur crockery, roofs, etc., 600. 
Cental system, of weights and measures, 563. 
CuAPPED HANUS, cure for, 594. 



Clotuinu, sugoestions for, 605, 708, 714. 
Clover as a fertilizer, value of, 19, 42, 43, ' 

7i; bow niucli sued per acre, 3:); red, clieniical analysis 
of. Kl: cul'ivation of, HI. «:!, 117; rotation witn wbeat, 
155-157. 

Coal, how to burn, 346; rules for measuring, 

Cockroaches, expulsion of, 597. ^ 
Coffee and tea, how to make, 676, 679. 
Colds, how to avoid, 704; treatment of, 701, 

Colic,'' remedies for, 186, 187, 188, 189, 729, 

734,712. 

Cologne water, how to make, ouo. 

I OLTS, methods lor breaking, 397. 

Compost heap, 17, 40, 41. 

1 'omstock's spader, 2.J. 

Congestion of lungs, 723; of brain, 730. 

('ongestive fever, 740. 

Consumption, causes and treatment of, 706, 

7ly-725. 

Convulsions, 730. 

Cooking, chapter on, 633-698 ; hard and soft 

, water for, liiis ; errors in. l.3a ; rbynies on, CTJ ; meat, i.3li ; 
' vegetald.B, Wl ; for tbe nurseiy, lUll. 

Co-operation among farmers, 22. 

Coriander, 186. 

Corn, hi-i.-iy aiM N-iriotio? nf, 73; f.-I. rnnii of 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



813 



CoKss, WAur,-, A^xii v.ij.x.-i, 730. 
Cosmetics, 5y4, 595, oyO, 719. 

COSTIVENESS, 730. 

CoTTAGK^, se|inrntp fur f:ir?ii l:ilii 

Corn.x. l:i-<..iy ,.i iMir..,liir: i. .n 

i^.;MiNl-,'-;.:^a:,,ii';J,:':..i'p;.|"i.i.t.."...: 



Coughs, remedies for, 186, 187, 719-725. 
Courses, monthly, to regulate, 188, 747. 
Cows, aggregate value of by States, 802; points 



Crackeks, G51, (352. 

Cramp, remedies for, 702, 731. 

Cranberries, culture of, 303, 304. 

Cream, how to keep sweet, 638; clouted, 688 ; 

i,f, l.-mon, and Iwrry, lii^S, 6?9. 

Cress and water cress, 176, 184. 

Crops, li.M, niUuie of, in detail, 62-170; in 

Ilie cuiiii ; ' . I- 1 i - I : nf. ij2; tabic of prici.'S for twelve 
yi'iiis. I ■ .;: I- Ml iriuug to, 317; tree-bt-lts for pro- 
tfi'thiL:, - - ■ I,' .'.->.".,. 

Croup, ri'inciiies lor, 731. 

Crullers, 651, 654. 

Cucumbers, varieties and culture of, 176, 184; 

pri-sfi \ iiiEi'iinil pk-kling. 615, 617. 

C'ULTiv.vTORS, varieties of, described, 531, 537. 

Cumfrey, 186. 

uuRCULio, 309, 311, 315. 

Currants, culture and varieties of, 302; in- 
sects uuil 'liseases of. 310 ; wine from, how to m;ike, 616 ; 
jivin and jelly, 611; canuiiK.' aud preserviug, 612, 615. 

Currency, freaks of, 797. 
Custards, 689. 
Cutworm, 319. 

Dairy, American factory system of, 463 ; Eng- 



Days, names of, origin, 803. 
Deafness, remedies for, 187, 731. 
Death, causes of sudden, 714. 
Debility, 731. 
Delirium tremens, 731. 
Di.oDORizERS, 572, 573. 
Dewberry, culture of, 300. 
Di.vRRiiE.v, remedies for, 734. 
Diet, eHect on health, 706. 
Dill, 186. 
Diptheria, 732. 

DiSE.vSES, causes of, 699; effect of sunshine on, 
761; ell.ct of drees on, 767; treatment of in detail, 715, 
Distemper, horse, 402. 
Dugs and sheep, 416. 
Domestic economy, chapter on, 575. 
Domestic hints, 631. 
Doughnuts, 654, 635. 
Drainage, importance of, 20, 55, 556, 558; in 

Uicat Britain, .55: relative value of different kinds of, 
07; exp'.-neuce of John Johnson, 57. 



Drains, tile, details of con.stniction, 58 ; size 

and lOBt of til" for. m. 60; Imieh aud stone for, 5i. 
Dress, eflect on health, 707. 
Drills, advantages of using, 76, 156, 163 ; and 

plautiua niailiiues Jescrilied. 53s. 

Dropsy, treatment of, 732. 

Drowning, to rescue and restore from, 733. 

Drunkenness, cure for, 734. 

Ducks, rearing of, 443; methods of cooking. 

Dumbness, cure for, 734. 

Dumplings, 685. 

Dyeing clothing, 590; hair, 593. 

Dy'sentery, treatment of, 734. 

Dyspepsia, treatment of, 188, 735 ; regulatioa 

of diet for, 707. 

Earache, 736. 

Earth, belt of atmosphere around the, 702, 

763; age r.f tlie. 7^0. 
Karth closets, how to make .and manage, 5/o. 
Eccentricities of gre.vt men, 800. 
Euge-tools, directions for sharpeiiing, 529; 

the ansle of. ilhistrateil, 5JSI. 

Egg-nogg, 606. 

Egg-plant, culture of, 176, 185; cooking, 673. 

I-:ci(,< :i.'-ir • iii' i;iiiii!i i- i;il.ii, r;:!; nnnihcra 



k-:,,H 



, 635 ; 



Elderberry wine, 606. 
Elecampane, 186. 
Emetic, 737. 
Endive, 176, 185. 
English agriculture, 22, S6. 
Entomology — see Insects. 
Erysipelas, 737. 

Evergreen^, list of varieties, 211 ; for i>ro- 
r ill, II-. :;i6; propagation of, 341 ; cuitnre fcr 

Km l ! , 1,1 .■^sity of, 701. 

Kxi-] !MMi VI-, agricultural, needed, 27. 

Exports, tables ol, for ihirleen years, 801. 

Eyelashes, to darken the, 595. 

Eyesight, how to retain and restore, 713, 737. 

Eyes, to lake particles from, 738; to reduce 

Face, cosmetics fur the, 594, 595, 596. 
Fainting, 738. 
Fallowing, 42. 

Fai:m AKi'iM I 1 I rri;i:. rl,:i|.l-i' i.n, -INO; fences, 



Fai:mi,i:- ii'i -].- -h'ii i.ii i.i; a ir;: active, 22. 

Farming— set' A/jricuilior. 
• Tarms, proper size of, 25; average size of, by 
States, 26. fill : acres of, by States, sni ; degeneracy of, 
from over-cropping, 26; loes of, 305; stationary power 
for, .546; corn null fur. 517; when to buy. 551; mapping 
anil measuring, .'i5i.i ; statistics of America, SOi. 

Fat, how to clarify, 609. 

Feather beds, injuriouB, 701. 

Feeding cattle, 377; cost of, .387; rack for, 

379 ; brief suggesiions for, .m ; for the d.iir) , 4..6. 

Feeding horses, 395, 396, 397. 

Feet, care of, 734, 738. 

Felons, 738. 

Female weakness, 738. 

Fences, aggregate co.st of, 513; varieties of, 

.516 ; stone, ditch, and wooden, 516 ; rail and board, illirs- 
trated, 517; how to set posts lor, 518; wire, described 
and illustrated, 51S, 519 ; liedges for, .520. 
Fencing, highway and division, law of, 515; 

against stock, 16, 513; present system ol, unjust, 5U ; 
tax and burdeu on the West, 3l\. 



SIG 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



Fennel, ISG. 

Fertilizers, necessary, 17; important eX' 

reriniciits wilU, 37; how deep to Cdver. i<, 06S; different 
kinds lV)i' various soils, 2;), SI : .lilli-ii-nt liinds for v 
ous limits, :i.): diflerent i1:m,i- Imi, , ,hi, ,.f, 3(1: T; 
or nin.k niid l.-nves for, J., mum i .;,,!, fan; 

fwiu.l by, ,%7; waste ,4, i, i f i, . i_. Ifi, 173. .ra; 

ciimpostiiin, 17, 4n, 41. 7v, : : I i , >;. 12,43,75; 

i;r>' n iiiiinii;. 4L': pla-t i . : - i , I ., (7, 7». liiO; 



Fever and ague, 739. 

FEVER>i, ToS. 

Fever sores, 741. 

Field crops, culture of, in detail, 62-170. 

Fius, ciillure of, 251; from tomatoes, 614. 

Filter, .510, oil, 6.30. 

Fires, open, healthful, 704. 

Fish, scarcity of, restoration easv, 4.57; arti- 

licial l.cunilit'ion, 4.i9, 46U; how to keep fresh, 629; 
in-tln,.is of cooking, ia',9. 

Fi.sii CTLTURE, origin of, 457 ; legislative en- 
i-niiiiij. meat of, l.'iS; private ponds for, ^39; hatching 
apparaiiis for, 4.'i9 ; 400; profltii of, 4iil ; experience of 
s--r(i Ci.'cii and others, 461. 

Fistula, 403. 

Flatl-lenc-e, 186, 187, 741. 

Flax, miII lor, and sowing of, 87; time and 

ino.lr "IcMtliiiu, .■'7; Katherinir, «7; threshing and clean- 
ing, 8s: n.ttiiii; process, 88; linseed-oil and cake from 

Flies, defense against, 597. 

Floating island, 089. 

Florida, semi-tropical fruits of, 259. 

Flour, how to select good, 641 ; exports for 

Flowfrim; sinJuTic, 206, 208. 

Fu'v.ti:--; ;niMim,.rit,.nt and care of, 199; list 

"' I-' "I li-nnials and perennials. 2'i3; 

I'-l '■■ "- I ^M.i-. j<i,; clinibina plants and shrubs, 

211,, I., .J, I, i;. ,u, una »i,iul,a and trees, 208 ; list of roses, 
2II1S iii-.-c[.s injurious to, :J17; laws of coloring. 199; for 
the lious.,. -.79, r..<2; Wardian case f..r,679; fertilizers for, 
IHs, i.i^i, .>! ; frozen, to restore, 582 ; cut, how to pre- 



Fon 



MAX, m 



s, 633; kinds for 
■ stibilit.v of, i>34 ; rel- 
i warmth-producing 



valiii.' Ml r....ts for, 390 ; neceosily of salt in, 3yi ; peas and 
squash, 3 lor, 113, 12S. 

Forests — see Woodlands. 

Founder, 403. 

Fowls, ovarium of, 433 ; varieties of, described, 

4Xi: int. r-l.r ling of, 43.-. ; laying in Winter, 437; how 

and «l,:ii lo lr,,,l, 43s, 4.39: how to kill and dres.«, 440; 
1 1 '■ . II I .,, i i,t fattening. 410; inlrusiv,', to get rid 
"' I ' 1,1 U2; brief rules lorcareof, 441. 

Fi:i:i i;m.-, ,V,,|.-,. 

l--RiTn_K>, CO-I. 

Fko.st, sifjns of, 788. 

Frost bites, 742. 

Fruit. iiriL'iii ordiflcrpnl kinds of, 217; utility 



Or.'yiin, i',,M, -,10; growing in tie- .s.'Uth, 213, 244, 2 J9 ; for 
varieties of-see /l/y.te, i'iacl„s. cit: 

Fruits, small, kinds and culture of, 261. 
Fruit trees, wliere to pl;inl, 222: preparation 



Fuel, heating values of, compared, 344-346. 

Fungus growths, 169, 712. 

Furniture, suggestions for selecting, etc., 537, 

578 ; care and renovation of, 598-603. 



Garden, vegetable, importance of, 1/1; plan 
of illustrated, 173; trenching and manuring, 173; hot 
bed for, 174; seeds for. Titality of, 175; seeds, quantity 
for sowing 17.'i; general management of, 177 I9fi; direc- 
tions for watering, 19fi; compost and fertilizers for, 42. 
173, 179. • r . . 

Garden, flower, desirableness of, 197; illustra- 
tion of, 198; planting and care of, 198-seo Flowers. 

Gargle, 188, 72.5, 732. 

Garlic, 187. 

Gates, remedy for sagging 518. 

Gems, Graham, 646. 

Geese, care of, 444; methods of cooking, 

Gestation, periods and conditions of, 351. 

Gingerbread, snaps, etc., 657. 

Glass, methods of cutting, 552; how to tougheu, 

liOO. 

Glanders, 403. 

Glue and paste, 603. 

Goats, value of, 421; Cashmere and Angora, 

423. 

Gold in the world, amount of, 797. 

Gold fish, care of, 631. 

Gooseberries, origin and culture of, 218, 300; 

insects and diseases of, 311); canning and preserving. 

1.12, Id,'.. 

Graham bread and gems, 641, 646. 
Grapes, origin of, 218, 261; product of, in 



Grain, weiglit of per bushel, by Stales, Go. 
Grass, varieties of, 89 ; relative nutriment of, 

S9, v.; llon-ari;in..rMiill,,|,9l; timothy, clover, Lneern, 

9"-': . T - , ,1, \, :,, i ,, , and how much, 93, 94 ; when 

to I II , ' 1 I , iiiiiig, 95; lands, nianiige- 
ini III ' I emetics, 390; fertilizers for, 

GRAVi;i,,'l.:liieai;i,, 'l,,r,'742. 

Gravies for fish and meat, 062. 

Green manuring, 42. 

Griddle cakes, 652. 

Grindstone, seleciion and care of, 529 ; how 

to hold a tool on, .029. 

Guano, analysis and value of, 44. 
Guinea fowls, rearing of, 444. 
Guns, care of, 552. 

Haib, care of the, .592, 715; mixtures, gener- 
ally poisonous. .i93 ; restoratives and dyes for ; 593 ; curl- 
ing nii.xture for, .'■.93; superllous, how to remove, .vjl ; 
brushes, how to cleanse, 591 ; pomatums, oils, and tonics 
for, •i93. 

Hairs op head numbered, 777. 

Hams, modes of curing and keeping, 621-624; 

modes of cooking, !»;. 

Harness, care of, 528, 604. 
Harrows, varieties of, described, 537. 



Hay, 



SO- 



5)7 ; ill linlk, to estimate of, 5bli. 

Hay fever, 740. 

Headache, 742. 

Head cheese, to make, 625. 

Health for the family, chapter on, 699. 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



817 



Health, how trifled with, 699 ; .aws for pre- 

•■TVing, 700; effects of bathing, fresh air. etc., 701-7IJ3; 
i-lfucts of sunshine on, "IW, 70.i ; ettVcIs of diet and dress 
on, 71W. 707; effects of tol.acco on, 701, 711 ; importance 
of ri-crealion to, 7H ; of children, 711. 

Heart disease, 743. 

Heaves, 404. 

IIedges, increasing use of, 520 ; Osage orange 

and honey locust, 520; barberry, 5:i0; thorn, evergi 
and Cherokee rose, 521 ; directions for pi; 



Implemekts farm, of the ancients, 531; farm, 

modern, 24, y5, 524, .t3o ; garden, care of, .'»24 ; a room for, 
housing, illustrated, .'i25 ; of the workliench, 526; econ- 
omy of getting the best, 5L'fi, 531 ; directions for care of, 
.526 ; wooden, how to preserve, .527 ; use of a wrench on, 
.5as; edged, how to sharpen, 529, .t30; farming, list of, 
530; for loading and stacking hay, 544; household, .5.'i2 ; 
to preserve from rust, 527, 52S, 59y— see P/oifa, Iteapvre, 
etc. 

Indigestion, 187. 



cui- j Indigo, culture of, 106. 

.Wl, 522; pruning illustrated, 523; cost "f Ij^p^^jiMATION AND SWELLINGS, 744. 



Height of men, average, 777. 

Hemorrhage, 716. 

Hemp, liistory, value of crop, 98 ; production 

of seed, and planting, OT; harvesting of, W: dew and 
water-nitling, 100; breaking and dressing, lul ; proflta- 
bleness of, 101 ; new variety in Nevada, 101. 

HENS^see Fowls. 

Herbs, flavoring and medicinal, 185 ; to pre- 
serve, 1S9. 
Hides, how to strip ofl", 571; curing and tan- 

Hip injury, 743. 

History, curious facts of, 804, 805; of the 

Bible, S06; of early American discovery, SOi. 
HOABHOUND, 187. 

Hogs, history and habits of, 423 ; in Cincinnati, 

weight for seven years, 424 ; in Cincinnati, great weight 
of. 425; different breeds of, 425; hints lor management 
of, 425 ; how much will corn fatten, 426 ; experiments in 
(■ooking for, 427; brief hints in feeding, 42y; why sows 
destroy their young, 43iJ ; to prevent Irom rooting, 430; 
diseases of. 430; plan of pen for, 506; butcliering, 56'j ; 
how to cut up for packing, 56y; aggregate value by 
Slates, S02 ; to estimate live weight of, 349. 

Hominy, cooking, 673. 

Honey, to separate from comb, etc., 629 ; arti- 
ficial. 629— see Bees. 

Hooping cough, remedies for, 186, 187, 761. 

Hops, prices for twenty years, 102; soil and 
location of yard, 102 ; planting of roots, 102 ; poling and 
cultivation, 103; picking and drying, lo3, 104; grubbing 
the roots, 105; manure lor, 106; profits of, 106. 

Horses, variety of, 392 ; introduction into 
America, 348; number of. in the country, 349; to ascer- 
tain age of, 394 ; rules for feeding, 395 ; cutting and crush- 
ing feed for, 396; advantages of steaming feed, 3;>2; when 
to cut grass for, 94 ; feeding grain to, lOS ; value of Lu- 
ceru for, 92 ; dally rations and care of Deiter, 396 ; sta- 
bles, managers and troughs for, 397; breaking when 
young, 397 ; Karey, method of taming, 398 ; wiM, pro- 
cess of taming, 399; torestrain while shoeing, 399; blind 



uggestii 
400; balky, how to start, 401 ; disease 
nfluence ot sire and dan 



for 



1 of, fully treated, 
401 ; relative influence of sire and dam, 353. 

Horse forks, ditferent kinds, described, 543. 
Horse power for the farm, 545, 546 ; defi- 
nition and measurement of, 562. 

Horseradish, 187. 

Horse rakes, and tedders, 542. 

Houses, more attractive desired, 480; various 

styles of architecture, 4.'-l ; site and surroundings of 
481; design, roofing, color, etc., 482, 600; size and ar 
rangement of rooms, 4s3, 573 ; chimneys, coiistructio 
and management. 483; cellars, how to make, 484; bal- 
loon frames, excellence of, 4i^5 ; brick and alone for, 486, 
487; separate for farm laborers, 467; brief hints in build- 
ing, 488 ; designs for, illustrated, 488-491 ; modes of ven- 
tilating, 491 ; necessity of light in, 483, 575 ; open fires in, 
healthful, 704 ; aggregate value of, by States, 802, 

Household implements and utensils, 552, 

598; ornaments, flowers, etc., 578, 582; pests, defense 

against. 596. 
Hot-beds, plan of, 174. 
Hunger, inordinate, 743. 
Hydrophobia, 743, 753. 
Hydrothorax, 744. 
Hyssop, 187. 

Ice, in a red-hot crucible, 794; artificial, 630; 

an effective pitcher for, 608 ; a substitute for, 630. 

Ice-cream, 688. 

Ice-houses, plans for, illustrated, 509; cutting 

Imphee, for sugar, 142-147. 



Inks, directions for making, 603 ; to remove 

Inoculation, 757, 771. 

Insanity, test of, 745. 

Insects injurious to vegetation, 305 ; nat- 
ural enemies of, 305; destructive of the apple. 306; de- 
structive of the cherry and currant, .'ilo; deslrnctive of 
the gooseberry, 310; destructive of the grape, 311; de- 
structive of the peach, 3t3; destructive of the pear and 
plum, 314, 315; injurious to garden and field crops, 317. 

Interest table, 803. 

Inventions, modern, 530. 

Irrigation, impoiiance of, 18, 556; history 

and priiiciplesof, 6n; method of, 61. 

Itch, remedies for, 745. 

Jams, apple and blackberry, 610; cherry, cur- 

.rant, and gouseberiy, 611. 

Jars for canning fruit, 612. 

Jaundice, 745. 

Jellies, apple, 610; currant, cranberry, ber- 
ries, grape, lemon, and orange, 611; calves and pig's 
feet, 611. 

Johnny' cake, 648. 

Jute, uses and culture of, 106. 

Kerosene, for cleansing, 587, 589 ; to expel 

insects, 596; to burn economically, 603. 

Kidney diseases, remedies for, 187, 188, 189, 

795. 

Knives, table, scouring, 600. 
Khol rabbi, culture of, 189, 391. 

Lady's age, how to learn, 793. 

Lambs, care of, 4U2, 413. 

Land, area of, by States, 801 ; measuring and 

mapping, 559. 

Languages, number of, spoken, 778. 
Language, English, origin of, 778; number 

of words in, 779. 

Lard, trying out and keeping, 625. 
Laundry, suggestions for the, 583; wire clothes 

lines for, 584— see Wa^thing^ Gteanshig, S<'tip, etc. 

Lawn, plats, and care of, 213 ; trees and shrubs 

for, 214; directions for seeding, 215; decorations for, 
215. 

Leek, 187. 

Lemons and limes, 260. 

Lettuce, 176, 190. 

Lice, bark and plant, 307, 308, 310, 314, 320— 

see C<i((/e, Foii(s, ele. 

Life, length of, increasing , 774. 

Light in houses, healthlulness of, 575 ; in 

stables, necessity for, 397. 

Lightning, statistics concerning, 799 ; hints on 

protection and restoration, 746. 

Lime, sources and uses of, 15, 18, 78, 160, 175. 

Liniments, 746. 

Linseed oil and cake, 88. 

Liquid manure, cistern and sprinkler for, 45. 

Live stock, aggregate value of, 349 — see Caltle, 

Harm, elc. 

Liver complaint, 747. 

Lobsters, potted, 618. 

Lock-jaw, 747. 

Longevity, instances of, 710; comparative in 

different occupations, 775. 



52 



818 



INDEX OF TOPICS 



Looking glasses, to repair and cleanse, 598. 
Lungs, expanding tlie, 703; amount of oxygen 

used by tbu, 7U3. 

Macaroni, cooking, 673. 

Madder, culture of, 107. 

Magnetic telegraph, invention of, 768. 

Maine, barley crop of, 66. 

Mangel wurzel, culture and yield of, 67,68; 

manure, experiments with, U ; for feeding, :!«!. 

Manure cellars, 40. 

Manures — see Fertilizers. 

Maple sugar — see Sugar. 

Marigold, IS7. 

Marmalades, apple, rhubarb, etc., 610, 611. 

Marriage, table of chances for, 778. 

Matches, invention of, 770. 

McCormick's reaper, 100. 

Measles, remedies for, 187, 747. 

Measures and weights, importance to the 

tanners, ;"«">:; ; uniformity dfsiral'le, 563. 

Measures, capacity of, various, 564; for the 

liitclien, laa. 

Measuring coal, rules for. 565 ; corn in crib, 

rules for, X,; wlu-iit in hulk, X'. 

Measuring and mapping farms, 559. 
Meat, to keep fresh, 624; to restore when 

tainted, fi^-l; new proccs-* of preserving, Mn; selecting 
and roasting, 661; how to make tender, 661; cooking, 
633. 6t;W. 

Medicines, table of doses, 715. 
Medicinal herbs, 185. 
Melons, culture of, 176, 190. 
Menses, to regulate the, 188, 747. 
Miasms, 336, 712. 
Mice and rats, antidotes for, 598. 
Mice, gnawing Iruit trees, 309. 
Midge, 310 
Mildew, 310, 312. 

Milk, chemical qualities of, 466; methods of 
cooling, i'u ; spring-houses for, 467, 41.6, 471 ; how to 

Milking machines, 549. 
Milk mirror, 362. 
Millet, culture of, 91. 

Molasses and sugar, how to clarify, 616, 629. 
Months, names, origin of, 804. 
Moon, influence of, 783. 
Moths, protection against, .597. 
Mourning APPAREL, comments on use of, 592. 
Mowing machines, history of, 539, 540; dif- 
ferent kintis, describe.i, .mo. 
Muck, value of, as a fertilizer, 46. 
Muffins and short cake, 660. 
Mulberries, 301. 

Mules, physiological character of, 354, 406. 
Musketoes, defense against, 597. 
Mustard, culture of, 107, 108. 
Mutton, cheapest and best meat for farmers, 

407 : difterent breeds of sheep for, 4U7 ; how to cut up, 56y ; 
I modes of cooking. 665. 



Xails, iron, to toughen, 528, 552 ; finger and 

toe, care of, .W), 74.^. 

Names of days and months, origin of, 803, 

.so). 
Nasturtium, 188. 
Natural history, wonders of, 788. 
Nectarine, 251. 
Needle, how to extract, 748. 
Nervousness, remedies for, 186, 744. 
Neuralgia, remedies for, 715, 748. 
Night air, healthful, 703, 704. 
Night soils, 42, 46, 173. 
Night sweats, 748. 



Nose bleed, 716. 

Nursery, cooking for the, 691. 

Nut, how to loosen, 528, 

Oats, weight per bu.shel, by Stales, 63; as a 

field crop, las ; preparation of soil for, lOS ; selection of 
seed for, IDS; sowing and harvesting, loy; varieties, the 
Norway, etc., 109, Ho ; diseases of, 320. 

Occupations, numbers engaged in, 778; as 

affecting longevity, 775. 
Oil cake, value of, for manure, 36 ; value of, 

for feeding, &S, 3.-W. 

Ointments, 748. 

Okra, culture of, 188. 

Omelet, 666, 671. 

Onions as a field crop, 111 ; properties of, 

111 ; soil, sowing and culture of. Ill; pulling and storing, 
112; tracing and roping, 112; profitableness of crop, 113; 
for the garden, 176, I'Jl ; insects and diseases of, 320; 
breath tainted.by, to sweeten, 495; pickled, 617; cook- 
ing, 673. 

Oranges, culture of, 259. 

Orchard, keep cattle from, 17 — see Fruit and 

Friiil Trem. 

Osage orange, as a hedge, value of, 520. 

OxALis, culture of, 191. 

Oxen, superiority of Devon, 357, 358 ; fat, 

weight iif, 365; management of, 366; breaking while 
young, 366, 

Ox-Bow fastener, 552. 
OxY'GEN, consumption of, 703. 
Oyster plant, culture of, 193. 
Oy'sters, methods of cooking, 669. 
Ozone, 704. 

Paints and painting, 601. 

Pakchoi, culture of, 191. 

Paper hangings, suggestions about, 575. 

Paralysis— PALSY, 749 

Parsley, 176, 188. 

Parsnips, 113, 176, 191, 391. 

Paste and glue, 603. 

Pasture, location of, 16; management of, 96. 

Peaches, origin of, 217; varieties, 252; pick- 
ing and keeping, 240 ; canning and preserving, 612, 615 ; 
sweet pickliiig, 619, 620. 

Peach trees, planting and culture of, 251 ; 

pruning and care of, 2.>2 ; Winter protection of, 254 ; in- 
sects and diseases of, 313-Bee Fruit Treat. 

Pears, origin of, 217 ; picking and keeping, 

240 ; canning and preserving, 612 ; varieties of, ^5. ^ 
Pear trees, grafting and culture of, 256 ; in- 
sects and diseases of, 3i4-3ee f'™;* rwa. 
Peas, for the garden, 176, 192 ; value of, for 

feeding, 113; cooking, 674. 

Peanuts, 192. . 

Peat as fuel, value of, 347 ; as a deodorizer, 

440. 

Pennyroy-al, 188. 

Peppermint, 188. 

Peppers, 176, 188, 618. 

Perfumes — cologne, rose, lavender, 595. 

Perspiration, 189. 

Philoso-phical facts, 771. 

Physiology', facts in, 774, 776, 777. 

Phosphate of lime, deposit in South Caro- 

Photography, history of, 769. 
PiANO-KALEiDOScoPE, to make, 791. 

PiCALILLI, 618. 

Pickles, directions for making, 616; to green 
without poisoning, 617 ; sweet, ho» to make, 619. 

Pictures, 582. . 

Pie-plant, culture of, 193; wme from, bOb; 

marmalade, 611. ... „-r. 

Pies, chicken, 668; Yorkshire, 6(0. 
Pies and tarts, 680-683. 
Pigs, rearini; of — see Hoga. 



i 



INDEX OF TOPICS 



819 



Piles, 749. 

Pills and physic, recipes for, 750, 751. 

Pimples, 752. 

Planets, relative size and movements of, 780. 

Plants, origin of, 15; sexes of, 102, 291, 789; 

number of, to the acre. it'>6 ; frozen. Low to restore, .'.^2. 

Plaster or gypsum, origin and uses, 15, 47, 

Plasters, 749. 
Pleurisy', 752. 
Plowing, deep, economy of, 19, 52, 156; plii- 

losopliy of. set forth, 34, .'il, M ; difTerent depths for dif- 
ferent soils, r»2; in FhI!, rtdvantages of. M ; in orchards. 
22(1 ; subsoil, tonaitions of, 535 ; with three horses abreast. 

Plows, ancient and modern, historv of, 532, 
5i3; of Egypt, China, Britain, etc. illustrated. 533; re- 
cent improvements of, 534 ; sheet-steel, in the West, 534 ; 
Collin's cast-steel, described. .5.34 ; new double-furrow, 
.•il^ ; when rusty, how to polish, 528 ; steam, 20, 53!i ; sub- 
soil, .'>35. 

Plums, origin of, 217; canning and preserving, 

til2, 616; sweet pickling, fil9, 620. 
Plum trees, varieties and culture of, 257 ; 

hardy kinds enumerated, 258 ; insects and diseases of, 

3I]<J, 3in, 315. 

Poisons and poisonous bites, 752. 

Poll evil, 404. 

Polypus, 754. 

Population or the world, 778 ; of countries, 

to sauare mile, SIXI; of States, to square mile, SOI. 

Pores op the human body, 702. 

Pork, effect of on health, 423 ; extraordinary 

weigbt of, 425 ; pounds a bushel of corn will make. 426; 
directions for cutting up, 569 , modes of cooking, 665,666. 

Posts, 517-519. 

Potatoes, historv of, introduction of, 114; 

amount of crop. 114; nutlitive value of, 114; soils, ma- 
nures, and planting, 115; experiments with ditfereut 
niannres, 44 ; cut verartg whole seed, 115; True's machine 
for planting, .539; cultivation and harvest of. 118; various 
methoiis of storing, 119; raised under straw, 120; causes 
of degeneracy, 120; varieties enumerated, 121 ; Goodrich 
seedlings, 122; earlv Rose, 123; best six varieties, 124; 
fever, 124 ; insects and diseases, 124, 321 ; for the garden, 
192 ; cooking, 674. 

Potatoes, sweet, sprouting of, 126; methods 

of planting. 126 ; culture, harvesting, and storing, 127. 

Potato digger, described, 549. 

Poultices, 186, 187, 749. 

Poultry, chapter on, 433 ; house, plan of, 440, 

.'i<i8 ; methods of cooking, 667-069 ; how to carve, 695— see 

Preserving and canning fruits, 612-616 : 

to clarify sugar and molas-ses for, 616, 

Prickly' heat, 754. 

Privy', construction of, 42, 46, 572-574. 

Problems, 795, 796. 

Progressive farming recommended, 23. 

Puddings, dumplings, and .sauces, 683-688. 

Pumpkins as a field crop, 127, 128. 

Pumpkin butter, 615. 

Pumps, power for operating, 510; protecting 

from frost, 511 ; to covey water up a slope, 512, 

Putty, to remove from sash, 599. 
Puzzle, 794. 

Quinces, varieties and culture of, 258;. insects 

and diseases of, 317. 

Quinsy, 754. 

Radishes, culture of, 176, 192. 

Railroads, history of, 767. 

Rain, annual fall of, 784; signs, of, 785. 

Raisins, 260. 

Rake, the horse, 542. 

Ramie, uses and qualities of, 128; soil and 

culture pf. 129 ; value as a crop, 1.30. 

Rape, soil, culture and yield, 131. 

Raspberries, culture and care of, 295; Sum- 
mer varieties, 297; Autumn varieties, 29^; wine from, 
mi, 607 ; canning and preserving, 612, 616. 



Rats and mice, defense against, 598. 
Rawhide, tanning and value of, 572. 
Razor, sharpening, 529,551. 
Reapers, ancient, described, 539; history of, 

illustrated, 539, .540; aggregate number in use, 540; vari- 
eties of, compared, .MO, 541 ; self-binding progress of, 541. 

Recreation, importance of, 714, 791-797. 
Rennet, methods of preparing, 475. 
Respiration, 703. 
Rheumatism, liniments for, 746 ; treatment 

of, 746, 7.-.4. 

Rhubarb — see Pie-plant. 

Rice, methods of culture, 132; cooking, 674. 

Rickets, 755. 

Ringbone, 404. 

Ringworm, 755. 

Roofs for buildings, 482, 600. 

Root beer, 607. 

Roses, varieties and culture, 209; insects and 

diseases, 317. 

Rosemary, 189. 

Rotary spader, 531. 

Rotation of crops, 63-65, 155, 558 ; course« 

illustrated, 61-65; in wheat culture, 157. 

Rue, 189. 

Rusk and roll's, 649. 

Rust, to prevent and remove, 527, 528, 599, 

Rut.v-bagas, (Swedes) 151-153. 
Rye as a field crop, 132, 133. 



Saffron, and sage, 189. 

Salad, how to make, 676. 

Saleratus, 638. 

Salsify, or oyster-plant, 193 ; cooking, 075. 

Salt as a fertilizer, 16, 48 ; as an insect 

destroyer. 306, 315, 324. 

Salt-rheum, 755. 
Salves and plasters, 749. 
Sandwiches, 691. 

Sauces for meats and fish, 662 ; for pud- 
dings, 6S3. 
Sausages, pork, veal, mutton, and beef, 620, 

627. 

Scald head, 755. 
Scalding, 716, 717. 
Scarlet fever, 740. 

Science, modern, romance of, 763; future pos- 
sibilities of, 7ri3; obstacles to progress of, 7t>4. 

Scrofula, 755. 

.Scurvy, remedies for, 187, 188, 189, 756. 

Scurvy grass, 189. 

Scythes, to sharpen. 

Sea-sickness, 756. 

Sea-weed and sea-sand as fertilizers, 48. 

Seed, how much per .acre, 567. 

Shade trees, list of varieties, 211. 

Sheep, growing, profitableness of, 406 ; cost, 

of keeping, 407; different breeds of, compared, 407; feed- 
ing-racks for, 411 ; management in breeding, 412; win- 
tering lambs, 413; yards and stables for, 413; regulating 
feed of, 413; experiments in feeding, 383. 414; roots antl 
corn for, 415 ; Summer shelter for, 416 ; to ascertain age of, 
416 ; protecting against dogs, 416 ; apparatus for sheariuL', 
417; shearing machines, described, 650; directions for 
marking, 417 ; bints for management of, 418 ; diseases of, 
treated, 419; aggregate value of, by States, 802. 

Sheep-skin mats, how to prepare, 572. 

Short-cake and muffins, 650. 

Shortening, how to save, 638. 

Shrubs, flowering and ornamental, 206, 208. 

Sick, cooking for the, 691. 

Sink, how to purify, 630. 

Skin should be kept clean, 702. 

Skin diseases, 752, 756. 

Skirret, culture of, 193. 



820 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



Sleep, amount reqtiireil, ami conrlitlons of, 709 ; 

position of the bed for, 7Ui. 

Sleeplessness, remedies for, 187, 756. 

Small-pox, 757, 771. 

Soap, soft and hard, how to make, 585, 586; 

rnlfl, process of making, 5S6; for washing and the toilet. 

Soap-suds as a fertilizer, 48. 
Social habits, cultivation of, 23, 24. 
Soiling, advantages considered, 389. 
Soils, origin of, 14, 21; treatment of, 16, 38; 
aiiiilysis of. 2.<-'Mi; exhausted, how to restore, 32. 

Somnambulism, 758. 
Sore breasts and nipples, 758. 
Sorghum — see Sugar. 
Sorrel, liow to destrov, 568. 
Soups, G59-661. 
Sourkrout, 618. 
Sour stomach, 758. 
Souse, 625. 

Sows, bieedinj!;, points and c.".re of, 425; de- 
Btro,\ ing young, reHsous for, <30 ; process of spaying, 430. 

Snake bites, 753. 
Snow, perpetual region of, 703. 
Spavin, staggers, and swinnev, 405. 
S-AYiNO OP cows considered, 365. 

, iCTACLES, 713. 

b^ JED, comparative, 799. 
Spinach, culture of, 193. 
Sponge, union of animal and vegetable, 789. 
Spotted fever, 741. 
jj^ Sprains and stiff joints, 758. 
vjg'j, -JASHES, culture of, 127, 128, 194. 

iBLES, stalls, and stanchions, 378, 397, 413. 
ACKS, how to build, 98, 167 ; making by ma- 

hinery, r>44 ; ventilating, W. 

S AINS, grease, to remove, 587; acid, alkaline, 

and iron, to remove, 5W ; ink, to remove, .■).-«, 5»9. 

Starching, plain, clear, and cold, 587. 

Stars, number of, 779. 

Steamboats, history of invention of, 765. 

Stea.m plow, 20, 536. 

Steam power for the farm, 546. 

Steers, breaking, 366. 

Stereoscope, invention of, 770. 

Stock, aggregate value of, by States, 349, 366, 

!I02— see Vallle. Horses, Sliecp. eir. 

Stone walls, illustrated, 516. 

Strawberries, culture of, 289; plan of bed.s, 
290; hybridization of, 291 ; soil and fertilization 2»1 ; 
product and protit of, 2'J2 ; principal varieties described, 
292; insects and diseases of, 317; influenee of on trees, 
242; wine from, fi06 ; cunning and preserving, 612, 61B. 

Straw should be returned to the soil, 43. 

Stuffing, 662. 

Stump machines, illustrated, 548. 

Suet, to preserve, 627. 

Sugar, various sources of, 133; product of, 

133; to clarify for preserves, f,lH; from beets, statistics 
of, 131 ; best varieties for, 68, ISS; manufacture of, 135; 
cane, amount raised, 1.3.'>; soil, seed, culture and harvest 
of, 136; from cornstalks, making, 137; from Indian 
meal, yield of, !3S ; pmcess of making, 139 : from maple, 
making, HO, HI H2; from sorghum, product and vari- 
eties. 142, H3; climate and soil for, 143; culture and har- 
vest of, 144; manufacture of, 144; machinery for, 547; 
value of crop, Hfi. 

Summer savory, 189. 

Sunshine, efTect of, 704, 705. 

Sun-stroke, 758. 

Sitperphosphate op lime, experiments, 

37, 40. 

Sweet basil, 189. 

Sweet major am, 189. 

Swellings and inflammations, 744. 

Swine — see Hogs. 

SYLL^iJBCB, whip, 608, 690. 



Syrups, how prepared, 610 ; maple, to pre- 
serve, 630. 

Tables, to efface marks from, 599. 
Tallulah cataracts, 799. 
Tanning hides, proce.ss of, 571, 572. 
Taxes of different countries compared, 

son. 
Tea, culture of, in the South, 147 ; and coffee, 

676^^79. 

Tedder, horse, 542. 

Teeth, care of, 594. 

Teething, 759. 

Telegraph, magnetic, invention of, 768. 

Tetter, 759. 

Texas cattle disease, 376. 

Thistles, Canada, how to extirpate, 568 

Threshing machine.?, effectiveness of, 532; 

deseribed and compared, 545. 

Thyme, 189. 

Tile — see Drains. 

Tillage, principle.s of, 16. 

Timber — see Wood, Wood-bell.'!, and Woodland. 

Timber land, keep cattle from, 17. 

Timber, durability of, 517, 518. 

Timothy grass, 90. 

TOA.ST, 691. 

Toads, how they capture flies, 791. 

Tobacco, history and curious facts, 147; amount 

raised. HS; soil required for, Ms; fertilizers for, 149 ; 
transplanting, tilling, harvesting, 149; housing and 
curing, irrfl; conditions of success, profit, 151 ; defeuse 
against insects, 306, :)22; evil effects of, 7lll, 711 ; how to 
break off from, 712. 

Toilet, soap for the, 586; general directions 

for the, 692. 

Tomatoes, varieties and culture of, 176, 194; 

catsup from. tM)9 ; canning and preserving, 613 ; figs from, 
014 ; green and sweet pickles, and chow-chow, 617-6KI; 

ToNicsf 186, 188, 189, 759. 

Tongues, how to pickle, 626. 

Tools — see Implements. 

Toothache, 759. 

Trees, largest and oldest in the world, 798 — 

«ec iroorf, WooilheltK. and V,\>odlaml. 

Tripe, to prepare, 625; to cook, 664. 
Trout, private ponds for, 457, 4.59. 
Tumblers, glass, how to make, 773. 
Turkeys, rearing of, 443; methods of cooking, 

667; directions for caiving, 6y'.. 

Tunips, value for fertilizing and feeding, 151, 

390, ,391 ; soil, manures, varieties, and culture, I.'i2; har- 
vesting, storing, and profit, 153; in rotation of crops, 
157 ; for the garden, 196 ; enemies of, 322 ; chemical anal- 
ysis of, i;3. 

Typhoid and typhus fevers, 741. 

Ulcers, 760. 

Universe, vastness of the, 779, 780. 
Urinary difficulties, 186, 745, 760. 
Utensils, household, care of, 598. 

Varnishes and polishes, 602. 

Veal, how to cut up, 569 ; modes of cooking. 

Vegetable — animal, 789. 
Vegetable garden, 171. 
Vegetable oyster, 193. 
Vegetable reproduction, 102, 291, 789. 
V^EOETABLE-S, relative draft on soil, 31,64; fine, 
tests of, 177 ; methods of cooking, 671-676, 

Vegetation, zones of, 783. 

Veneral diseases, 760. 

Ventilation op houses, necessity of, 491 ; 

Kutlan's system, 492; of barns, stables, etc.. Mil, 

Vinegar, difl'erent kinds, how to make, 620, 621. 



INDEX OF TOPICS. 



821 



■ VlNEGAR-PLANT^620. 

Vineyard — see Qrapex. 
Vital statistics, 774. 
Vomiting, 761. 

Waffles, 655. 

Wagon, a dumping, 550 ; to keep tires on, 

'iM ; grease fur, 55:j. 

■Walks, grass, on, how to destroy, 569. 

IWalnuts, pickled, 618. 

'Wardian case, for flowers, 579. 

Warts and wens, 730. 

AV ASHING, general directions for, 583 ; fluid 
recipes for, .'W4 ; borax for, 584 J white lace, 584 ; wooleus, 
.'186; soaps, 585, 586— see Starchiwj, demising. Stains, etc. 

Water, chemical composition of, 14; a barrel 

for carrying, 551— see Welti, Cisterns, etc. 

Weather, moon's influence on the, 783; rainy, 

in the year, 784 ; barometers, inilicatiug the, 785 ; clianges, 
signs of, 785-788. 

Weeds, enormous increase by seeding, 567. 
Weighing cattle, by measurement, 666; hay, 



Weights of various substances, 565. 
Weights and measures, uniform needed, 863 ; 

central system of, 5t)3 ; importance of, 562. 

Wells, to furnish water for stock, 511 ; drive 

or tube, how to make. 512 ; finding with divining rod, 
570; articles lost in, how to find, 570. 

Welsh rarebit, 691. 

Wheat, early history of, 153; brought to 

America. 154; product of the country, 154; product of 
the West, 157; exports for thirteen years, 801; average 
price for this century, 169 ; weight per bushel, by States, 
63, 564 ; chemical analysis of, 63 ; belt adapted to, 154 ; 
suitable soils for, 158 ; crop, causes of degeneracy, 155 ; 
exhausting methods of culture, 156; necessity of rota- 
tion, 167; fertilizers for, 159, 160; straw, folly of burn- 
ing. 156 ; varieties of, compared, 161 ; selection of seed, 
161 ; thick vs. thin sowing, 162; drilling, advantages of, 
163 ; time and depth of sowing, 164 ; Winter killing. 
Spring harrowing, 165 : best time and mode of cutting. 



166; shocking and stacking, J67; threshing, cleaning, 
marketing, hi8 ; measuring in field and granary, 169,565; 
rust and smut, 169; insects and diseases of, 322, 5G9. 

Whitewashes and whitewashing, 602. 
Whooping cough, 186, 187, 761. 
Whortleberries, culture of, 301. 
Willow, for baskets, culture of, 169. 
Windmills for the farm, 546 ; force of, 

566. 

Windows, cleansing, 598, 599 ; crystalizing, 

method of, 601. 

Wine, grape, as a beverage, 283, 605; must 
of different grapes, 285 ; the alcohol of, 288 ; process of 
making, 288; strawberry, 295, 606; currant and black- 
berry, 605; elderberry, raspberry, rhubarb, 606; apple, 
607; mulled, 608; press, 549. 

Wire worms, 324. 

Wood, diflerent kinds, heating values of, 344, 

.■MS, 346; green, loss in burning, 345; durability of, 517, 
518. 799. 

Wood belts, for farm protection, 336; effect 

on climate, soil, and health, 336; protection, for crops 
and orchards. 338 ; best trees for, 340 ; location of, illus- 
trated, 343; will protect, how far, .344.- 
WoofiLAND, as affecting civilization, 325; 

planting and profits of, 329; cost and kinds of trees for, 
:i32, 333; different trees for, relative growth, 334; Stat' 
encouragement of, 332. 
Wool, the demand for, 406; relative vahK 

breeds for, 407 ; merinos for, 409 ; effect of food on 
sneSkfep. .■; 

Workshop, as an educator, 524; as a ; 

venience, 524; construction and outfit of, 525; -, 
bench for, 525. ■' ' 

Worms, and vermifuges, 761. 

Wormwood, 189. 

Wounds, remedies for, 761. 

Womb, falling of the, 738. h ^ 

Yeast, emptyings, etc., 643. ^' '■ 

Yellow fever, 741. ■ 

Yo-se,mite falls, 798. ',, 



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